The Cosmopolitan Blog

Hello girls and boyz! Yes, i’m still alive… went under the radar for a while as a restaurant superspy which is why i’ve been so silent (ok, fine, that’s a lie, i was just lazy!!)…

so i’m back with a couple quick reviews, first, this restaurant, A Taste of India, was recommended to me by at least 2 people.

So, let’s be structured here, first, the positives (absolutely outweight the negatives, BTW):

- Very nice decor, not over the top, but still, there’s a design feel, which is more than I can say for many restaurants in this price range, nice size, quiet and intimate, but bright for summer, with a nice patio on a wide sidewalk.

- I went on a Wednesday night, so I will concede that this was probably not their busiest night, but still, we were greated immediately, with a smile, given a table for 4 even though we were 2, we got our water and little munchies right away, and the menus

- Munchies were poppadums and a little onion relish, very yummy.

- Menu had all the classics, a good 8 pages. The best thing about it? The last page, if you’re not a connaisseur, they put together combination menus for 1 or 2 people. For 2 people, you get 2 appetizers, 2 meat dishes, one veg dish, rice and naan bread, all for a total price of max $32 (there’s cheaper), which, really, if you added all the individual items together, you’re saving anywhere from $5 to $15! And it saves you from trying to figure out what to order… There are 8 combination menus possible in total i think. Oh, and they each have complimentary dessert!!

- The service was awesome, great smiles, everything was “yes of course”. Also, the manager is this nice much older gentleman, he comes to check if everything is ok, and just generally adds an extra touch of “genuine” to it all

- Excellent food, not too spicy, not too bland. The main courses come on a little heater thing, so they stay warm.

Honestly, you want a great place to eat “mainstream/North American” Indian food? This is the place to go, there’s nothing to say against it…

So negatives? Well, if you read carefully, they’re really not… Like i said, you want mainstream food, this is the place to go. BUT, well, i’m biased, because indian food is what my family makes at home (well, one side of my family, anyway!!) so i know what real “homey” indian/pakistani food is… So i’m not going to list negatives, I’m going to say, if you want authentic cuisine like you would get in any house in india/pakistan, i can tell you were to go, but it won’t be as pretty a place, you won’t get help picking your dishes, you won’t find butter chicken on the menu, and well, the spices will have a whole different dimension to them… but it’s not for the faint hearted!

So you want a pleasant evening, entertaining and eating indian food in a perfect setting and not have to worry about the service? I recommend A Taste of India, it’s the best i’ve had in Montreal yet, and the reason i know this is because, contrarily to other places, even when you’ve stuffed yourself with more food than you can handle, you don’t feel like you want to curl up in a ball and sleep under the table… proof that the ingredients are not just filling cornstarch, instead real skill and authentic ingredients go into it…

Happy eating, Montreal!

A Taste of India / Goût de l’Inde: 6127 Monckland, corner Beaconsfield. Average $15-$30 per person. All info can be found here: http://www.tasteofindiarestaurant.com/