In Montreal, hockey and the Habs are king. As such, the team continues to find new ways to expand their reach. One of these is through food as the team has opened up a massive sports bar in the Bell Center to cater to the downtown core – 1909 Taverne Moderne. Clearly modelled after Real Sports in Toronto, 1909 is a sports bar restaurant on steroids. It is a huge multi-level restaurant which offers standing room, bar seating and mezzanine banquets all focused around a gigantic screen showing sports – obviously the Canadiens if it was a game night but in this case, college basketball and hockey.
The space is impressive to look at. It is also very loud – the combination of the high ceiling, the mezzanine structure and the loud music playing at the same time means that this isn’t the place for a quiet meal. Clearly you come here because you want a party, you want to watch sports in a group setting or you are coming to the Bell Center for a game or show and want something close by. Looking at the menu in comparison to a typical sports bar, the bar menu is varied with lots of local microbrewery options. The food menu itself also steps away from the usual bar fare with some more up-scale items.
My wife wasn’t too hungry so as a meal, she went with the Teriyaki baby back ribs appetizer. The ribs were pretty good – served amongst like spare ribs, they were fall off the bone tender and pretty flavourful with the sweet Teriyaki glaze.
The positives stop there though. I went with the Chili Con Carne with a side order of fries. First up, they both arrived at the table lukewarm. This brings up the issue of the service. Our waiter was nice but he wasn’t very quick or attentive in general. It took a while for him to come take our order and the food was slow to come as well. It is a very busy space but then more staff should be present or at least they should re-think how they function because our guy was running around like crazy but never really on top of things. It is not acceptable for food to be served not hot. We had a concert to go to so I didn’t make a deal of it but could have been very easily.
The chili itself was bland – it lacked any strong flavour notes. No heat, no sweetness, no nothing. It was filling because we was meat and beans but frankly anyone with their slow cooker could have matched it.
The side of fries was equally uninspiring – the cut was fine but they had no inherent flavour and when you add that they were lukewarm, really not a winner especially for 6$. I got to try some nachos one of our friends ordered and it was a similar story – very average fare. Lots of chips but not a whole lot of cheese or topping for something that costs 13$.
In the end, frankly I can see the interest to go to watch a game in a cool setting but frankly the food (and the subsequent cost of the meal) really doesn’t make this a worthwhile dining experience outside of that. Much like the Habs this year, there is potential but the finished product is no where close yet.
Cheers!
1909 Taverne Moderne
1280 Avenue des Canadiens-de-Montréal
514 416 9809
Ramblings from the Complex Mind of a 30 Something 