Très sympathique restaurant, plats toujours bien étoffés, portions généreuses & beaucoup e légumes, une chose précieuse au Québec où ils sont souvent si mal aimés des restos... Les plats de base de la carte sont toujours constants dans leur cuisine & leur présentation, une belle carte de vins portugais pas très chers (mais très bons) & beaucoup de portugais au rendez-vous! Service irréprochable en plus. Une bonne cantine!
I cannot rate the food since we did not get a chance to eat. In the past, when I used to go more regularly (6 to 10 times a year), the food was very good, & it had been my favourite restaurant. About a dozen of my Portuguese friends mentioned to me that it has gone down in service & even food quality these past few years. Below was my experience last night when we went to celebrate our wedding anniversary, which the restaurant was aware about.
We had reserved on Thursday for Sunday 7 p.m. specifically to celebrate our first wedding anniversary (we were married on this very day, October 28, last year). Casa Minhota had always been my favourite restaurant, & in the past, I had gone there for every event & celebration, but it had been a few years. However, when my husband asked where I wanted to go, my first answer was Casa Minhota. I made the reservation on Casa Minhota's Web site using their electronic form & I described how it was our wedding anniversary & that I had often gone to Casa Minhota in the past, but had not been for a while. So this was clear in writing. I had also mentioned some food allergies & wondering if there was a dessert I could have. I received an e-mail after a couple of hours on the Thursday (3:24 p.m.), saying that they could do something for me for dessert & confirming my reservation.
We arrived at five to seven on Sunday (we came in from the West Island especially to celebrate our anniversary at this restaurant)... I went in, & my husband went to park. I was completely ignored for five minutes (I kept checking the time), & had to speak up. Yes, the restaurant was busy, but no one was there to greet people as they came in, & every time I tried to catch someone's eyes, the person seemed to notice me but would then look away. So I spoke up & said we had a reservation for 7, & was told we would have to wait 15 minutes for our table because people were still there at the table reserved for us. So we were sat at the large front table by the window. We had sat there for about ten minutes, & another woman sat down... we thought she was also waiting... the waiter came over & we thought our table was ready, but instead he told us that we had to move because the people for that specific table had started arriving?
He wanted to sit us at the bar, but I have muscular dystrophy & cannot manage the higher chairs. The waiter did mention that we would get free drinks, but neither one of us drinks alcohol. So we were sat down at a table near the second door (further back) into one of the main dining rooms, which had piles of empty plates on it (so not set up for eating). We were served water. The waiter came back twice wanting us to order (we did have the menus), but we were still waiting for our table, & there seemed to be no movement from the people sitting there who should have long been out (if the reservation process had been done properly). My husband works for a restaurant & insisted on not ordering until we were actually at our table, since we might end up stuck there eating, or we would be stuck paying for an evening that was beginning to ruin our night out to celebrate our anniversary. I felt like we were in the way... that was certainly how it felt in how we were treated... & yet we had made a reservation. There was no apologies... it was more like we had disturbed "the balance". If we had come off off the street, I would understand, but we had made an actual reservation four days before, specified it was to celebrate our anniversary, & had it confirmed by the restaurant.
What made it worse is there were empty tables... & there were reservation signs at two of the seats at the bar... so why could there not have been a reservation sign on the table for our reservation.
We realized that if we stayed there, we would not have enjoyed ourselves, & it was supposed to be a special night. We were made to feel like we were in the way. So we got up & left (nothing had been ordered at this point).
In the end, we went up the street to Atma, which was also busy, but welcomed us & gave us a nice table. The food was delicious & it was a nice discovery... it is sad, because I was really looking forward to eating at Casa Minhota after not being there for a while... I used to go 6-10 times a year... & perhaps that is no big deal... obviously the way we were treated, Casa Minhota did not need our custom, & did not seem to care that we were celebrating our anniversary. I had told my new husband about how wonderful it was & how much I had enjoyed the food in the past... how disappointing in the end it was... not having our reservation honoured (& not being organized enough to have a table for us at the agreed-upon time for the reservation) & being made to feel that we were in the way.
My husband who is a chef mentioned that because there were a couple of big groups, more than likely one of the groups took our table for two to attach to their table (& the waiter allowed it), & basically "cancelled" our reservation... because who are we really? Just two people wanting to celebrate a wedding anniversary at my former favourite restaurant. Who are we when you will make far more money from a group... so there are only two real reasons... either the restaurant received my reservation (& it was confirmed) & was just very unorganized... or they let our table go to a larger group, because two people don't mean that much versus a larger group.
Le repas a été bon, le vin aussi. Il manquait des serveurs, car l'attente a été longue . On nous a donné des explications concernant ce manque de personnel: ils ne s'attendaient pas à recevoir tant de monde un dimanche de l'action grâce. En général c'est un bon restaurant & les serveurs courtois, mais il ne faut pas être pressé.
