Bistro Lustucru – A rare treat

The 411

Over the years, I have reviewed 175 brunches and I have likely eaten at over 200 different spots. In fact, my blood hollandaise levels would likely put fear in the hearts of any doctor. I find that, at some point, my pace of reviews will exceed the available amount of decent brunches. So, in a hope of offering you something a little newer and fun, I will try to review some pop up brunches. Pop up brunches are brunches that are not offered regularly that can be special events or rarely occurring events. The hope is to offer you something very new and interesting that you may want to try. I initially had something like this when I did the brunches at festival de lumieres back in 2011. I realized that there are some spots that I was curious to see how they handle brunch. When one of my friends told me about Caroussel events , I looked into it and saw that there was a brunch at Lustucru, which is a spot that I had eaten dinner at a while ago and was curious on what sort of brunch would appear on their menu.

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Delta Tour De Ville – Brunch with a 360 degree view

The 411

All-you-can-eat Brunch Buffets, those few words can bring joy and pain to different people. Joy, because it’s all you can eat as much as you want, and you get value on food; pain because the quality of the food can take a back seat depending where you go. Delta’s has been offering brunch for as long as I can remember but I never had a chance to try it out since I generally needed a reason to go to an all you can eat brunch on account of the price being more than a normal brunch at a regular restaurant.

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Sheraton Laval – Restaurant La Piazza

The 411

All-you-can-eat buffets are something you won’t find much of on this site. It’s mainly because of two things: firstly they cost way more (remember I pay for all my meals and my guests meal as well) and secondly, I find that quality takes a back seat when you try to feed so many people. I have been going to brunch at the Sheraton for years, usually Mother’s day and or Father’s day is spent here and my family has liked it for quite some time so I know the meals there in quite detail.

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Pastis – Culinary Excellence in NYC

The 411

On a recent trip to New York we ran into some weather issues, and by weather issues we mean Hurricane Irene. We had some ambitious brunch exploration plans but the day before the hurricane was scheduled to make landfall, we had to make the tough decision of heading home, but not before we went for brunch on the way out. I LOVE brunch in New York especially when I get a chance to check out a spot that is well regarded in New York food circles. New York has so many options for food and there are always new spots popping up everyday so doing a foodie brunch at least once was necessary.

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Pied De Cochon Cabane A Sucre – and this little piggie went sugaring off

The 411

Cabane à sucre: that one time a year when we get together and have food you would never have any other time of the year; those classic meals dishes like tortière, omelettes, Oreilles de crisse, beans, sausages and others. Now, cabane à sucre food is not exactly brunch food, but it isn’t exactly lunch either so for this review we will make an exception. I should also note that we currently do not plan on going to every cabane à sucre since I can only handle so much line dancing music and hits from the 90’s at once. All this to say that we decided to do a classy cabane à sucre and by some cosmic power, I got a call recently from a friend saying that he had a spot for me at the Pied de Cochon cabane à sucre.

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Jolifou – Brunch comfort food that doesn’t end

The 411

As part of Festival en Lumiere, I decided that it would fun to see what some of the brunch options are for the festival.. Festival en Lumieres offers us a rare chance to have brunch at places that rarely do brunch and Jolifou is one of them. I had never had the chance to go for their dinner service although, I have only heard good things. Keep in mind that they only do Brunch once a year and that is during Festival en Lumiere so this is a limited opportunity to check it out. So, a group of 4 of us decided to go try it and see if it would be worth waiting another 365 for the next time they offer brunch; what we found surprised us.

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Caviste – Festival en Lumiere treat

The 411

During Festival Montréal en Lumiere we get a chance to get a rare glimpe at some of Montreals restaurants make a brunch menu. Places like Caviste are more of a dinner restaurant and do not have brunch on their menu except for really rare occasions. With this narrow window to try out brunch at Caviste we booked a table and made sure to see how Caviste would handle brunch.

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Birks Café By Europea – A truly refined dining experience

The 411

Fancy, that’s what comes to mind when you think of Birks; that and Bling of course! Now, why would Montreal’s fanciest jeweler show up on a brunch blog? Is it because they gave me loads of free bling? Unfortunately, no. (although if they want to message me, we can talk) Is it because they ditched the whole high end jewelry business model and switched to bacon and eggs? Not that either. It’s because they started offering a weekend brunch in their store. Yes, you heard it correctly, there is a weekend brunch offered inside of Birks on the second floor and not any ordinary brunch; it’s quite the experience. So ladies and gents, make space on your credit card, we’re off to see what Birks brunch has to offer.

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Le Montrealais – A classy all you can eat buffet

The 411

All you can eat brunch buffets, often those few words can increase my anxiety more than hearing “we need to talk”. You may ask why would such a few tasty words cause so much grief? I will answer that with two words quality and quantity. Most buffets offer the latter quantity but when it comes to quality they are lacking. I have found that most all you can eat buffets have food that is too mass prepared and is not fresh enough let alone warm enough. Now le Montrealais has a reputation of excellence when it comes to brunch buffets I mean it is situated in the Queen Elizabeth hotel, which is a five star hotel so you can imagine what kind of food one would expect. So with the bar set nice and high lets see if we can take the edge off those six words.

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Le Baron Royal – Buckle your seat belts its gonna be a bumpy ride

The 411

Le Baron Royal has been a place that I have gone to a couple times for all-you-can-eat brunch and also for the special Mother’s Day brunches. It is one of a handful of all-you-can-eat brunch places in the East end and to that point, Montreal proper. I am always hesitant of all-you-can-eat places since I fear the quality always takes a back seat, but needless to say people are interested and hungry. Le Baron Royal is a reception hall in St. Leonard that does Sunday brunches for a fixed price of $37 a head. This gets you an all-you-can-eat buffet coffee, tea and soft drinks. You can also book a private room if you are a big enough group although reservations are strongly suggested since it can fill up quite easily and quickly. So, better book in advance for that group of 40, but if you are two you can likely walk up with no reservation and can get a seat with little or no wait. If you are a group of 10 you can pay an extra $3 a head and get a bottle of wine. I have come here for birthdays, anniversaries and Mother’s Day, and the food options are always the same so reviewing this is rather easy. The last time I went and took pictures was for Mother’s Day and we were in the main dinning hall. Normally, Sundays would be in the main dinning room to the right which has a rather large capacity.

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