On our first night in Montreal, Shae and her friend had a girls night out as Stef was due to fly back the following day. They ended up having dinner and drinks at the Mad Hatter Pub, a ten minute walk from our Airbnb.
Shae enjoyed it so much that she wanted to take me along too, so we headed there on our final night in Montreal for dinner and drinks.
The Mad Hatter Pub is a dive bar on Crescent St; you enter through some doors at street level and head down the stairs.
The place was apparently packed when Shae and Stef visited had visited on a Saturday night, but it was much quieter when she returned with me on a Tuesday evening. There were therefore plenty of tables available and we seated ourselves.
Within a minute or two of sitting down, our server brought over the menu which listed both the food and drink options.
Seeing as we were in Canada, I figured I’d try a Canadian beer and so ordered the Rickard’s Red. Shae got a Sex On The Beach even though it wasn’t listed on the cocktail menu.
To be honest, the beer wasn’t great. I ordered a Moosehead later on and I enjoyed that even less – apparently Canadian beer isn’t my thing.
Once he’d brought our drinks over, the server took our food orders. Here’s what’s on the menu:
The food at the Mad Hatter Pub is extremely good value as all the meals are $5 CAD (~$4). They’re not small portions either – they’re the size you’d normally expect to pay ~$10 for in the US.
I ordered the Homer Simpson which is a cheeseburger (I asked for no cheese) in a glazed donut with strips of bacon along with bacon jam. Although it’s not mentioned on the menu, it also comes with fries.
Both the burger and fries were good – not quite as good as the donut burgers I’ve had at Jack Brown’s and Sassy Bass Crazy Donuts but good nonetheless, especially considering it was only $5 CAD.
Shae ordered the Ooey-Gooey Mac N’ Cheese which came with a slice of toast and topped with bacon. She hadn’t realized it came with bacon, so I happily picked that off hers.
The picture above doesn’t really do justice to the serving size as the portion was larger than it looks (the bowl was very big). She liked the mac n’ cheese, although the slice of toast wasn’t great.
We also got a portion of chicken tenders to share which came with fries as well. That was way more fries than we needed in our lives, so we ended up leaving most of those.
Despite being pretty full by this stage, we decided to get dessert to share. When Shae had visited with Stef, she’d gotten the Late Late Night Special which is your choice of one of four cereals.
We were eating before 10pm though, so ordered The Big Lebowski. This has a chocolate cake base and is topped with ice cream, a couple of wafers and Jack Daniel’s Sweet Sauce with a fried Mars Bar on the side.
For US readers, Mars Bars are candy bars you can get in the US and Canada – the closest equivalent here in the US is a Milky Way bar. For UK readers, Milky Ways in the US are different to the ones in the UK. The closest equivalent of a UK Milky Way in the US is a 3 Musketeers.
Despite being from the UK, I’d never actually tried a deep fried Mars Bar – it was better than I was expecting. The chocolate cake was also tasty, but the ice cream wasn’t great as it was full of ice crystals, like it had been sitting in their freezer for too long.
We still had to pack up all our stuff at our Airbnb as we were moving on to Ottawa the following day, so we didn’t stay long after we’d finished our meal and drinks. If you did want to hang out at the Mad Hatter Pub, there’s table tennis, pool and large Jenga to keep you entertained.
Final Thoughts
The Mad Hatter Pub’s definitely worth a visit if you want somewhere fun to eat and/or drink in downtown Montreal. Their food is excellent value and drinks are also reasonably priced.
Even though I didn’t enjoy the two beers I ordered, that’s not their fault – they had other good beers on the menu.
Our Rating
Food = 4.4 / 5
Price = 4.8 / 5
Atmosphere = 4.5 / 5
Decor = 4.6 / 5
Service = 4.2 / 5
Total = 4.5 / 5
Address
Mad Hatter Pub, 1240 Crescent St, Montreal, QC H3G 2A9, Canada
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