As soon as this new project on the Plaza was announced, the concept intrigued me: a “street food”-inspired Vietnamese cuisine restaurant that meets the natural wine bar. There are many refreshment bars in Montreal; natural wine too! As for Vietnamese cuisine, it is well represented, think of all these little bouis-bouis where you can enjoy a steaming phở soup, to the counters where you can sink your teeth into a delicious bánh mì (I admit to being addicted to those of Sue) and to all the others who put forward its perfumes in a more current, sometimes fragmented setting – Le Red Tiger, Cafeden, La Belle Tonki, Tran Cantine, Le Petit Sao… There is no shortage of addresses , but I’m always curious to discover new things, when I’m promised a nice natural wine list to boot!
Behind Ăn Chơi Plaza is Michelle Vo, the idea behind this project, known for her Instagram account @pasthyme, where she showcases her love for Vietnamese street food. This is his first foray into catering. His partners, on the other hand, have experience in this area: Douglas Tan (La Bêtise) and Vien Man Cao-Tran (Bar Otto, Otto Ramen). The latter signs the menu in collaboration with chef Galaxy Duong. The wine list is the work of Daphné Blondin and the cocktails, by mixologist Thomas Gauthier.
I won’t beat around the bush any further: my experience at Ăn Chơi was mixed, if not disappointing.
It was a quiet, chilly Tuesday evening in October, the kind that doesn’t make you want to go outside. The restaurant was therefore particularly empty. Our two waitresses seemed bored, but they were very nice to us, the only customers sitting at the bar.
I will come back later to the liquid card, which has very good qualities. As for food, the short menu of around ten items is made up of small and larger plates, and avoids certain beaten paths: no vermicelli noodle dish, phở soup or bánh mì, in short!
The best dish of the evening was the Bò tái chanh, a carpaccio-style beef salad, very fresh and spicy, thanks to a generous quantity of herbs and its thin slices of bird’s eye peppers. The fried shallots and roasted peanuts added a touch of crunch, as did the shrimp chips. The flavors were quite simple, nothing very complex.
This impression continued for the rest of the dishes. The Goi Xoài salad – mango, squid, red peppers – was disarmingly simple, poorly seasoned, topped with far too many gray shallots and quite skimpy on the squid. We’re looking for umami.
For the main course, the Cơm cua, a fried rice, was the disappointment of the evening. Topped with a cloud of salted and grated egg yolk, the whole thing was dry, without much staying power, bland; the soft-shell crab, presented whole and fried, was rather uninspiring. We didn’t finish the plate. As for the Rau xào, a dish of Chinese oyster mushrooms and broccoli, they were properly prepared, but in no way memorable.
The premises of Ăn Chơi Plaza are welcoming, with their green plants and decorations of all kinds. The idea of a Vietnamese refreshment bar with simple dishes and good wines, for a relaxed experience, is a good one. But simplicity can rhyme with well-executed dishes and elaborate flavors. Perhaps we were unlucky and other dishes, like the bone marrow and bourgots or the clear broth soup with crab meat balls, would have charmed us. Perhaps another visit will convince me, but for now there is room for improvement.
There were still positives in this evening, especially in terms of the drinks menu. The place offers classic cocktails with a “twist”; understand the integration of Asian ingredients such as coconut milk, pandan leaves or Thai basil, which flavors my Basic Basilic cocktail, made with Quebec Aupale vodka and St-Germain, wonderfully. The lover, for his part, is pleasantly surprised by his Nekokaburi beer, a wild ale which is based on blaufränkisch marcs from Maison Agricole Joy, by the very interesting Ippon microbrewery, whose most famous beer (also offered at Ăn Chơi) is flavored with ginger and Japanese pepper. The place also stocks Avant-Garde beers, Fleuris ciders and offers very good non-alcoholic drinks from Fin Soda.
As for wine, the menu offers a nice variety, at fairly nice prices – several options at $50 and $60, which is becoming increasingly rare. You will find there the wines of Grape Republic, a Japanese house. There I tasted a surprisingly good wine from… Manitoba (a first, I think), the white Rise by Low Life Barell House, offering beautiful acidity with petroleum notes, thanks to its blend of Riesling, Geisenheim and Vida grapes.
Entrees range from $8 to $19; main courses, which are more substantial, approach $30. Cocktails are around $15 and beers are a little over $10.
Besides the accompanying vegetables, there are no vegetarian dishes on the menu. Pescetarians will largely find what they need there. Open from Tuesday to Saturday evening, the place is accessible to people with reduced mobility.