Grumman '78 (Montréal, QC)

1616 Sainte-Catherine St W
Montréal, Québec
514.290.5125 
website

Elle has been talking about Grumman '78, a food truck that offered food on special occasions (since food trucks are not legal yet in Montréal), for a long while. We were never able to track it down but lucky for her, Grumman '78 opened a brick and mortar location at Le Faubourg's food court. While it's pretty quite at Le Faubourg, the addition of Grumman '78 makes it a good place to stop for affordable and original food. (We haven't written a post but head to Yuki Ramen for hand pulled noodles).

Grumman '78.

After walking around downtown and shopping (what else would we be doing?), we shared a sip-sac of jugo verde ($3), which was made up of celery, pineapple and parsley. Unusual combination of ingredients, but refreshing nonetheless. The juice is served in bags to replicate street food in Asia (or elsewhere); Elle observed with amusement that the juice is poured through a funnel, rather than directly poured in bags by the deft hands of Asian street vendors.

Jugo verde sip-sac.

As a general rule, if there is something deep fried, I will order it so I convinced Elle to share a portion of fried chicken ($4). The chicken drumstick was fried into golden perfection and slathered with truffled honey. Now I love truffle, but I find that not only does it often find itself on a menu unnecessarily, but you can't really taste it, just like this instance. Not sure they truffle was necessary. The drumstick was served with a side of creamy potato salad that both Elle and I also enjoyed very much.

Fried chicken.

Grumman '78 specializes in non-traditional tacos. Having had it on her first visit, Elle highly recommended the pork banh mi ($4). We're Vietnamese so we can't turn down banh mi when opportunity arises! The pork was roasted to a pulled pork consistency, and combined well with the pickled carrots and daikon. You can't go wrong with banh mi inspired food!

Taco Banh Mi.

For our second taco, we ordered the jerk chicken taco, mainly being attracted to the idea of jerk chicken. I should have read the description more carefully because I was surprised to see a cucumber, dill and yogurt garnish. The taco was also stuffed with rice. The taco was good but didn't meet the idea I had of spicy jerk chicken. It seemed a bit more Mediterranean influenced.

Taco Jerk Chicken.

On Elle's previous visit, she also had the Papas Grumman, fried sweet potatoes, which she raved about. I will have to try it next time! Our friend E (who has started her own blog) had a vegetarian taco of red kidney beans and feta. If you want to have tacos with a spin, Grumman '78 offers an affordable menu. I like that each item is well-priced so you get to try different things.