Montreal Gazette
La Maison Berbère’s tajine de poulet aux olives et citrons confits is a showstopper.
BY SARAH MUSGRAVE, SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE
La maison berbère
Good
$$
7086A St. Laurent Blvd. (near Mozart St.)
Phone: 514-279-0006
Website: www.maisonberbere.com
Licensed: No
Credit cards: Visa
Wheelchair accessible: Two steps up
Vegetarian friendly: Yes
Open: Mon.–Sat. noon to 8 p.m.
Price range: Appetizers $5.50–$8.50, dishes $9.95–$22.50, table d’hôte $15–$26
It’s best to think of the menu at La Maison Berbère as a portal to possible futures. With a little notice, it seems, the chef-proprietress here can whip up just about any dish on the North African spectrum: chorba soup, grilled sardines with salad, enticing iterations of couscous and tajines and perhaps fig cream with orange flower water for dessert.
Nora Hamdi has a history on the local restaurant scene, with Le Coin Berbère in the Plateau, Le Vent du Sud and two previous versions of La Maison Berbère in the Eastern Townships under her belt. Her newest address, opened in December, is a tiny sit-down eatery and food boutique. While there are printed lists of dishes, it’s more fun to chat her up and find out what’s available. Exuding a certain low-key confidence, she speaks knowledgeably about the cuisines of Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. While there’s considerable crossover among them, as she will explain, some preparations, like hot and smoky harissa, are Tunisian in origin, while harira — a heartier soup it’s hard to imagine — is Moroccan.
It’s obvious that Hamdi and Paula Wolfert, cookbook author with an encyclopedic knowledge of the region’s cuisines, would have a lot to talk about.
Depending on the time of day and the occasion, the entry points for discovering the food are numerous. There’s that $8.50 lunch special, an all-you-can-eat dealie that brings seven-vegetable couscous and bottomless glasses of minty green tea. There was only one other customer in the place at midday, but at least he was an appreciative one. “Délicieux, madame, vraiment délicieux,” he repeated, shovelling up the remains of fine-grained semolina from his plate.
One table away, I was enjoying a tajine of lamb with prunes and almonds, not just sliced almonds but also whole toasted nuts for extra earthy crunch. The amount of tender meat was copious, too much, really, with that mingling of musky and fruity flavours that the region’s cooking does so well. The mint tea, still served iced in early-September, was an invitation to believe that summer wasn’t yet over (although the chilled soup had already been removed from the menu).
Returning for dinner, our group of three started with dates stuffed with nibs of merguez sausage. A North African take on devils on horseback, those little canapés often done with bacon, it combined the sticky caramel sweetness of dried fruit with the pungent spicing of the ground lamb.
Hamdi does things with pastry, too, like briks, briouaks and sometimes bouraks. The brik was a folded square of crisped filo encasing an open-faced egg (with tuna and capers, I report second-hand, as I didn’t get them in my bites).
The briouak was a rolled sheet of dough stuffed with grilled vegetables — while I can’t describe it as not oily, I can describe the oil as fresh. Each plate was prettily done up with salad and two different kinds of bread sticks. The lady cares.
I was hankering for the tajine of chicken, green olives and preserved lemon. It’s a classic worthy of such cravings that I’d popped in twice asking for it, only to be told it was sold out or had just started simmering. On the third try, I got lucky. It was a showstopper: the breast meat was absolutely juicy and tender, ripe with that particular blend of sour citrus and softened olives, and the cinnamony spices in the fragrant juices lining the base. Ideal for mopping up with berber bread, in the traditional serving style.
An order of lamb couscous, while not as remarkable, was generous and caringly done. It brought us big chunks of mutton to pull off the bone, and a host of stewed vegetables and fine couscous to round it out.
La Maison Berbère claims not to do much in the way of desserts, at least for now. However, there just happened to be a crème caramel made with sheep’s milk and rosewater. We finished off the bowl of light, floral custard with glasses of green mint tea, hot this time.
I left convinced about the cooking, and concerned about the concept. Despite its proximity to Jean Talon Market, this strip of St. Laurent has yet to pick up.
The room has only ever been quiet when I’ve peeked in, once interrupting Hamdi in her reading. With no liquor licence to bait the evening crowd, and potential waits for the lunch crowd while everything is made to order, it needs to find its niche. Hamdi has covered her bases by making it a food service counter, a distribution outlet for homemade preserves (homemade harissa, brined lemons, spice mixes), a catering services, a site for special group menus and a locale for cooking classes. She’s a great cook, and I hope she succeeds on one, and ideally all, of those counts.
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