The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 105

LIFE n7 THE CAZETTE montrealgazette.com SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 2011 WEEKEND CASUAL RESTOS Sarah Musgravc East meets west at Cafe Falco WORLDS COLLIDE Fare combines Japanese and French flavours 771 wj Tin i ii ii 1 1 k' 's orr.n if OUR RESTAURANT GUIDE The Gazette's reviewers visit restaurants anonymously. They pay in full for all food, wine and services. Any interviews of the restaurants' management and staff are done only after meals and services have been appraised. Reviewers do not accept invitations to evaluate restaurants. Ratings reflect reviewers' assessment of food, ambience, service and prices.

CASUAL RESTOS Ratings: Chancy, fair bet, good bet, great bet .1 II m. mains under $10 $10 to $20 $20 to $35 $35 i PHOTOS: ALIEN MclNNIS THE CAZETTE Cafe Falco, in the Mile End district, has the feel of the neighbourhood: industrial meets boutique. At the base of a warehouse building, the eatery serves carefully prepared coffee and a variety of Japanese-French food and snacks. mm Cafe Falco Good to great bet 5605 de Gaspe St. (near Bernard St.) Phone: 514-272-7766 Website: www.cafefalco.ca Licensed: No Credit cards: Visa, MC Wheelchair accessible: Four steps up Vegetarian friendly: Yes Open: Tues.

to Fri. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., closed Monday and Sunday Price range: Brunch $6.80 to sandwiches, salads, soups $3.20 to desserts $1.75 to $2.60 Definitely the industrial end of Mile End, this.

The neighbourhood's busy boutique-lined streets are replaced with the sound of forklifts, a view of the train tracks and with potholes that would merit designation as historical sites. Here, at the base of a warehouse building, an enclave of hip humanity serves some worthy coffee and Japanese snacks to go with it. Cafe Falco, which opened its doors last fall, gets a big nod for design: grey concrete floors and cinder block walls are set off by wide windows running the length of the room, illuminating a communal bar space flanked with tall stools. Extra-high ceilings are put to good use with metal piping way up there for hanging staff coats and suspending screens of whimsical line drawings by French press La Hulotte. From the serene Ovopur water coolers (made in Quebec) to the vintage sewing machine (a testament to the area's sweatshops) to the cargo bikes parked outside (also sold here), carefully chosen objects convey an esthetic that seems very much in the image of owners Frederik Froument and Yuko Toda, originally from Tours and Tokyo, respectively There's a lot to look at, but the top visual draw is the coffee service.

With so many methods out there now for getting the best from the bean, this particular subset of coffee culture favours siphon coffee. Falco's work counter looks like a laboratory, with an arrangement of glass beakers, burners and gaskets. It's a vintage model that gets the work done. Toda said later: "We find it's the best for taste, and we like things that are practical and beautiful." It's a bit of a process: once the glass container is set on the heat source, expanding water vapours are forced up the tube through the filter containing the fresh grounds. Once it has brewed, the apparatus is removed from the heat, and the liquid travels back down, ready to pour.

Falco's beans of choice are from Kickapoo, an artisanal Wisconsin-based roaster with a fair-trade, environmentally conscious mandate. The result, somewhere between espresso and filter coffee, gives supple flavours and seemingly not a lot of harsh caffeine a cup of java here is not so much a kick in the pants as a pat on the bum. The notion of clean flavours, and using different- 9 The siphon coffee process looks like a lab experiment; the result is somewhere between espresso and filter coffee. Brunch: A rice bowl with sauteed lentils and three kinds of mushrooms roasted, vermicelli salad, a soup of zucchini, onion, carrot and ginger, and, on the small plate: marinated cabbage and mustard leaves. To top it off, a matcha cupcake, orange juice and coffee.

Lesley Chesterman's Critic's Notebook and the Retail Detail column return next week. than-usual means of delivering them, carries through to the food. There's a limited menu of snacks, light meals, along with Saturday brunch. Morning makes the most of the coffee, of course, but also the light of the room, which reflects off the industrial surfaces and renders the elements on the plate even brighter. The grey spring sky brought a deeper glow to bright sections of oranges interspersed with blueberries on the sweet brunch plate, served with green-tea cake, lemon cream and toasted brioche employing on-site baking skills and those of Bou-langerie GuLUaume close by Our savoury orders came with orange juice and a little matcha muffin dotted with chocolate chips sweet but not too sweet.

Next was a mild miso soup, the broth to be sipped from the bowl, the remaining chunks of carrot and onion to be scooped up afterward. There was also a salad of na-pa cabbage lightly marinated in sesame oil and vinegar, with little punches of coriander like kimchee without thehotchilies. The main element was the don, a rice bowl with simmered toppings that change weekly. On my visit, these included tofu with lacquered surfaces, sweet simmered ground chicken or sauteed pork (meats are sourced locally). These were combined with scrambled egg for a breakfast tie-in, sprouts, carrots, lentils and green onions and a side of marinated dai-kon atop some notably satisfying rice.

At $16, it exacts payment for the commitment to sustainable ingredients. Weekdays at Falco, there are sandwiches pork cutlet called tonkatsu, for example soups and salads, all following a French-Japanese theme. Most items get snapped up by nearby software workers, but there's a steady supply of onigiri (also only available during the week). A well-designed finger food, pressed rice is formed into triangles and stuck with a strip of nori to make pickup neater. Served just a little under room temperature, one was mixed rice with anchovy and Japanese pepper, the other with mustard greens.

Again the rice, a melange of white sushi-grade rice and sweet brown rice, was simple and subtle and easy to appreciate. With a different take on coffee, and different stylings than the usual brunch, this is a welcome spot to get a different perspective on the city Cot feedback? restoagogo AM 9 SUPER RENOVATION MRCH 21 TO APRIL 30, 201 1 UP TO y3V7 C3 liiiiil'iilr'J mi i ON PLUMBING ACCESSORIES a (o)(n Ear Grill 0FF HMU CERAMIC TILES Wwm Um ID '4 WSSrO ZD JOSH FREED starts your weekend with a smile, Saturdays in The Gazette. 0 Order any menu item of $7.99 or more from the menu la carte and receive a 2nd (of equal or HALF PRICE lesser value) OF 990. SHOWER DOORS to SB STAINLESS STEEL Maximum value $10 Mon Seniors' Night 6 Items for $6 Toe. Wing Night Wed.

Sizzling Fajitas rl I UnctN illNtNS Thurt. Prime Roast Beet Valid at Barbie's Dorval (514)631-2233 Sun. Kids Eat Free 1 Kid per Adult Brunch until 3pti on Weekends ON SELECT ITEMS I LIMITED QUANTITIES.