Immigration: Rice Pie

Work Colleagues Dept: Since stumbling upon Les Feuilles de Menthe, we've broken this bad habit and possibly acquired another. Here's what happened: A few months ago, fearing a rut, I suggested we eat our way through the list of bring-your-own-wine places near our house as reviewed in Montreal's Best BYOB Restaurants, a handy little guidebook published by Vehicule Press. We started with Les Feuilles de Menthe, where the food was good but the dining room empty. A few weeks later, Gwyn went back with work colleagues and came home with the lowdown on Anne-Marie Ta, the vibrant Vietnamese lady who runs the place, according to Montreal Gazette. We've been back twice and now agree the cuisine is better than good; it's outstanding. Snapping fresh vegetables, delectable sauces, meat, fish or tofu sauteed to perfection, each plate beautifully presented. The sorbet, served in a hollowed-out orange, is rivalled only by Anne-Marie's own coconut rice pie. And the prices? Well, it's hard to pay more than $20 and still leave feeling comfortable and why are some restaurants packed and others so often empty? Oddly enough, it has little to do with the food. I myself have been known to bolt from the lobby of a highly touted establishment if nobody else is eating there, but wait in line for a dinky table by the bathroom at our favourite hole-in-the-wall, knowing I could open cans at home and produce a better meal. My husband and I go to restaurant B because, well, because we've been there before, and so do other people. A classically trained pianist, she was born in London and grew up in Paris. When her father was lured back to Vietnam by promises of a university job, the family left France. Life under the communist regime proved impossible, and she found herself, a young single mother, in a Malaysian refugee camp along with 30,000 other homeless Vietnamese. Since her French was good, she was invited to Quebec. For years she worked as a caregiver to the elderly, and since taking over the restaurant a year ago has continued to visit a few of them, including an elderly Asian man who died recently. Telling her patrons the story of his death, she shed tears. As reported in the news.
@t coconut rice, byob restaurants