Caifan Mtl - Mexican restaurant & cocktail bar — Restaurant in Montreal

Very disappointed, cannot in all honesty recommend.

The waitress was friendly and very good, frequently checking in. Although as I will note later, once my excitement faded and my disappointment set in, as if she could sense I no longer had anything nice to say about the food or drinks, she completely stopped asking how things were.

I had 2 mezcals, they were good and fairly priced even if the selection is somewhat lacking. They mostly have espadín, which is fine but they're going for a fancier vibe I wish the mezcal selection mirrored this choice. The tobalá they had was quite good, but they did upsell me on some passable accompaniment.

I had tacos de cochinita pibil and the ones they call tacochon, those were the highlight of the food, even if they were pricey. Please note that they will charge you extra for salsa verde which feels excessively greedy.

I shared a pozole de mariscos, I am a huge fan of pozole so I was excited to try it, but I found it bland and severely lacking in flavor. It was also very expensive for what it was, which was very disappointing since it was so severely underwhelming. The temperature was also a little more on the lukewarm side than I would have liked.

The biggest disappointment of the night came when I ordered a michelada, a sort of beer Caesar. I am a huge fan of micheladas, especially with clamato, and this one tasted quite nice. It is typically served as an entire beer, sometimes as a side glass of clamato and Worcestershire with a tajín rim. This one cost twice as much as a beer and appeared small. When I started drinking, I realized it was filled with ice! The beer cocktail which already felt small for the amount it cost disappeared increasingly rapidly as the volume of liquid the glass was composed of 70% ice. This was the last drink of the night and it left me with such a (metaphorical) bad taste in my mouth that my review had to reflect this.

As mentioned, the waitress who checked in with every mezcal and taco, to whom I had said nothing but good things, never once asked about the huge disappointment that was the overpriced ice filled michelada. It may seem petty but that michelada left me feeling like I got scammed.

To recap: decently priced but limited mezcal selection, expensive lukewarm seafood soup, additional charge for the expected Mexican salsa verde, an absolute scam of a michelada, and great if pricey tacos.

With so many good and cheaper taquerias in the area, it feels unfair to recommend this place for the one thing they did well since other spots will make them cheaper and just...

My husband and I went to Caifan for dinner on a Thursday evening just after arriving into Montreal (we drove, so we were tired of being in the car and were really hungry). The staff was friendly and welcoming when we arrived and we were quickly shown to our table (we did have a reservation). Our server came to the table shortly after we sat down and took our drink orders, I had the Cubanita and my husband had the Valdiosera, both cocktails were fantastic. For an appetizer, we had the octopus tostada which was good, the sauce overpowered the octopus a little and it was just a touch overcooked, but not horribly. We then had two types of tacos, the gobernador and arrachera, both were tasty, but we liked the arrachera just a little better. The beef was so flavorful and all the toppings on the taco complemented the meat perfectly. The gobernador tacos were good, but they were a little light on the shrimp so there were more toppings/sauces than actual shrimp. We also had the cochinita pibil wrapped in cheese with black bean puree and all sorts of toppings/sauces. It was absolutely the best thing we had all evening. The meat was tender and had so much flavor, all the sauces were wonderful and the toasty cheese around the outside of the meat was nutty and had great texture. For dessert, our server recommended the Lokito, which was white chocolate in the shape of an ear of corn filled with corn cream and it also had pumpkin ganache and tajin. At first I thought the tajin was a little strange on a dessert but by after a few bites I really appreciated the tanginess and spice it brought to the dish. Our server was very patient with us not speaking French and did the best she could to communicate with us (we did a lot of pointing at the menu to order, which worked just fine). She kept our water glasses full and we never had to wait very long for anything. Overall, we would be happy to return and enjoyed...

Visited Caifan for their collaboration with MTLàTable for 5 courses offered at 65$ pre taxes

Food was okay. The tostada de hongos was enjoyable, but the tacos were very very salty. The scallop we ordered for our 3rd course was also overcooked. I did not bother taking a picture of the scallop for the following reason:

The service was hit or miss. There was one gentleman who was very polite and welcoming. That said, our waitress was very confused and we waited upwards to 30 minutes to receive our 3rd course. In fact, the table next to us arrived after us, ordered after us, and began eating after us. Even then they received their 3rd course while we still await ours.

When we spoke to our waitress, she was confused that we were still waiting for our food as she thought we were ready to move onto our 4th course. She went to speak with the kitchen and she brought our 3rd course almost immediately. This makes me believe that our food had been waiting for a while before it was brought to us.

Our 4th course was brought to us shortly after, and upon finishing it, our utensils were taken away and were told that our dessert would be on the way. After upwards of 15 minutes, our waitress brings us new plates of tacos and was surprised that our utensils were already taken away. She then confirms with us for a second time that we were waiting for our dessert.

All in all, our meal took nearly 2h15 from start to finish due to the long wait times and the confusion that the staff had with regards to our meal. And the meal...