Hours: 12:00 PM to 1:00 AM every day. Licensed. Major credit cards. Tel.: 842-2661
 “Help!” I shouted down the cell phone. “I’m on the corner of Mont Royal and Parc and the resto I wanted to go to is closed!”
Well, isn’t it 10:30 p.m.? Inquired my friend. “I dunno!” I yelled. “I don’t have a watch on!”
“Don’t panic,” said the calm voice.”Casa Minhota’ll be open.”
McDonald’s loomed large on a nearby corner. I walked and talked. “Are you sure the place is open?” I bellowed quietly, as one can only do on a cell phone on a quiet street. Not too many moments later, I spied it.
This family-run Portuguese resto occupies an unassuming storefront of St. Laurent reminiscent (at least in my overheated imagination of the evening) of the Genco Abbandando Olive Oil company of Godfather II fame.
A cheery, bustling interior beckoned from the late-night indifference of St. Laurent, and we gratefully barged in, late hour and all. No one paid us much mind—in Portugal the party starts at 11 p.m. and Casa Minhota is up till one.
 And for a weekday evening, the place was decidedly bustling. It’s a cozy space with stuccoed white walls, which hang with paintings of old-country villas with stuccoed white walls, and the odd decorative plate or two. You sit back in a padded chair and the waiter is magically at your side with the menu and a basket of fresh bread.
As menus go, it’s Portuguese taverna, with a good selection of reasonably-priced fish (Paella Minhota style, $19.95; shrimps “a la Plancha,” $11.95; Grouper boiled or grilled, $16.95, among others, including, of course, codfish) and an equally large selection of meats and poultry (lamb chops, quail fried or grilled, charcoal chicken, among others.)
The bread is crusty, dense and sweet. A green salad comes with a mound of crisp hearts of lettuce, cress, onions and tomatoes in a blast of summery vinaigrette that is amazingly flavourful for just oil, vinegar and spices.
A ham and melon is actually a thick, salty prosciutto with large slices of ripe fruit.
From the mains, the Codfish “Braz” style ($19.95) is a delicate hash-brown-like mound of succulently shredded cod and onions garnished with a curl of red pepper, cress and olives—a codpiece triumph.
 The charcoal steak ($22.95) is a hefty slab of perfection-grilled tenderloin, slathered with a rich peppercorn marinade that would please even the hungriest Barque skipper. The puff-crispy potato squares that came with it were worthy of their own side dish.
Did I mention these were from the table d’hôte? Others from this selection on the night we were there included sea bass steak, red snapper, lamb and octupus, all grilled, of course. You get a soup or green salad, mussels “home style,” grilled sardines or the aforementioned ham and melon, plus dessert and coffee, with no item exceeding $25.95 (for the seafood platter.)
A couple smooched at the next table. A family babbled raucously at the front. It was a great, late night at Casa Minhota.
—Reviewed by Nick Robinson
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