On a recent trip to my company's home office in Montreal, we stayed once again out in the northern suburb of Terrebonne. In the old downtown area of Terrebonne there are a small number of quaint little restaurants. On this trip, my boss took the sales staff out to dinner and he picked out a little French-style steak house by the name of Steakerie Sainte-Marie. We piled into a couple vehicles and found the restaurant in the old section of Terrebonne. (see map)
Steakerie Sainte-Marie is one of those little French-style places that features an "auberge" style of food - sort of a French "farm-to-fork" restaurant. Many of the food items they serve at Steakerie Sainte-Marie are locally sourced and fresh. Using culinary creativity with these locally source foods, the fresh meat and seafood leaves a highly favorable gastronomic impression on the diner.
The building that houses Steakerie Sainte-Marie is an old house that dates back to the early 1800's. The inside of the restaurant is cozy and features a colonial French design style. There is a second floor dining area with an attached outdoor dining patio that is opened in the summer.
It was a slow Monday evening with only a couple other tables occupied when we arrived around 7 p.m. We were seated in sort of a back room area on the first floor around a large rectangular table. My boss immediately picked out an Oosyoos Larose wine from British Columbia. It was a full-bodied red with a meaty taste and a nice finish. The wine was surprisingly good for a west coast Canadian wine. Other than ice wine that I had a number of years ago, I don't think I'd ever had a Canadian wine since.
The menu was a variety of steaks and seafood. They featured five different sizes of tenderloin filets from 6 ounces to a whopping 14 ounce filet. There were also five different sizes of their New York strip steak - 12 ounces to 20 ounces. Steakerie Sainte-Marie also featured their house specialty, a prime rib in four different sizes from 12 to 18 ounces served with au jus.
For seafood, Steakerie Sainte-Marie had salmon, sole filet, and a chef's daily catch. You could also get a "surf-and-turf" with a filet tenderloin and a lobster tail. Steakerie Sainte-Marie featured a number of interesting appetizers including cheese plates, smoked salmon, shrimp cocktail, artichoke hearts, a seafood gratin dish, and their variation of a French onion soup.
I was kind of leaning toward getting a filet that evening. I was hungry, but didn't want the big 14 ouncer. So I cut back slightly and went with the 10 ounce filet, rare. For starters, I got the Escargot au Gratin - basically snails cooked in a butter garlic sauce and served in a bowl with cheese on top. A salad came with my meal and I got an order steak frites (French fries) on the side. Most of the guys at the table went for the steak entrees. In fact, someone ordered the peppercorn sauce on the side and I immediately told our waiter that I needed some of that, too.
My colleagues Ian and Francois both got the duet soup for a starter. It was a combination of a tomato based soup and a pea soup. Although it didn't sound good to me, it certainly looked interesting when it was served.
My boss got the French onion soup that featured a healthy cover of cheese and croutons. It looked like it was one of the heartiest French onion soups I'd ever seen. My boss declared it to be "wonderful".
My escargot au gratin was everything I hoped it would be. A thick layer of cheese covered the snails still simmering in the butter garlic sauce. The snails were cooked perfectly and had little of the earthy taste that you can get from the little slugs. In combination with the cheese, garlic and butter, the snails were just outstanding.
The salad came next. It was a mixture of greens and veggies with an oil and vinegar dressing on top. Compared to the excellent gratin au escargot, the salad was very anticlimactic. But it was still fresh and good.
Since we were literally the only group of people in the restaurant by that time, our steaks came out to the table not long after we finished our salads. My colleague Francois had ordered the special that evening - the "trio" consisting of a 12 ounce New York strip, grilled shrimp and grilled scallops. Steak frites also came with the entree and he got the peppercorn sauce, as well.
My filet appeared to be larger than the 10 ounces that I ordered. It was a good 2 1/2 inches thick and the grill marks on the outside made it appear that the steak was over-cooked. However when I first cut into it, it showed that the steak was a deep red rare, exactly as I ordered. The steak was tender, juicy, flavorful and it was almost a shame to dip cut pieces into the very rich and somewhat spicy peppercorn sauce. In fact, I used the peppercorn sauce more for the steak frites than for the steak. Couple with the sliced sauteed mushrooms, my steak was just superb.
I was overly stuffed by the end of my meal, but a couple guys were thinking about getting dessert. I groaned when I saw that they had creme brulee on the dessert menu, but more because I knew I'd had enough and I'd hate myself afterward if I ordered it up. One of my co-workers suggested getting some creme brulee, a caramel creme dessert, a chocolate caramel cake and a dessert with strawberries and chocolate on a graham cracker crust topped with whipped cream. Enough forks and spoons were distributed for those to share in the desserts who wanted them.
I had a couple bites of both the creme brulee and the creme caramel and both were very good. In fact, the desserts that were shared were destroyed by the time I remembered to take a picture of them. The desserts were a nice end to an excellent meal.
Once again, my boss came up with an excellent choice of restaurants in the greater Montreal area. I don't think I've ever had a bad meal in all my travels to Montreal and Steakerie Sainte-Marie was no exception. The atmosphere and service were top notch, the food was prepared perfectly and it was delicious. If you find yourself in the Montreal area and would like to take in the old downtown Terrebonne experience, you really have to stop into Steakerie Sainte-Marie for a very good meal.
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