St. Laurent

You’ll probably hear some hipsters talking shit about how they never go to St. Laurent anymore and how it’s so “over.” Fuck that. Those people are just allergic to something we call “fun.” In fact, St-Laurent basically is Montréal. That’s why they call it the Main. Just start at the bottom and walk up. See, that only took half an hour and you saw everything you needed to see. Granted, on weekends the bars between Prince Arthur and des Pins get chock-a-block with goombahs and Boston chiefs waiting to punch anyone that doesn’t speak English, but that’s the price you pay for a good time. Here’s a street-walking guide to St Laurent. Like we said, start from the bottom and head up.

24 OLD PORT: One time we were walking around here and some Hollywood film crew turned an entire cobblestone street into Nazi Germany, complete with swastikas and storm troopers goose-stepping down the street. That was scary and cool, but normally the Old Port is pretty lame. We heard the bar at the W Hotel on a Tuesday or Friday is a good place to have drinks, but otherwise, unless your idea of a having fun is hanging around with obese American families and shopping for oversize dream-catchers, you can just skip this area entirely.  PHO BANG NEW YORK: Located at the base of Chinatown, this place is the best Vietnamese in town, hands down. Their pho (noodle soup) is killer, but their other dishes are just as good. It recently moved from across the street and even though the new surreal Greco-Viet decor is completely mind-bending, we liked it better when it was seedier and smelled like hands. Order the number 26 but go easy on the hot sauce because it will blow your face off. CLEOPATRA: St. Laurent and Ste. Catherine is an axis of sketch that must be experienced at least once in your life. Sandwiched between the greasy spoons, jack shacks, strip clubs, brothels, and Sri Lankan teenage runaways, is this two-floor institution. The ground level is filled with crackhead streetwalkers and the second is the “cabaret” where pre-op trannies pick up $20 bills with their ass cheeks. MIDWAY: Montréal has a lot of these types of dives where most of the patrons are lobotomized Molson-ex drinkers in sweatpants, and toothless Eskimos sit around yelling about how they’re going to punch each other in the head. The jukeboxes are almost invariably shit, but every now and then you rediscover an amazing song that sounds insane really loud. Plus the beer is, like, a dollar. LE PAIN DE L'INDE: A great family-run place where the choice is simple: the meat plate or the vegetarian plate. It’s dirt cheap and perfect for anyone who just wants to get their curry on and doesn’t care about the difference between saag aloo and saag paneer. The mango lassi is a liquid orgasm. BUONA NOTTE: This is ground zero for the kind of Euro-trash that the lower Main is famous for. All the waitresses are 10s (which makes them unfuckable) and at night it’s all high-fiving bankers and metrosexuals that dance to really gay music. The back wall is covered with autographed plates of “stars” that have eaten there, like Lenny Kravitz and Ben Affleck. If you haven’t guessed already, this place sucks. If the food wasn’t so good we’d say burn this fucking place to the ground. On second thought, fuck this place and everyone in it. CAFÉ MÉLIES: If you want to have a nice high-end brunch on weekends, the eggs here are out of control. Unfortunately the interior is so overdone in that Quebecois pseudo-futuristic George-Lucas-meets-Cirque-de-Soleil décor that the only way you can keep your breakfast down is to eat outside. LOLA AND EMILY: If you’re a girl, this is a great place to shop. It’s got all kinds of frilly stuff and features pieces from local designers. The layout feels like you just walked into a 12-year-old’s bedroom, which is comforting if you’re a girl and a little creepy if you’re a guy. SAQ: Stop here to pick up ammo if you’re going to go drinking in the park. CAFETERIA: If you can stomach the acid jazz, the breakfasts here are off the chain. The price/quality ratio is excellent and the oven-baked tomato is a nice way to top off a hangover. At night this place splits up into factions of Jewish bro’s and Greek bro’s, and is to be avoided at all cost unless you’re looking for Columbian marching powder, which can easily be found if you’re discreet enough. EURO-DELI: A great Italian-style eatery with a good selection of pastas and salads. The spinach or sausage calzones will fill you up while the slices of cheese pizza are huge and fucking scrumptious. This is a classic Main spot to hit before or after a night of binge drinking. LE CORRIDOR: We don’t know why people are so into Caribbean food since it always gives us a stomachache and an explosive case of the doo-doo browns. But if you insist, this is the place to hit. It’s located in the corridor of a building that sometimes holds some good after-hours rock parties in the lofts above. Try the homemade ginger beer and jerk chicken. PIZZA 1+1: Once we found a piece of tin can in our 99-cent slice and all they did was offer us another slice. Like, how do we know there isn’t another fucking metal shard in this one too? We ate it anyways. The pizza is that good, and we were drunk. BIFTEK: This place was really cool about 10 years ago when it was more of a dive. The DJs used crappy cassette decks, and Nazi punks would come in every now and then to try and kick everyone’s asses. Now it feels like a meathead frat party, which has its pros (the girls are easy) and cons (everyone is stupid). At least the pitchers are still cheap. SAPHIR: The first floor of this place has been off the chain on Fridays for the last year. The crowd is a mix of straight and gay hipsters with complicated haircuts and they play all kinds of music and people get really drunk and horny. TOKYO: The music is sometimes a major buzzkill and the bouncers can be right fuckheads, but there’s a great two-level terrace out back that can be an ideal place to waste an evening. PISTOL: This is kind of an upscale Biftek that has been