Ferreira Cafe
It freaks me out when a server tries to turn you off a menu item. I feel
like they're trying to keep me away from something really good that they're
afraid Americans won't like. (I will truly eat anything. The only time I was
given pause was over this laksa I'd been warned about at Singapore Cafe. I
know laksa, I love laksa, but this was laksa like no other. I swear there
was liver and twigs in it.) So, I asked about acorda, having no idea
what it was, and the waiter forcefully suggested I order something else,
saying "people who order it know what they're getting," and described it
vaguely as a bread soup with seafood, which didn't sound so beastly to me. I
couldn't tell if this was meant to be snotty like if you have to ask, you
don't need to know or if he just saying that it's something serious
Portuguese cuisine aficionados (I know zilch about Portuguese food) are fond
of, in which case I might like to try it.
Instead, I ordered a most un-Portugeuse starter of tuna tartare with
"armes asiatiques," (I can't understand why they're so into being
French-Canadian) then went for the bacalao entree, which prompted the waiter
to tell me it was salt cod, which was a big "duh," but I guess once you have
to ask about the acorda, you're dubbed an oaf for the rest of the evening.
The most interesting course was the dessert. Amid the requisite molten
chocolate cake, I found a stilton cheese cake with bananas, chocolate
ganache and a port sauce. It sounded totally insane, was incredibly rich,
but totally worked. I furthered the gauche quotient by ordering the house
port, an $800 vintage bottle would seriously be wasted on me.
Regardless, the meal was nice, and even nicer with the exchange rate.
The vibe was sort of business swank, not exactly my scene, but I just wanted
to go somewhere upscale that wasn't French (I'm not anti-French, I swear).
(10/12/02)
FerreiraCafe Trattoria *
1446 Peel St., Montreal,Canada
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