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2063 Victoria St. (corner of President Kennedy Ave.)
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Open Mon.Fri. from noon to 11 p.m.; Sat.-Sun. from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. Licensed. Major credit cards.. 844-1624.
 Thursday noon, Oct 30 2003
Booooooooo from Le Caveau (the cave), Montreal's closest thing to a food dungeon, on the eve of Halloween. Built in 1901, and a restaurant since 1949, Le Caveau has never replaced or renovated even a doorknob. The ghosts of the original owners still live in the walls and haunt the creepy staircase that leads to the attic/second dining room. Under the protection of the Montreal voodoo establishment, the Victorian house has managed to survive amid the skyscrapers in the downtown business district.
At noon, double-chinned execs wobble down the alley to compare the sizes of their wallets, smack in the palace of pinstripe and chin wipe. The ghosts in the walls have witnessed several generations of politicians dole out contracts with the right hand while stroking the thigh of their buxom assistant with the other. But the Caveau's ghosts and diners alike believe in Omerta, so do not expect any gossip today.
This was my twentieth or thirtieth lunch in the bat cave, and this time around, I enjoyed the company of an Ontaridon, a Vulcan and a BIG GUY. No thigh stroking with these fellows. The respect one gets in a classic French restaurant is proportional to one's circumference, so I always enjoy any meal with the BIG GUY.
To say that Le Caveau is fine dining in the sense used by Lesley Chesterman in The Gazette, is an exaggeration. It's old French, it's a calorgy, it's nostalgic, and it's a time warp: the mites that bit Jean Drapeau in 1960 are still making love in the carpet.
 At noon, the regulars, which means everyone except the shrimp, enjoy the lunch "table d'hôte", which consists of a soup or salad, a main dish, a dessert and a coffee. Most of the choices are in the $21-30 range. The Victorian dungeon specializes in Dover sole meunière ($40), rack of lamb with herbs ($31) and shrimps sauteed in Pernod ($27).
The majority of the diners order wine by the glass ($9). The first time I ate at Le Caveau, which was just after the Vietnam War, the menu was basically the same as today's. In true French style, every part of the animal is eaten here: brains, kidneys, livers and entrails make up half the menu. The BIG GUY opted for calf liver, about a tenth the size of his own, Ontaridon had a juicy salmon steak, and the Vulcan and I picked the confit de canard "Landaise", a juicy glazed duck leg. All dishes are accompanied by potatoes in one of its many greasy formats, and a progressive conservative vegetable.
This is safe dining at its best: no wildebeest steaks or genetically curled alfalfa sprouts in this haunted house! Of the dozen confit de canards I have eaten here, today's was the worst, but I am sure the cook had an off day, busy fighting fruit bats in the kitchen. The standard cave confit is perfect, with the duck's juices securely held inside its plump thighs by the glazed glistening skin.
The table d'hôte desserts, a tart, a creme caramel, or a mousse au chocolat, are ordinary by fine dining standards, but are fine by ordinary standards. However, I did not appreciate getting my mousse au chocolat ten seconds after I ordered it. It is supposed to be freshly whipped full of air to make a helium-weight collection of brown bubbles, but my mousse slept all night in a dark fridge with the crème caramel without using a condom.
If you are the owner of Le Caveau and if you are still alive and reading this, I apologize for saying bad things about the mousse. You have a wonderful historically important place, and nobody is sleeping in the kitchen with strangers; I just made that up.
I have to confess though that during the first half hour in your lovely but dark diner, I missed the Monty Python-eyed waiter who used to make passes at me back when, while serving me sizzling snails. He was not exactly the kind of guy who made me rethink my sexual orientation, but when I went to the toilet in the basement today, I caught a glimpse of him! Yes, the Transylvanian waiters at Le Caveau never die—they just get demoted to a lower floor. And when their time is up, their sorry white-skinned bodies migrate to the walls, just like ordinary French ghosts.
"Phantomes" they call them in French. The service is absolutely first rate, so we should call them professional phantomes.
I confess that I went to the toilet twice. On my first time down, I was directed to the basement kitchen: I had to push the saloon-style swinging kitchen door, face the annoyed chef who had his hand up a duck's behind, and turn right into the toilet (men's only—women are out of luck, I guess).
It was then that I spotted old Bulging Eyes Python, and so I "went" a second time to make sure it was my old admirer.
Next Halloween, I will surely meet him again either in the basement or as a "phantome".— reviewed by RestoSpy
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