Our second day in Montreal involved a pleasant outing to the McCord-Stewart Museum (which had an excellent Offbeat-eats relevant exhibit, On the Menu, featuring menus and other paraphernalia from various Montreal eating establishments), a quick trip out to Verdun for Cabane Panache (the annual Montreal maple festival), and then off to Snowbird in La Petite-Patrie for Tiki drinks. After enjoying our drinks at Snowbird, we wanted to find an interesting place to dine, and found one right across the street: Restaurant Abouda, serving up Tunisian food.
Abouda is quite a busy place: they offer both dine-in service and take-out, and the dine-in area is definitely on the cozy side. But a quick look at our group of five, a few quick rearrangments of tables and chairs, and we found ourselves with a reasonably comfortable setup, reviewing the menu. We pretty quickly decided that, for a group like ours, the family dinner (“Grillade Familiale Abouda”) was a good call, designed to feed four diners, would be a great option for our group and avoid a lot of indecision. The dinner came with beverages (plus one extra we bought for our fifth diner), and looking over the options, we decided to try various Salaam Sodas. Salaam, based in the UK, makes a range of Halal-certified sodas for international distribution. Trying both the cola (will never be mistaken for Coca-Cola, but was pleasant) and orange (similar to Fanta), we enjoyed both.
After a few minutes, the family dinner started to arrive, and I was glad they had managed to push a few tables together for us, since this was a particularly large feast, with two plates of kaftegi, two bowls of rice, a large bowl of potatoes (cooked similarly to the previous night’s Portuguese potatoes), bread basket, house salad, and bowls of garlic sauce and harissa. Pretty much every inch of our three tables was covered with various parts of the feast.
While almost all of the meal was familiar to me (we eat a lot of Moroccan food, which is similar, with slightly different spicing), kaftegi was a new one to me: a dish of fried and chopped vegetables (like potatoes, peppers, zucchini, and olive) mixed with eggs, spices, and harissa. I rather liked this, it was vaguely remiscient of a baba-ghanoush, but with a different vegetable blend, and was rather good served up alongside some rice and some of the meats.
The meat platter itself was a sight to behold: a large platter loaded with Merguez sausage, chicken breast, lamb liver, kefta, and lamb chops, almost five pounds of meat, all nicely grilled and served up with a bunch of grilled peppers. I particularly liked the lamb chops and the Merguez: tender, nicely crisped on the grill with good fat reduction, and nicely spiced. Everyone enjoyed all the offerings except the lamb liver, which wasn’t most folks’ cup of tea, but there was certainly more than enough food for everyone (several of us took leftovers, especially knowing that the next day were were having the feast at the cabane).
Overall, we came away impressed with Restaurant Abouda. It’s an easygoing, informal spot that works especially well for a family-sized group, with an ambiance that’s omfortable, welcoming, and unpretentious. The food is a clear strength: generous portions, well-executed dishes, and prices that make it easy to explore the menu without hesitation. It also serves as an approachable introduction to a less familiar cuisine, striking a nice balance between authenticity and accessibility. All told, it delivers strong value and a satisfying experience, and is definitely a place worth returning to.
