Tabascobar

Le Tabascobar est une institution connue dans le quartier Côte-​des-​Neiges. Ce n’est pas un établissement époustouflant mais il réussit à offrir ce qui manqué au coin. On retrouve donc une grande terrasse, un sous-​sol à l’ambiance club le soir, des machines de Loto Québec, des télévisions diffusant du sport et un deuxième étage avec des tables de pools et de babyfoot. Il y a donc un peu de tout pour plaire à un large public.
Cela faisait longtemps que je n’avais pas visité l’endroit. Durant mes années étudiantes, c’était le coin parfait pour un 5 à 7 qui devenait un 5 à 3 heures du matin… Mon impression aujourd’hui est que l’établissement a besoin de quelques réparations surtout les salles de bains. Le personnel est omniprésent; j’ai pu remarqué que seulement notre serveur avait l’air de travailler. Le pauvre, malheureusement il devait manquer d’expérience mais avait toute la bonne volonté du monde.
Sur la terrasse, on observait un étrange mélange d’étudiants venus boire des sangrias et une clientèle plus âgés d’immigrants venus boire un café et discuter de leurs vies avant leurs arrivés au Canada. Ça représente bien le quartier; un mélange de personnes qui cohabitent mais vivent des réalités différentes.
J’ai commandé une salade style Cobb qui m’a surprise par ses excellentes saveurs. Elle comprend de la salade, du poulet grillé, du bacon, des tomates, des avocates, 1 oeuf dur et de la vinaigrette bleue. Une des meilleurs salades que j’ai mangé.

if you like the show Entourage and enjoy observing or perhaps participating personally in drunken rowdy fisticuffs at 3 AM, let me tell you, this is your kind of place.
i just love hearing all those drunken douchebags kicking each other in the face out on the street every saturday night. the cops always seem to come 2 minutes too late.
no, i haven’t tried the food. no, i can’t speak for the quality of the service there. frankly i wouldn’t touch this place with a barge pole, because i’m allergic to chotch factories.
thanks for making uptown cote-​des-​neiges a really swell place to live, tabasco bar.

My brother and I refer to this place as the giant toaster, as that’s what it sort of looks like from down the street. Well, a futuristic, space-​age toaster, anyway.
I’ll be honest, the best thing about this bar is that it’s the closest one to my place. So far the staff seem to be pretty alright and the prices are about right for a bar. The drunker you get, the more of a labyrinth it seems to become and the harder it is to find your friends (I find this to be truer than at other bars). This isn’t necessarily a negative point — just start talking to strangers if you lose your friends and you will maybe have a good time.
Most of the patrons there are Université de Montréal students, and as with any student bar, you will get your share of random assholes, but it isn’t no big thang. Sometimes I will walk by here and a group of French exchange students sitting on the patio, for example, will start screaming obscenities at me. Once this had happened to me 3 or 4 times it occurred to me that screaming is probably tolerated in this bar to a large extent, which again, is not necessarily a bad thing. Some people might want to air their lungs out at some random passerby — who’s to judge?
There are giant flat screen TVs everywhere showcasing millionaires playing games (baseball, football, hockey, etc) if you’re into that sort of thing. There are pool tables that are usually hogged by giant jocks that will threaten to kill you if you accidentally talk to their girlfriends who you’d never guess are their girlfriends because of how they are more than willing to talk to you and are standing 15 metres away. There is also a 2^nd story balcony that provides a killer view of Gatineau street, including a glimpse of all of the lights and promises of the superior Cote-​des-​Neiges street establishments.
My suggestion? Make this a necessary stop when you’re bar-​hopping or partying in Cote-​des-​Neiges, but don’t make it your all-​nighter bar. It’s also a perfectly fine place to have one or two drinks with a friend and then move on to something else like going home and having awkward intercourse with them where you stop texting each other forever afterwards from how uncomfortable it was. Whether the uncomfortable feeling is from staying too long at the bar or from the weird sex from that person you knew from high school is up to you.
Tabascobar, if you’re reading this, don’t worry. I will always warm one of your seats with my ass as long as I live here, because a) I love booze and b) we’re neighbours. But I probably won’t stay for the screaming.

Haut lieu de la débauche estudiantine, ce bar se répartit sur trois étages: au sous-​sol, c’est la poste de danse. Bien pratique quand la soirée avance et que les troupes n’ont plus le courage d’aller jsuq’au centre-​ville. Le premier étage, offre un bar et un faux –mais néanmoins très agréable– foyer. Enfin, au second, il y a toujours un bar, mais aussi 3 tables de billards et une petite terrasse.
Le tout sur une musique contemporaine et dans une ambiance boisée chaleureuse. Bref, de quoi passer de très bonnes soirées entre potes!

This bar is within perfect stumbling distance of my second home, which that in of itself, makes it great.
But there are also other things that make Tabasco’s great.
1. Ive never had a bad time here, and thats saying a lot because i pretty much hate just about everything (Excluding things deep fried or cheese filled.)
2. The people who chill here are way fun and usually pretty tanked as well, –which not only makes for a good time but also helps me to rationalize my own absurdly obvious, long-​term raging alcoholism. Thanks.
3. Its Big. From the main floor, to the upstairs, to the dancefloor downstairs, to the patio and even out onto the surrounding streets and sidewalks — this place has more than adequate capacity to let me get as wasted as I want without causing too much bodily or emotional harm to those around me. Truth be told, theres not many places built to accomodate me in the midst of a Heineken and Jäger frenzy, but this bar can. Seriously impressive.
4. Strong Drinks. Although i usually never remember how i get home from this place, i always somehow manage to wake up confused, laying the wrong way in bed with my clothes and shoes on, drenched in a cold sweat the next day. (I like consistency in life.) This means you’ve been to a good bar.
In summation, I really dont have anything bad to say about Tabasco’s. I kind of feel uncomfortable and weird on my insides, as this doesnt really ever happen when I’m expressing my opinions on places, things or human beings — but whatever… im just gonna let it ride and hope something effed up doesnt happen to me next time im there.