It’s a dark Tuesday evening. The relentless demon that is daylight savings is tormenting me, and the daylight, it seems, is not being saved. Empty dishes from Patati Patata, the cozy poutine establishment nestled on the corner of St Laurent and Rachel, lay in front of me as thoughts cloud my head. I think to myself, “how do I combine a restaurant review for a humble hole in the wall with a love letter to soup?” As I reflect on my meal, I don’t know how it will be possible to accomplish this, but I know it must be done.
Everything about Patati Patata tells you that it is going to be a great restaurant that will serve you a great meal. It’s small, has numerous posters on the walls, is always playing music, and every single item on the menu is much cheaper than anything one might come across in today’s forlorn late-night food scene. It is almost too good to be true. As Uncle Ben once told Peter Parker, with great power comes great responsibility. And believe me, Patati Patata has both. It has an atmosphere that draws you in. From the outside, you see people talking and laughing, and depending on the time of night, a line snaking down St. Laurent Boulevard. It’s the kind of place you see from down the block and think, “I have to see what’s going on in there.” Between the happy faces inside, the line of people, and the harmonies of Bob Dylan’s greatest hits blaring through the door, curiosity would get the best of any reasonable person.
Upon walking in, I was immediately greeted warmly by the cooks. Even as a new face, they treated me with the respect and kindness they would a regular who has been dining at the establishment for years. I ordered the BLT with an egg and cheese, and fries on the side. While my expectations for sandwiches are generally high (see my last article), what is to be expected of a BLT? Adding eggs and cheese to a BLT is a valiant effort to bridge the gap between breakfast and lunch, forgoing the pretentious concept of brunch, which I believe prevents independent and novel ideas such as this from flourishing. Patati Patata is not attempting anything great, they are just adding eggs and cheese. And yet, they achieve this small feat exceptionally well. This sandwich is a simple yet noble twist on an existing classic. Not to mention, the sandwich was served to me with a mountain of fries and mayonnaise. The unassuming yet delicious combination of fries with mayonnaise is, in my opinion, the one good thing the French have contributed to human history (necessary indication of sarcasm).
This sandwich means something to me, and what it means remains obscured in my mind. As vaguely mentioned in my previous article, many of the true beauties of our universe must remain in ambiguity to be appreciated.
Sometimes, the most astonishing qualities of our world remain in such a status because they are not fully understood. With this, I could write hundreds of different articles to try and capture the metaphorical ‘lightning in a bottle’ contained within the BLT with egg and cheese I ordered, but each time I will fall short; each time getting closer and closer to explaining in the form of words what this sandwich means to me, but each time never fully conveying the experience. I ask you, dear reader, to go to Patati Patata and experience this yourself.
While I sat in a corner of the restaurant’s small interior, this marvelous sandwich cementing itself into my memory, my eyes wandered up to the menu board behind the counter. I noticed bortsch, lovingly yet inconspicuously chalked in between the poutine and burgers. For $4.50, my interest was piqued; I thought to myself “when was the last time I had soup?” The conclusion I came to was: too long ago. I let my curiosity win and I ordered a bowl.
Bortsch itself is an elusive figure in the culinary world. I have only ever had it made in home kitchens by local Ukrainian grandmothers (God bless them and their expertise). While nothing can rival the cooking of a grandmother, the bowl of borscht I received did its best. And its best was good. Topped with sour cream and combined with locally sourced Portuguese bread, this bowl of soup transported my soul directly to the warmth of a fireplace on a winter night. But this bowl of borscht accomplishes much more than just that—it serves as a reminder of the greatness contained within the ‘genre’ that is soup. Soup as a nutrient medium has become criminally underappreciated within this generation. With winter upon us, we must make the effort to bring soup back into the mainstream. Soup is a beautiful concept: throw whatever vegetables, herbs, spices, meat and broth into a pot, leave it on for a while, and you’ve just created something new and unique. Soup is a forgotten method of satisfying our innate urge as humans to create and enjoy. I can tell you, dear reader, that my prospective academic success will without a doubt be fueled by soup.
There is not much else I can say about this restaurant. All its delightful qualities combined with the fact that it remains open until 2AM say more than my words ever could. Not only does this restaurant give you what you need, it gives you what you need when you need it most. Since my first visit, I have returned multiple times and ordered a variety of dishes. To this day I have not had a bad meal at Patati Patata. Patati Patata encapsulates so many aspects of a great restaurant. It is a reminder that the restaurant experience is much more than the food we eat. The people, the music, the art, the sights, the sounds, are all integral parts of the journey. Without them, food is just food.
