Le Balthazar — Restaurant in Brossard

5 Stars for the service....

The food isn't fine dining nor is it close, but it's decent for the price. Sometimes, it surprises and wows you, sometimes it's a let down. Overall, after a few visits, it's worth the risk if you're looking for more than just dinner.

Let's be real. Balthazar shines for it's beer selection. It's what draws us in and what keeps us coming back. The list of local beers on tap is great and the fact that they have so many other drinks for non beer drinkers is even better. All the while, they keep the prices relative, which is huge! Nobody wants to pay $10 for a beer and have to pay $20 for their partner to have a margarita.

So overall. I have to say it's a job well done for food and prices. They know their demographic and are killing it.

After a handful of visits though, the thing that prompted me to write this review, is the service.

We've had bad service here before. So like anywhere, it can happen. Generally though, it's been up to par or if you're at the bar, better than most. However tonight was something else and deserving of mention.

We showed up and sat at the bar at around 6pm on a Saturday. Service was about what you'd expect to start, but within an hour, both my wife and I were pretty surprised by the bar tender's attention to detail.

He wasn't intrusive or overbearing at all, but also not dismissive or ignorant. He always made eye contact so that if we did need something, all it took was a glance at our glass and he was there.

With such a large and busy bar, both front and back, this is something you know was learned over time and we really appreciate as former service industry personnel. So job well done to Mathieu! Hope that's the correct spelling 🤞

I know there were two working tonight and both were on top of things. So I hate to single anyone out, but he was the one who served us all night and deserves mention. So if management is reading this, he was the taller of the two and was wearing the white shirt.

So now that the book is over, I guess I should say. We'll be back. Probably in the next few weeks. Tonight was...

I've visited this place multiple times over the years mainly due to their selection of beers. My most recent experience didn't meet my expectations on so many levels.

Food: ordered their quinoa burger, replaced the fries with a salad. Salad came in a small bowl next to my burger. The preparation of the salad leads me to believe it was simply taken out of a fridge, it had wilted leaves, portion size is inadequate. Burger is tasty though.

Service: our server was horrible, ignored our table, difficult to get his attention. I had there for 4 hours and only managed to have 2 rounds of tasters. Think of all the money you missed out on as a restaurant with servers like that.

Management: the manager yelled at his employer for providing us with a menu that had beers they weren't serving yet. To the manager in question, I was using the Untappd menu to order, not your printed one. So the mistake is on you for changing it early?

Beer: Ok selection. The bottle list is nice and the geek menu is great. I try a lot of beer and there was a particular one that had an obvious butter smell and flavour to it. This is a fault from the brewing process. I informed the waiter of this fault and he didn't seem to care nor inform anyone of that fact. That's cool, just keep serving a beer with an obvious Diacetyl problem. The beer was replaced with...

I am amazed by the amount of food they have in their menu. There is such a wide selection of meals which makes it a bit hard for me when there are so many options but it also makes it easier for larger groups to each find something they like. The portions were pretty big, especially the appetisers. They were around 20$ each plate but the portions were big enough to share for 4 which was great. The main plates are also around 20$ which is fine for their portion. The food itself was good. There was a great crunchiness to the nachos and the flavours were also pretty good. I especially like how the sauces are put on the side instead of it being poured on top of the food like so many other restaurants. The tacos were also really good. Each bite had a good amount of cheese and meat and since it came with a salad, it made the meal pretty balanced for me. The service was amicable throughout the night which also made the night more enjoyable. Unfortunately for us, we were once again sitting right beside the speakers for the live music. I found the live music really nice but the speakers right beside us made the music way too loud for us to enjoy and it was simply just more difficult to talk between ourselves...