Montreal: Justine A Vin

Montreal eating: Justine a Vin
We had a wonderful meal and experience at Justine this little basement restaurant with brick walls and small tables lined up on two sides of the room. Again, we had one waitperson covering the whole space of about 15 tables. And, surprisingly, this place stayed about half full the whole night (we were there a bit over two hours). The waiter helped make this restaurant because he clearly loved his job and didn’t seem stressed at all the work he had to do or about whether the restaurant had enough business.
The menu was very limited with about five or six appetizers (The waiter recommended a foie gras crème brulee but our experience with foie gras has been so bad even at the French Laundry and Bouchon that we just couldn’t see our way to ordering it); four salads and about five entrees. We selected two salads: one was a warm goat cheese with greens that had grapes and apples; the other was a lobster salad with grapefruit, orange and ginger. Both salads were very tasty but overdressed. This seems to be a common problem in Canada. I need to make more of an effort to ask that the salad be lightly dressed instead. The lobster meat was tender and tasty and perfectly complimented by the citrus. The goat cheese was a fairly large slice with rind on that was lightly fried and placed on a slice of crostini on the salad. The goat cheese was tangy rather than sweet and went well with the salad.
After the salads, we had a veal stew with creamy spinach risotto and red cabbage pickled (I think or at least in a light vinegar); and the special fish which we didn’t even know what kind. I can’t believe we ordered it because we tend not to like fish. The fish was served with fennel (the vegetable) and spices on top in a lobster bisque. Vive said it was very fishy but the flavors went well together and the fish was wonderfully tender and flaky (I think it might have been catfish). The lobster bisque tasted fishy too but it went well when you ate everything in one bite.
Finally, for dessert I ordered the Quebec cheese plate and vive had white chocolate crème brulee. There were two cheeses on the plate one looked like the Ash blue from California and tasted like a mild blue cheese the other was a brie, I would guess, with a light creamy texture and a bit of tang. They were served with this kind of caramelized fruit thing that looked like I wouldn’t like it (I tend to strongly dislike candied fruit) and it was almost impossible to get out of its little dish. But it was so tasty and we scraped every last bite out of the dish. The crème brulee had a strange curdled texture and tasted a bit too much of egg, but it wasn’t bad. The sugar on top was great.