Patati Patata

4177 boulevard Saint-Laurent

Montréal, Québec

514.844.0216

My sister and I were in downtown Montréal and started getting hungry right around lunch time. We agreed on hitting Patati Patata because I had a hankering for fries. Patati Patata, a play on the word patate (potato in French) is a small restaurant specialising in fries, poutine and burger joint.

It's tiny, tiny so my sister and I had to squish through to get to our seats at the open kitchen counter. There we were able to watch the cooks grill burgers and prepare salads. We looked up to read the posted menu, which was very vegetarian friendly, including many tofu based offerings. We saw many tofus being cooked on the grill. They even have a vegetarian poutine called patatine and a vegetarian stir fry. Prices were very affordable with nothing higher than $6.50 although you have to order fries separately and pay extra for certain toppings like cheese.

Packed everywhere and the menu's above the bathroom.

Since it was a Friday and my family abstains from eating meat on Fridays during Lent, I decided to have a pieces of pan fried sole with fries and a salad. My sister L got the Tofu Bourgeois, the tofu burger. While we waited for our food, the cook/waiter presented us with 5 squeeze bottle and explained the condiments in each: two homemade vinaigrettes for our salads, mayo for the fries, ketchup and tartar sauce for my fish (yeh! no gross little plastic packages!).

When we got our dishes, we were really impressed that the salad was not the generic iceberg only salad. There were peppers, tomatoes, red onion, olives which made our plates so colourful! We really enjoyed the sundried tomato and coriander balsamic vinegar on our salads. L loved her tofu burger, that she topped with additonal cheese. My sole was good, albeit a bit small. I could probably have eaten two pieces! The fries were thin and crispy. Yum!

L ordered the Tofu Bourgeois ($1.75) with cheese ($0.50). Fries and salad was $3.00

My panfried sole was $5.00.

Patati Patata is a great place to go for a cheap meal if you're in the area. You might have to wait a bit since it's so small and gets packed quickly. It seemed they also did brisk business from takeouts. I noticed as I was leaving that they had a fancy coffee machine and they also serve beer. I would go back another time to sample their burgers, which we noticed were quite small when they were grilling them, when I can eat meat!