Darren T.
Yelp
We're back. Hope you guys didn't miss us too much.
Cornering one of Montreal's main streets, Tommy Cafe is an unsurprisingly healthily-frequented establishment. Its mint stripes and lax assortment of fauteuils effortless embody a sort of laidback sophistication --hipster in its top notes, afore a backdrop of 70s disco.
Suggesting a current interpretation of the classic diner, the deliberate, subtle nostalgia it contrived derived an austerity only accorded to those chrysalised remnants, that now-powdered gossamer of yesterday's society and culture, that managed to edge and slur into today. Urban, fresh, and zesty, it seemed the sort of place where I could both pop in intermittently for a quick fix and pitch myself for an afternoon of reading.
Alas, first impressions often are astray, and past the pale fire of urban consciousness is the usual manufactured metropolitan poshlust. The lepidopterist would be disappointed to observe this lack of eclosion, for the pupa of awareness was plastic, its figure limned on walls dappled by faint edge stains and careless moving.
Facing the stairs, a large blank tv screen blank mantles the upper south wall, and the east makes no attempt to curtain its backdrop scaffolded by corporatism --the plant walls are plastic, and the tabletops glued. Tiny, yet conspicuous cracks bezel the concavities of the wooden letters that spell Tommy (or perhaps some other word, I forget), and on the far side of the room, an ill-placed lamp leans askew from being too close to the wall. The naked outlet exposing its gut of wires completes the impression of a quickly built suburban house barely distinguishable from its neighbours, pederast to the nymphet sincerity of individualism.
If you're looking for clean and well-lighted, an establishment unlacking the grace to be a short haven from the city, perhaps look elsewhere.
Oh, the espresso? It was burnt.
If you ever decide to go take a fat dump, beware:
The washroom.
There's no paper.
If they didn't expect us to wipe, maybe that's why there wasn't soap either.
.