Dame Tartine (1652, rue Ontario Est): I live a short walk away from a long stretch of tattoo parlours, piercing places, a big Portuguese Catholic church, a hydroponics supply store, thrift shops, laundry mats and seedy bars. Oh, Ontario Street! Foodwise there is not much to choose from this side east of Papineau – mostly a disappointing flurry of Lafleur’s or shady looking pizza parlours – but there are options, like the decent Mexican restaurant (La Guadeloupe, 2345, rue Ontario E) and one of my favourite French bistros, especially on snowy Montreal nights when we don’t want to attempt digging the car out of a snowdrift (Au Petit Extra, 1690, rue Ontario Est). One recent Saturday morning, looking for a quick breakfast and wanting to stick close to home, we ended up at the charmingly named Dame Tartine with its cutesy cartoon rendering of the dame herself on the sign and poem on the back of the menu with pertinent details of her life, starting with her home (a castle made of butter). The place was big enough that we got a table right away, but what was supposed to be a quick breakfast ended up an hour and a half affair, waiting endlessly for our meals, and finally just paying up at the counter instead of waiting even longer for the bill. But okay, I generally enjoy drawn out meals, and even though we were on a schedule, we were flexible. If the breakfast tasted good, I wouldn’t mind as much. But… I wasn’t particularly impressed. I was excited by the prospect of my French toast breakfast sandwich (Two pieces of French toast sandwiching a fried egg, tomatoes and ham) – what a high calorie, eggy, but awesome combination! When it came down to it, I would’ve rather just had a regular breakfast sandwich and forsaken the extra eggs and syrup (More on syrup below..). Andrew had the self-titled Dame Tartine eggs benedictish concoction, and it was similarly uninspired. I might give the place another chance on a snowy winter morning but for now I’m neutral on the whole thing.

The Maple Syrup dilemma: Say you order crepes or French toast, you just assume you’re going to get syrup with it, right? Obviously. But what about when you’re asked if you want either the regular (I guess "fake") maple syrup or the fancy REAL maple syrup? Do you spend that extra $1.25 to get a small paper cup of the real stuff? And if you do (because REAL maple syrup just sounds and tastes better), do you feel resentful at having to pay that extra dollar? Even if it’s just $1.25 and you should get over it already? Because admittedly, I am. I don’t expect free, real maple syrup at the diner around the corner, or in Texas, or in London, England, but I don’t think it’s much to ask for from a place that specializes in breakfast, especially in Quebec, where over 75% of the world’s supply of maple syrup is produced and where you can easily buy a $5 can of the good stuff at the grocery store down the street. I wholly support paying premiums for good, hard-to-get food, but sometimes it doesn’t seem reasonable.