James B.
Yelp
My wife, son (9) and I visit Longueuil about twice a year from where we currently live in New York because my wife's relatives live here. After they yet again hosted us at one of their places, we took her cousin and the cousin's parents to Silvia Grill, seeing that it was highly recommended and a bit elevated. Montreal has many Portuguese restaurants specializing in rotisserie chicken that we would like to try. We chose this one because we are very accustomed to eating at Brazilian steakhouses. The menu at this Portuguese restaurant is similar to what we're used to so we felt comfortable recommending it; we also bet big on this place because my wife's aunt is an excellent cook, I mean a ridiculously good chef of all kinds of Peruvian foods in particular (my wife is Peruvian, I am a gringo of Italian/Sicilian extraction from New York).
Our group ordered their national soup caldo verde, Caesar salad and a bottle of Spanish wine to start (reasonable and delicious). Caldo verde is a soup made of collard greens, potato and garnished with smoked Portuguese chorizo. This one was thinner in consistency than its Brazilian counterpart that we always order in New York, and it is a small serving in a big white plate. It has an earthy flavor of potato and fresh collards, and with just three delicious slices of chorizo it is light and fitting starter to a big meal. My son had the Caesar salad which they said was good. To me it looked over-engineered and a bit overdressed, and it looked to be a very small serving. We omitted the slices of crispy chorizo for his benefit and he liked it very much (at nine years old he has a thing for Caesar salad and salad in general).
For entrees it was a whole different story. My wife and son split the special, a flank steak frites. I'm not a fan of flank steak but it was delicious. The French fries were perfect and the side of sauteed vegetables was great, too. I did notice, and this is all over Quebec province where we visit, that the size of the steak is (very) small by American standards so sharing this was not optimal since my son is a good eater.
My wife's uncle and I ordered the grelhada mista, or mixed grill, consisting of a delicious quarter chicken (excellent spicy peri peri sauce on top!), a pork, a small serving of steak (flank I think) and their delicious smoked chorizo. The accompanying potatoes and sauteed vegetables were excellent, too. I have no comments on the size of this dish because it was filling.
My wife's aunt and her daughter ordered one paella and it looked delicious. It had saffron rice, chorizo, chicken and seafood. They both raved about it and what meant a lot to us was that my wife's aunt was excitedly trying to identify all of the seasonings. My wife's cousin, in fact, said she would order a few of them next week for her two brothers who were not present, for takeaway to have at dinner.
The desserts, too, were excellent. Our guests ordered blueberry cheesecake which they said was delicious (this appeared to be French-style cheesecake with blueberry compote). My wife had a caramel flan that was delicious (I sampled it), and I had the national dessert of pastéis de nata. These are vanilla custard tarts that are either served hot or made to order. I've had them before and these were stellar.
Overall I highly recommend this place. Our server was great about everything -- he spoke English, French and some Portuguese -- including wine and food recommendations for the uninitiated. I've made it a point to report on some restaurants in Quebec because I've noticed that it's difficult for Americans to navigate that mess of badly presented Google Maps reviews. I'm glad I started with this place!