{"id":2383,"date":"2012-07-26T22:27:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-26T22:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rf.podcastfixit.com\/index.php\/2012\/07\/26\/le-den-draws-crowds-worthy-of-le-carre\/"},"modified":"2015-06-01T19:42:04","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T19:42:04","slug":"le-den-draws-crowds-worthy-of-le-carre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newscoverage.org\/index.php\/2012\/07\/26\/le-den-draws-crowds-worthy-of-le-carre\/","title":{"rendered":"Le Den draws crowds worthy of a Le Carr\u00e9 novel"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nCaf\u00e9-bakery the focal point of Valois Village<\/b><\/i>
\n<\/b><\/div>\n


<\/b>
\nBy Robert Frank<\/b>
\nwww.thesuburban.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Visiting New York Times<\/a> correspondents, a former spy, politicians making election speeches, airport officials, well-known children’s authors, throngs of teachers, mothers who just dropped off their kids at school or who just poured out of the women’s centre slinging one-month-olds, youths from the Valois pool and city engineering staff\u2014these are just some of the hundreds of people who visit Valois Village every day to meet at Le Den.<\/p>\n

At first blush, the unpretentious but cozy Pointe Claire venue seems an unlikely draw. The d\u00e9cor is deceptively modest, the menu simple and patrons stand in line to order before being seated. Yet the crowd is always heavily populated with regulars who are on a first-name basis with the staff. French and English. Canadians and Americans. They come back, week after week, year after year. More often or not, they push tables together to accommodate groups of eight to 10 or more, frequently filling the caf\u00e9 by mid-morning and making it hard to find a seat at a time of day when other West Island restaurants are nearly empty.<\/p>\n

What’s the secret? When owners Kenneth Su and Ming Lu took over in 2002, they had a vision of a restaurant where they would treat their customers like friends. \u201cNinety-five percent of our food is home made,\u201d Ken told The Suburban<\/i> in an interview. \u201cIt’s very time-consuming to prepare.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s also exquisitely healthy. When Ming is not hard at work, cooking in the kitchen, it’s not unusual to find her buried in a book, researching the light, wholesome meals that she prepares. Original home made soups as well as nutritious salads\u2014including a delicious celery root offering\u2014feature prominently among the fare.<\/p>\n

Though most of the cuisine is steadfastly Canadian, Ming has retained a few Chinese dishes on the menu, including some of the best hot-and-sour soup in Montreal as well as won ton with peanut sauce and Hong Kong breakfast: a huge, hearty meal-of-a-soup which includes a whole egg, noodles and sausage that is guaranteed to warm you up on the coldest of winter days.<\/p>\n

The restaurant doubles as a bakery, whose bread and scones also keep clients coming back, particularly for their unique flax and flax-raisin bread, baked daily without any preservatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to supply four health-food stores with bread,\u201d explained Ken, who made his last delivery to Papillon at the end of June. \u201cTo keep up the quality, we can’t produce much volume, so all the bread we bake, we now sell in-house.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
A keen eye will notice the restaurant is embellished by Ming’s imaginative original artwork and delightful handicrafts, some of which are for sale. During the holidays, patrons can also buy her fanciful gingerbread houses and\u2014two years ago\u2014she invented a mini-gingerbread house designed to perch on the edge of a festive cocoa or coffee mug.<\/p>\n

Ken said that when he and Ming emigrated from Silicon Valley a decade ago, where he worked in advanced computer technology, \u201cI always wanted to start a restaurant of my own.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple, who were the only staff a decade ago, now employs six people to handle the volume, but Ken and Ming have resisted the pressure to open other restaurants. Ken said that staying small has been a big part of Le Den’s success, despite many offers to franchise their thriving business. \u201cIt is not easy to compete with big restaurant chains,\u201d Ken acknowledged. Le Den has done so by creating a place where you feel at home.<\/p><\/div>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n<\/b><\/a><\/div>\n
\nLe Den<\/b><\/div>\n
\n
<\/b><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/b><\/a><\/div>\n

\nFriendly, personalized service
\nplus fresh, tasty and inexpensive
\nhome-made dishes like this vegetable and noodle soup keep Le
\nDen in Pointe Claire’s Valois
\nVillage bustling. <\/b><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Caf\u00e9-bakery the focal point of Valois Village By Robert Frank www.thesuburban.com Visiting New York Times correspondents, a former spy, politicians making election speeches, airport officials, well-known children’s authors, throngs of teachers, mothers who just dropped off their kids at school or who just poured out of the women’s centre slinging one-month-olds, youths from the Valois<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nLe Den draws crowds worthy of a Le Carr\u00e9 novel - Newscoverage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/newscoverage.org\/index.php\/2012\/07\/26\/le-den-draws-crowds-worthy-of-le-carre\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Le Den draws crowds worthy of a Le Carr\u00e9 novel - 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