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Four locations: 2 in Laval, 1 in DDO, 1 at Décaire & Jean-Talon)
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Restaurant visited: 5365 des Jockeys (at Décarie & Jean-Talon)
Tel.: (514) 731-6455
 always feel good when someone brings me bread right away. And a glass of water. Don’t wait for me to ask for it, just bring it. The bread in this case is toasted white with a bit of garlic hiding somewhere. No matter, wonderful. Hungry.
I read the laminated menu, choose the chicken pita plate, could have had a double skewer of chicken for $11.75,  served with salad, fries or rice (who orders rice?). There’s also calamari ($13.75) if you’re into that sort of thing, as well as spanakopita and artichoke appetizers (around $3.50 each).
The place is pretty busy for a Saturday afternoon, considering the unfortunate location in a strip mall in such proximity to a Wal-Mart. Hard to believe that anyone comes to this mall for any reason whatsoever. When you think “I need to go to Pier 1,” do you hop in your car and head up Décarie? I try to avoid that throughway at all costs… unless I get a craving for a salty, garlicky, crispy on the outside chicken pita … then Marathon is my first choice.
A previous visit, with Chef Nick on a dark day in winter, led eventually to a kitchen tour which included a view of the walk-in fridge, a story about tomatoes (how this box of tomatoes just wasn’t adequate, so it was going back to the supplier).  The manager took a lot of time to explain the basics of prep, fridges, suppliers, and the actual cooking stations in the kitchen where each discrete bit happens in perfect concert with the next bit. Nick was quite amazed. I have worked in restaurants before, so for once I wasn’t standing around with that “fish-out-of-water look” I’m so famous for. Instead I asked intelligent questions while Nick snapped pictures, all the while trying to hide his montrealfood.com t-shirt.
This is not a fancy place. They have plastic vines in little planters hanging on the walls. The menu is laminated. But I can’t help but love it here. It’s as fancy as it needs to be. The walls look like they’ve just been washed, or painted, or both.
You come for the food anyway, don’t you? Marathon has won a bunch of “Best Of” awards – particularly with readers of the Montreal Mirror and the Gazette. It’s not hard to see why: the chicken pita  arrives very hot (and this seems to be a novelty in restaurants – when the food actually arrives steamy and fresh). The tzatziki is thick, smooth, not pasty, and has quite a good garlic punch, but no so overpowering that your breath will later scare away small children. There’s a hefty pita, red tomato (one that is approved by the manager), and just the right amount of chopped onion. There’s a lot of chicken, with the signature hole in the middle. It really was cooked on a skewer. Some poor slob has grilled this for me, on a hot summer afternoon, it’s the real deal and not some marinated steam-table spoonful of processed chicken product. This is hot and crispy and well cooked and darn near perfect. And cheap. If you just want the chicken pita cone by itself it's $3.50.
-- Reviewed by Shelley MacDonald
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