Rapido
I am ashamed to admit that I’ve never eaten at ‘La Binerie’. This legendary Quebecois lunch counter has been serving pate chinois, tortiere, and their signature feves-aux-lard since, well, way before I can find out on the first 2 pages of a Google search.
I finally decided to seal the deal one sunny Sunday morning, so I called up my friend Paulie. 30 minutes later me and my ladyfriend and Paulie were on our bicycles, pedaling southwards, towards the stretch of Mont-Royal between St-Lawrence and St-Denis where I knew my fate awaited.
La Binerie is a place I had heard about my entire life. It is the Francophone ‘Cosmo’s’. Movie stars and hockey players eat there, and they happily sit at the little counter sandwiched between octogenarian social-security collectors and off-duty police officers. I was excited. Until I tried to open the door.
AAGGHHH!!!!!!
Defeat! Vacation?!?! Of course! Everything around here is closed the last 2 weeks of July for what we call the “construction holiday”. Everyone, from blue-collar labourers to wealthy textile merchants, takes off to the sunny shores of Maine to swim in the ocean and eat lobster and fudge all day. Hmm . . . maybe these guys are setting up a temporary breakfast counter on the beach in Wells or Ogunquit? My eyes begin to tear at the thought of their beans ‘n’ lard - with molasses poured freely over them.
Okay . . . okay . . . think . . .I still have to eat . . . I can’t hold a hunger strike for 2 weeks . . . or can I? . . .no . . . ladyfriend suggests a place she used to frequent . . .called ‘Anecdote’ . . .we can try that . . . so we bike a few blocks east to the corner of 
and enter
Nice. so far, even though I am still reeling from the fact that La binerie has eluded me, I am relieved to see that Anecdote looks pretty cool.
We sit down. Coffee is served. Paulie orders tea. We open the menu to see what brunchly fate is in store for our bean-deprived hungry bellies, and that’s when we see it:
Crap! Foiled again! Maybe the hunger strike wasn’t so far-fetched.
Okay . . .okay . . .still. . . must eat . . . I suggest biking all the way to NDG to eat at Cosmo’s . .but it is getting late - past noon -so we solemnly bike towards the corner of 
where I know there to be a family-owned restaurant that I think serves all-day breakfast.
But, as fate would have it, we are too late.
At this point I am weak with hunger. I consider eating my bicycle seat. Just then, Paulie, who has disappeared from sight, calls out that he found a place directly across from where we were fading away.
Rapido.
It is open.
It serves breakfast A L L D A Y .
I thank god, Jehovah, Allah, and Calvin Trillin. I think about Vishnu, but wasn’t he kinda skinny?
We order omelettes and over-easies with sausages:
The toast was thick, the sausages were great, and the potatoes were better.
We didn’t know if the food tasted delicious because of how hungry we were and how far we had come, but we didn’t care.
We were eating breakfast. Hallelujah.
I didn’t even scold Paulie for not finishing his fruit for the money shot.
Soon, when I have regained my strength and my will, I will try to visit La Binerie.
Pray for me.
October 16th, 2006 at 6:45 am
Seriously though la Binerie is worth it, and they serve breakfast all day too. The only thing is to make sure not to go too late because the famous beans are cooking all day and come 6pm, they are pretty overcooked (while pretty good none the less).
Do it!