McDonald's it ain't
I ventured the other day into an area of Montreal I've been largely (but unintentionally) neglecting for the time I've been here - I was meeting a friend for lunch who recommended that we go to Santropol (3990 rue St Urbain), a place I'd never heard of, nowhere near my usual 'downtown-of-downtown' hang-out zone. I wasn't convinced. He mentioned that they had sandwiches. I agreed.
Post-visit, sandwiches are the least of what they have at Santropol. The place buzzes with a hippie-meets-beatnik sensibility, with quirky music and an outdoor terrace overshadowed with huge trees, replete with squirrels and birds. The place is basically built in a house, its almost invisible from the street - you'd walk right by it if you weren't looking too closely - but if you do manage to see it, you're in for a culinary treat.
Santropol has a largely vegetarian theme for its sandwiches and other dishes (what with all the nature around the terrace area), but they smartly include some meat dishes and the ability to add chicken to the sandwiches if you like. I myself added chicken to the sandwich I had, and almost felt a twinge of guilt for ordering meat while a squirrel stared at me from the branch of a tree opposite our table.
Guilt aside, the sandwiches were amazing (and amazingly huge), the service was prompt and friendly (we had a delightfully post-punk, pierced and tatted, British-accented waiter) and the atmosphere was tastefully eccentric. Recommended.
