Le Commensal. - Montreal, Quebec - restaurant reviews

In a city full of frogs' legs and sweetbreads, Montreal's Le Commensal is a delicious godsend. This French-flavored city in Quebec, Canada, has more than 4,000 restaurants, but few do well by vegetarians. This small chain of nine restaurants operating under the same name-which readers of a local paper recently voted Best Vegetarian Restaurant--serves buffet-style breakfast, lunch and dinner in cozy, clean surroundings.

A pre-sightseeing breakfast offers a choice of yogurt, homemade granola, breads, fig butter, melon salad, apple crisp, stewed fruits, and freshly baked muffins and date bars. The fridge holds juices, natural sodas and soy beverages. At lunch and dinner, diners sit at shiny wooden tables and enjoy semolina salad, tofu fricasse, chili and rice, seitan pie or veggie rolls. The popular dessert bar includes cakes, tarts, fruit and macrobiotic cookies.

Owners Claude Lamgevin and Andre Taschereau display John Robbins' Diet for a New America and other books in English and French. Several nights a week they open the cheery upstairs cafe for guest lectures on everything from holistic health to folk tales from Angola and Japan.

If you want to pack a picnic, the St.-Denis branch has a carryout menu. There you'll find many of the restaurant's top-selling items plus special extras packaged to go: vegetable pates, quiches, pot pies and lasagna.

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