Les Menus-Plaisirs

Un incontournable du vieux Ste-​Rose. Belle formule économique la semaine. Il est difficile d’avoir des terrasses agréables à Laval. On est soit envahi par le bruit du boulevard et la poussière des voitures qui passent à toute vitesse ou encore on a une belle vue sur le stationnement. Dans le cas Des Menus plaisirs c’est tout le contraire puisqu’on y retrouve une SUPERBE terrasse intérieure avec fontaine. Foie de veau au menu avec frites juliennes à volonté et hubby a choisi la bavette de boeuf, le tout était très bien. A++++++ pour la terrasse.

The two previous reviews are true. Absolutely delicious. We enjoyed it all and were extremely fulfilled and pleased with our experience. We recommended this place to our friends.
It’s better to reserve in advance.

Just got back, from this great restaurant. It was an excellent experience. The food, ambiance and service were great. We will defiantly be going back.

Les Menus Plaisirs offers fine cuisine made with regional products. Mmm yeah, if you call ostrich regional to Quebec. I guess they make some poetic license available to their menu. But trust me; this won’t matter to you, the foodie.
Les Menus Plaisirs has been open for close to twenty five years and I remember going when I was a much younger chap and enjoying the Chinese fondue and the amazing chocolate mousse cake.
We are seated and offered some aperitifs. Time to test the bar, not on mixing skills; but on serving skills. I’m not a traditionalist on liqueur because I’m capricious when it comes to alcohol (as you’ll read later) so I order a Southern Comfort with Orange instead. I say nothing more. It comes to me served in a Sherry glass (though I would have preferred an Old Fashioned) with the chaser on the side. Score 1 for the restaurant.
The soup of the day served was a Crème de Volaille, poultry cream soup but lets face it, food just sounds so much better in French, like just about everything else. Well this soup had me spouting a lot of French adjectives and some religious swear words. It was that good. It was, duh, creamy and had more than just chicken in there. It had Guinea-​fowl, chicken and probably some other birds like pheasant. It was easily the best soup I have ever devoured in a restaurant.
Unfortunately when I queried the waitress on the content of the soup, she could not inform me on its content. This is a paucity of aptitude I despise when visiting a high-​end restaurant. I tend to stand high on protocol. If the service staff is going to give my friend the eye for not having put his hand towel on his lap before being served his soup, I conversely expect the service staff to know what’s in my plate they are serving me. The chef is supposed to give a briefing to the staff on what the menu consists of. It’s not very complicated.
Since we are in the context of demonizing the service, let’s continue onto wine. I don’t like wine. I never have and probably never will. I find it to be repulsive and horrid. Sue me. But please, stop giving me this dirty look every time I don’t order a bottle of wine. I know there’s good money to make with the wine cellar and if the sommelier has issues with me I’d like to see the bottlenecked nerd come and tell me face to face and I’ll show him new ways to open bottles. I still drink from the bar and it’s not a question of money, I don’t mind paying 60 $ for an 8 once piece of beef. I just don’t like wine. Waiters should respect that some people don’t drink.
Next as an entrée I had the Bavette de bœuf Angus sur poêlée d’oignons au romarin, coulis marchand de vin or Angus beef flank steak over rosemary flavoured onions, wine sauce. This was the pièce de resistance. It completely ruined everything. This is the little dish on which so many others will be compared in the future. The flank, considered the cheapest cut of meat by many but is one of the tastiest parts, it’s all in the preparation and the way you cut the meat before serving it. And the chef at Les Menus Plaisirs understands this. It was tender, juicy and being almost deliquescent. The onion comfit was perfectly caramelized and browned and combined with the homemade craquelin was simply the ultimate compliment to my Bavette. And seriously it was so delectable, my eyes watered, almost shed a tear. Best dish I’ve had in years in a restaurant.
Now for the main course. After the delirious orgasmic party-​in-​my-​mouth-​wipe-​out that was the Angus Beef Flank insanity, the Fondue Chinoise just wasn’t as appetizing as I remembered now. And it was a little bit of a let down. Don’t get me wrong it was delicious but perhaps the salad days of fondue have gone by. But the broth was perfect, the beef cuts were perfectly red and delicious and the dipping sauces amazing. Simply not as much of an experience as I remembered. As soon as I saw the amazing looking rack of lamb go by I regretted my decision a little but the main course was still delicious and no slice of beef was left sitting on the plate, it’s still fondue.
Our helpful and gracious waitress comes over and recites the desert menu. It went like this: something, something, something, something, Three Part Crème Brulée, something, something. Crème Brulée was all I heard. The ramekin was split into 3 parts. One part was chocolate, the other was noisette (hazel nut), and the third was the real Crème Brulée, vanilla. Normally, being a purist, I would scoff at anything else but vanilla Crème Brulée, but this was amazing. Chocolate, excellent, noisette, amazing, vanilla, sublime.
After this meal I needed a walk. Despite the evil eye for the wine and lack of explanation on the soup, Les Menus Plaisirs gets 5 outta 5 in my book.