Cafeteria – Morning after remedy

The 411

In Montreal there are some staple places that, as a student, you go to after a night of hard partying and drinking. Sometimes you don’t have much time to make it to bed so you skip that and get some food. Now, if this has happened to you once, twice or maybe a few more times, then you know one of the spots you go to for this. That’s right: Cafeteria, St Laurent’s own little spot if you are done partying but don’t feel like straying from the street too much.

At 1st glance

Open Monday to Friday as of 8 AM, this place will start filling up the minute the doors open. It welcomes all its patrons with banquette seats, a large bar, and a well lit atmosphere. If you are a group of 6 or just two people, you can find a spot to recharge on some food and coffee. The place fills up with all sorts of people ranging from clubbers coming down from their after parties, students, locals, and pretty much anyone in the area who is hungry..

Food

The menu is a double-sided page with lots of your classic morning dishes. The price range is $10-$12, coffee is included and they have free refills on it, as well. The coffee itself is not amazing but that’s why they invented milk, cream and sugar. The menu is broken down as follows:

We started off with some smoothies. My friend had the St-Tropez ($5.95) which is strawberry, raspberries, bananas and blueberries. This drink was a touch tart and had a very pronounced blueberry flavour. I had the Elixor ($5.95) which is cantaloupe, strawberry, honey and yogourt. The taste was quite pleasant and it was quite fruity and refreshing. However, I did not find either of them very thick and felt they were closer to fruit drinks than smoothies.

My friend ordered the 1 eggs, toast, fruit and potatoes ($5.50) as she wasn’t that hungry. It’s kind of hard to rate an egg dish since it’s… well an egg but I sill give it a shot. It came with potatoes on the side and some fruit. The fruit wasn’t anything magical; although, the potatoes were very tasty as they were the right consistency of being not too mushy and not too crunchy. Considering the dish was $5.50, it’s a decent deal.

I ordered the eggs Benedict, (because I just can’t say no), with avocado with strong cheddar ($12.95) that was served on top of a rye bread, topped with tomato salsa, and came with potatoes and fruit. I felt adventurous with this dish especially since it had avocado. I liked the fact the salsa was tasty and did not cause any acid since morning tomatoes is always a risk. I was not a fan of the fact that rye bread was being used for the base since it had difficulty holding the weight of the eggs and avocado. I also felt the dish was cold and the avocado was understated in regards to taste. The aged cheddar was a nice touch and stood out but at the end of the day my dish was cold by design and kept falling apart making it hard to eat.

Service

The service here was excellent as our coffee was constantly refilled, our waiter checked up on us often and they were knowledgeable of the menu and helped with some suggestions as well.

Vegetarian

Pretty much half of the menu is vegetarian friendly and there is variety so you are not stuck with the same items. There are no real vegan options.

Wrap up

I like the fact it is open 7 days a week as well as opened relatively early. I was not pleased with my dish and the smoothie was not thick. Other than that, the menu is varied, covers the basics, the price is not exorbitant and you can still get something filling on a budget. The décor and seating is comfortable and if you live in the area then it’s nice to have some choice in walking distance.

View Cafeteria Resto Bar in a larger map

Price	$$	$10-$12
Overall		3/5
Wheelchair Access	NO	0/3
Parking	Parking Meter	Difficult
BUS	55,363,360,24	Get Directions
Metro	Saint-Laurent	9 minutes

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