Le Galopin — Restaurant in Quebec

Wednesday evening. I went by Galopin on my way to the maritime from Ontario.

Bread - typical stuff; plain butter; olive oil is fused with garlic and basil

The oil is nice. The butter can be just a little more heated and ‘spiced’ a little, say with cauliflower.

Appetizer - I ordered scallop wrapped with cucumber on a base of mixed vegetables in cubes (for the lack of better words, think a salsa mix), accompanied with celery flavoured cream.

The veggie mix is slightly acidic and spicy. It goes well with the scallop which is roasted just right (cooked enough for the scallop flavour to come out but not over cooked to too dry; also not grease soaked, which can happen in restaurants all too often). The celery cream goes with the veggie mix well. However, the three together all but removed the traces of scallop flavour and texture. The small scallop doesn’t cost much. Either a few more scallops can be used or other parts can be reduced or both. (I’m from even more in land and it doesn’t cost much from my local vendors. Can it be more expensive in Quebec? Perhaps.) Overall, the dish is good.

Main - I ordered red deer and smoked duck tartar. It came with a large portion of garden salad and fries. The tartar is accompanied by a breaded whole egg. (Novel, isn’t it?) The egg white is cooked to solid but still very tender. This is important as the yolk enhances the texture of the tartar but if the egg is thrown in undercooked - with raw yolk AND white, the sense of slurpy rawness can become too overbearing. Thumb up here. The tartar itself is somewhat mediocre. The texture is good. The meat is cut into fine pieces, (which is less trivial than it sounds. Deer meat is not exactly easy to cut finely. And you can’t chop on the same spot of meat repeatedly. That would ruin the texture.) But the spicy sauce overwhelms the flavour of the meat, which, being raw, is necessarily subtle. For the same reason, the smoked duck is too salty. Less salty version needs to be ordered from their vendor. For the record, I have high spice tolerance and for tonight I ordered medium spicy. It’s not about the spiciness. It’s about what should stand out. If the spiciness comes from an oil-based sauce and applied just on top without mixing , it may create the spicy zap without covering the subtle and enjoyable flavor of the tartar meat. But the sauce is water-based and soaked the tartar. Still, spiciness is just not to the point. The salad and the fries are by themselves. Nothing to comment upon. Overall, the tartar is a solid production but it can be better.

Desert - it hasn’t arrived yet.

Service - great. Welcoming and friendly.

Atmosphere - good. Offers good privacy when the place is not crowded.

All in all, the meal is decent. I think it costs about $43 plus tax and tips. I think the price is reasonable? You be the judge.

Note on the stars: 3 out of 5 with a connotation of approval is my intention. But you cant give 0 out of 5. Thus if one star is abysmal, 3 star is probably just neural. As in, is 3 out of 5 actually 2 out of 4, which would be a little low for a decent meal? I suppose that’s...

A friend and I came across Galopin just by chance in November 2016. The restaurant was so unassuming, staff unobtrusive and subtle, yet so efficient and friendly. The meals we'd chosen blew us away. It was the best dinner experience for both of us in years.

Since then, I'd often recommended Galopin to friends who planned to travel to Quebec City.

This time I visited Quebec City with my spouse, it was a birthday weekend! The planned highlight: Dinner at the Galopin. I was looking forward to it with such expectation.

My wife is 100% non-alcoholic and is gluten free. We couldn't find gluten-free option that did not include alcohol. Wait staff didn't really seem to be motivated. We felt rushed, as if accommodating these needs would be asking too much.

So, her choices were very limited. Finally she settled on steak, which was ok - if on the cold side. We'd rate it at a 8/10. But this was the steak only.

I'd rate my own dinner at a 5/10. The starter (Sweetbreads) was a 6.5, the interim salad a joke [really a 'minus one'] as the lettunce leaves were dried out and flavourless, there was not enough dressing and ,in addition, our server did not even bother to ask if anything else was needed. My main dish was blood sausage with with scallops. The scallops were fine, but the additional items on the plate were rather flavorless (5 /10). The dessert was too dry and the apple flavor in the 6 little spots on the plate was recognisable, but just neglectable in dimension (3/ 10).

The Rose Vine (Portuguese) was fine and presented at the right temperature. A good choice. My coffee was excellent.

Given my high anticipation, it was a disastrous evening. I was so...

Came here because it was close to our hotel and the reviews on google looked great, which I still just don't understand. Maybe we had an off night but the food all tasted just average at best. Yes, it is presented very well on the plate. But honestly, the flavours are all so average I could do a better job cooking at home. The tartar, there was so much spice added to it that you couldn't even taste anything else. The salad was just a plain salad with some dressing on it. The main, I got the lamb '3 ways'. It was a small chewy porterhouse that I couldn't even cut away from the bone, some slices of what looked like store bought sausage and some shredded dark lamb meat with absolutely no seasoning. The gravy also tasted like something out of a packet. It was so thick it looked more like a jelly then pan juices. For dessert I got the creme brulee and it was so runny it looked more like a soup, I took one bite (slurp?) and left it. Came once and would never come again nor recommend it to anyone. You are better off going the extra 15 minutes to Old Quebec and getting some really good food for...