Orange is the New Dinner Café

Yo! Orange is the New Black is sucking up all of my jittery cooking time. So, here’s the first JC restaurant review to tantalize your taste buds.

Orange Café in Montreal, offering a wide variety of breakfast and lunch foods, is now THE hot new dinner spot from Thursday to Sunday evenings. Renovated and superchef ready you’ll be smiling your way through fantastic, original dishes that call out for one more bite.

Unfortunately, the Kale Salad jumped from plate to mouth so quickly that I forgot to grab a photo. Sweet and salty, plated on slivers of marinated watermelon radish, the super silky kale was massaged into submission, sprinkled with crumbled peanut and flavoured with sesame oil, soy sauce and perhaps maple syrup. Just guessing—if I knew for sure the recipe would be right here. Next up, the House Fish Cakes were a satisfying combo of cod, Yukon gold mash, scallions and leek—merely a mellow canvas for a finger licking, plate scraping sweet and spicy sauce, perfectly portioned and topped with a dot of fish roe for crunch.

Jerk Poutine really hit the spot. This is not your grandmother’s poutine recipe. Owner Jim Assimakopoulos asked how I was enjoying the experience and laughed knowingly as I admitted losing control. Share this dish. You won’t want to, but you should.

And as if that wasn’t enough the Pulled Pork Sandwich on a brioche bun waxed sultry and spicy while the Jambalaya may be my newest favourite comfort food. 

Kudos to Orange Café!  They’re now booking private parties Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. 

Final notes:

• Thanks to Yo’ Dough creator, Jesse Schwarz, for bringing Montreal bloggers together to sample his amazing gourmet cookies at a private dinner at OC. You can buy them at these locations.
• In case you are wondering about the take home containers, sampling three dishes was all the food I could handle in one sitting. So I went for the usual doggie bag story—and they bought it!