inundated with collegiate art-student posers who have organized screenings of the O.C. on the bar’s giant plasma screen (you get the picture). The lunches are great and cheap even though the menu theme is James Bond tacky. SCHWARTZ: This place is the shit. A hole-in-the-wall deli that serves the best smoked meat sandwich in the world. There’s always a line-up, but it goes fast so be patient. And don’t waste your time on the lean cut; the fatty stuff with some mustard and a pickle makes NYC’s Katz’s pastrami literally taste like it’s made of shit. FRAPPÉ: This place is pretty whatever unless you like playing pool with losers. Its only saving grace is that if you haven’t set up some kind of drug connection before you got to town (duh), you can pretty much get what you need from this place. Don’t make it too obvious or you’ll blow it for everybody. COPACABANA: This is a good no-frills place to grab a quiet afternoon buzz. That guy sipping beer near the window with the glasses and the cane is Ryan Larkin. He was a Montréal artist that made mind-blowing cartoons for Canada’s National Film Board in the 60s and like most 60s artists he lost everything in an 80s-era coke-fueled haze. Now he panhandles for change in front of Schwartz and lives in a homeless shelter. Oh yeah, there was an animated short film about him that won an Oscar a few years ago. MIAMI: This is one of the few dark watering holes on the Main that manages to keep some sort of genuine seediness. If you want to slip into an anonymous stupor, this is the place. It used to have a decent terrace in back but it’s recently been covered over with shitty plywood, making the entire place a smoke-filled cancer box. This is one of those staple places to go when all else fails. BLIZZARTS: This is another Plateau bar standard and good place to hold court. The music is always good and since they added booths, the place fills up pretty quick, which makes it fun to be at, but sometimes impossible to get a drink. Saturday’s are their strongest night right now (dance-y electro and rock) and always a good time. KOROVA: Behind the bar is a giant mounted dragon head that is so medieval Quebec it hurts. Tuesday nights they play everything from dancehall to grime to weird disco stuff, which is pretty fun, but Wednesday nights here are the real-deal-Hollyfield. It’s a rock night and they plays all sorts of amazing obscure shit that rock nerds jizz over. Once we were here and a guy from Guitar Wolf was trying to explain to some fan why he loves Tom Cruise in the most broken, drunken English ever. He kept spitting and almost throwing up on the poor guy as he talked and it was really uncomfortable and weird and funny for everyone. JUPITER ROOM: With no cover charge and 2 for 1 rum and vodka specials on Thursdays and Fridays, this place does get blackout crazy. The sound is really shit but the music isn’t why you come here. You’re here to drink and/or get laid, which is pretty easy if you don’t fuck it up by throwing up everywhere. BAGEL ETC.: This place is famous for its Leonard Cohen sightings but don’t let that stop you. The atmosphere is cozy and the huevos rancheros are top-notch. SUPER MARCHÉ ANDES: A great cheap-eats place where you can eat papusas and other Central American food right next to the grocery aisles. Ask them about their 50s Spanish rock CD compilations, some of them are pretty good. EL SALON: This is a popular show space with that low-panelled-ceiling/church-basement feel. By day, old people come here to learn how to tango, by night, it becomes a smoky hipster sweatbox where you can see some really good bands and smash a bottle or two. L’ORAGE: This is one of the only swinger clubs in Montréal. With theme nights like “nounette russe et douche de sperme” (literally Russian pussy and shower of sperm), you can only imagine how bad it can get in there, then multiply that by 10,000 and you have reality. Members only. AUX VIVRES: The service here is shit. After you wait an hour for your food there’s a one-in-five chance they’ll get it wrong. Once I saw a particularly self-righteous waitress fly into a rage at someone for driving a car, it’s that bad. That said, it’s pretty much the only real fully vegan restaurant around and the sandwiches are like flavor explosions in your mouth, so suck it up. CASA DEL POPOLO: For those of you who care, this place, La Sala Rossa across the street, and El Salon are owned by one of the Godspeed You! Black Emperor guys, so it has that cozy communist/anarchist hippie vibe. The food here is pretty good and vegan friendly and they have a nice quiet backyard for drinking. There’s always a good show playing here at some point in the week so check the big chalkboard on the wall. Capacity is something like 100 people, so get here early if it’s a hot ticket. LA SALA ROSSA: This was an old Spanish social center, so upstairs it has that hardwood-floor chandelier red-curtain vibe that’s always nice. This is another good bet to see bands. Downstairs serves tapas and a killer weekend brunch menu. LE SALON VERT/MAIN HALL: Downstairs is a decent-size unpretentious pub with an OK jukebox. Wednesday night is usually game night where you can get wasted and play Scrabble or Operation or, if you wait around long enough, Drunk Guy Jenga. Upstairs is a 300-person-capacity show space that has a decent stage and decent sound. Chromeo sometimes throws monthly parties here that are really fun. CAFÉ ESPERANZA: There’s a distinctly commie/lesbian vibe about this place that’s means lots of wood, crafty décor, and single moms with full sleeve tattoos. This is the gateway to the hipster haven known as Mile End (Montréal’s Williamsburg) and it’s a good place to grab a coffee or a breakfast burrito and chill. LITTLE ITALY: Way up past the train tracks is Little Italy, which is a bit of a mystery to us. We heard about a pizza place called Napolitana and an old-school Italian coffee joint called Café International where old Italians sit around and watch soccer all day. But apart from that, you’ll have to go check it out for yourself.