Late night goodness: Bocadillo! Venzuelan offerings

Montreal is a city alive. It can seem like no mater the time or season, there is always something to do. Winter? Excellent; let's celebrate the snow. Summer? Perfect; let's celebrate that there is no more snow. During the day, there are shops, museums, parks and in a worst case scenario, a cafe somewhere to while away the hours. In some ways, however, it's at night that Montreal can really come alive. The funny thing is that you can so easily do at night most of the same things you can do in the day, plus so much more. The summers here are one festival after another, and the arts and culture available all year round will allow you plays, concerts and shows covering the spectrum of interests and talents not to mention budgets - most of the best music festivals are right in the center of town and you can sit and listen to free music for days on end if you want to. Want to get dressed up to go out, dance and put back a couple? We've got that covered too. Between Crescent St right downtown, Duluth for the restaurant crowd and St. Laurant for the see-and-be-seens, we've got your entertainment; but what night out with friends would be complete without a late night bite??

The club that I used to call home on a Friday night is, sadly, no longer in business, but was located just up the street from a little Venezuelan place that brilliantly stayed open till after all the bars on St. Laurent discorged their patrons at 3 am, looking for something to eat and a cab home. Bocadillo, located right beside a pizza place, is a tiny litte shop front that actually opens right up on to St. Laurent during the summer months, and while it can't really accomodate too many people at a time, the staff are friendly, pretty quick considering that you are getting real food and no matter what the wait is, it will be worth it!

A friend of mine who also has food intollerances introduced me one night as the others in our group were off hunting down poutine and the like, and it has become one of my favourite 'fast food' joints of all time. The menu has a few items that are gluten free just as is, due to the 'bread' being corn based as opposed to wheat based, but they will happily switch the regular bread out for the corn based ones if asked.

I generally get the fried pork arrepas (the round, buger-like sandwich pictured above on the left) though I am also a big fan of the empanadas. The arrepas is the corn bread that holds the filling (and you have lots of options), though I always order the fried pork which is slow cooked with a passion fruit sauce and pulled to shreds. Heaven! The empanadas, a slow roasted beef (above, left) and fish (above, right) are both super tasty, and at $3.10 each after a night of drinking, quite affordable! The chicken is good too, though for obvious reasons I haven't tried the cheese.

Whether you are going after a night out, for a night out or as take out, do yourself a favour and get the yucca fries; you'll never want potato fries again!! Yucca, or manioc, is a starchy root vegetable that lends itself to fries so well I almost feel cheated that I only discovered them in my 30s. They coat them with a cumin salt and serve them with a basil mayo (what you see in the little cups) that is so tasty on it's own that do yourself a favour and ask for extras when you order. The fries are best eaten on site, as you really do want to eat them when thy are almost too hot or the starchiness really comes through.

Lastly, what to drink: if you are not yet familiar with it, allow me to introduce you to Inca Kola.

I am not a fan of soda (I hate the bubbles), but I will make an exception for Inca Kola. Originating in Peru, it is the only cola to ever out sell Coca Cola in it's home country, so the Coke company bought them out and allowed them to carry on as usual. The flavour is almost like a cream soda, but not as cloyingly sweet, and let me warn you that it is neon yellow, so really, just drink it from the can. It is hard to find outside of Latino shops, but if you do get a line on where you can find this for purchase, keep it to yourself as those who enjoy Inca Kola will go far afield to find it!

They will also offer a traditional Venezuelan holiday meal around the Christmas season which, except for the ham sandwich roll, is labelled as gluten free. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, though it looks very interesting, not in small part because it's cooked in banana leaves!

I also haven't tried the fried plantain, mainly because I only noticed it on the menu the last time I went in, but that gives me something to look forward to, and closed down watering hole or not, I can promise there will be a next time!