Last Week-Trip Report

[myburg]

Thanks to everyone who helped us with suggestions on our trip to Montreal. Our only problem was that we had too little time to try everything that we wanted to!

We arrived Monday afternoon and walked around a bit, ending up for an early dinner at Jardin Nelson. I had a mushroom crepe and K had the best onion soup I think I've ever had (I know I had more than my share of "tastes".) We also split a plate of assorted cheeses and a bottle of wine. I felt like we were in Paris (almost!)

Tuesday, we headed over to Jean Talon Market. Oh, if only we had a place like that here! We had a few samples; split an order of fried shrimp and calamari at a seafood shop (forgettable at best). We wandered outside the market and had lunch at a great Italian deli/pizza place/takeout place (I can't remember the name of it, but I'll check if anyone wants to know). They had a fabulous and reasonably priced large selection of Italian foods, both hot and cold. They would heat up any of it to eat in, or you could take it with you. Lots to choose from and all looked great. I had a heart of palm salad and then stuffed cabbage rolls. K had a prosciutto panini. All was delish - and I'm Italian-American and picky about this kind of thing :-) Back to the market, we stopped for gelato at (I think) Les Havres aux Glaces. K had two kinds of chocolate and I had a caramel creme brulee flavor that I have since been dreaming about. I thought it was the best gelato flavor; I loved the little bits of burnt sugar throughout it.

Our one mis-step in the food category was dinner on Tuesday night. We got caught in a torrential downpour and stopped at one place and couldn't get in w/out reservations. We ended up at Le Petit Moulinsart in Old Montreal. It was nearly empty (should have been our first clue). Thinking of the onion soup that I missed out on yesterday, I ordered that, followed by moules frites. I am not exaggerating when I say that the soup was inedible. It was like brown water...no flavor at all (well, no good flavor). I ate no more than a couple of bites. (BTW, see my next post - question on how to handle situations like this). The mussels were not bad, but equally flavorless. The beer and frites were fine. The service was also the worst we encountered. See what happens when you don't get advice from your Chowhound friends??

Luckily that was our last bad meal. The next day went explored more of the city and went to see McGill and also the more commercial/shopping area (Rue St. Catherine?? Can't remember). We went to Musee Beaux Arts and had lunch in their cafe. We both had the special, which was a seafood salad and two pastas, a penne with mushrooms and tomato sauce and a spinach roulade with a cream sauce. Sounds heavy, but they were good lunch portions and we didn't feel stuffed. Good thing, because our dinner that night was at Toque. We both had the 7 course tasting menu with the wine pairings. We both agreed that it was one of the best meals we've had, ranking up there (in our limited book) with our 10 year anniversary meal at Taillevent in Paris and a meal at the Inn at Little Washington. The service was very professional, yet not at all pretentious or stuffy. It was a very relaxed meal and each course was excellent. I mentioned to the waiter that I wanted to try and remember all of the courses and he volunteered to print out the menu, along with the wines for us. later in the evening, he came over and apologized that they were having printer problems and the person who usually dealt with that was not there that night, but that if we gave him our email, he'd get it to us (still haven't, but I'll check back). This was one of those "splurge" restaurants, but we both felt that it was well worth it.

Thursday was our last full day in Montreal. We had a brunch at Eggspectations (fine, but nothing too special). We did more exploring and went toward the Plateau area. We went to Fous Desserts in the hope of getting the caramel-nut fleur de sel tart that I'd read about on this board. Sad to say, they didn't have it :-( K had a mille-fuille (sp?) and I ended up with a plain croissant, as nothing else could take the place of that tart. It was an excellent croissant, though. We walked all over the place and eventually made our way back to Old Montreal. To get over my bad onion soup experience from Tuesday, we went back to Jardin Nelson and ate in the garden, listening to a band with a Frank Sinatra sound-alike singer, which was really quite enjoyable. I had the soupe and a salad and K had a crepe.

We were leaving at noon on Friday and headed to Europea for sandwiches to take on the plane. One was a roasted vegetable with pesto on olive bread, the other was proscuitto, blue cheese, fig, grapes and honey on ciabatta. Both were excellent. And we split a tart sucre for dessert.

As I said, our only regret (other than the mussels restaurant) was that we didn't have the time to eat all the wonderful things that the city offers. We didn't have a bagel from Fairmount or St.Viateur, we didn't have smoked meat, we didn't have poutine (but we did try that last summer in Canada and K couldn't bear the thought of trying it again - he thought it was disgusting!), didn't get to Au Pied du Cochon or any of the other dozen plus places that we would have liked to. Oh well, it just gives us a reason to return!
Thanks to one and all for your advice.

[moh]

Thank you for the great report Myburg! Sounds like a lovely trip.

Re: Caramel nut fleur de sel tart at Fous Desserts, I asked them about it as i did not see it on a recent visit. They said they don't usually make it in the summer, but said they'd bring it back in the fall. I certainly hope so!

Another place to get a fleur de sel et caramel tart: Sometimes Martine makes them at Festin de Babette, and they are also very tasty.

Oh, well, hopefully next visit!

[mainsqueeze]

Thanks for the report. Too bad about Le Petit Moulinsart, huh? I really wanted to like it because it's one of the few Belgian restos in town. Everything I tried there was just too salty.

The caramel d'érable brulé is my favourite flavour at Havre too.

[myburg]

Well, it seems that they solved the "salty" problem...I don't think they touched the salt (or any other flavors) for my meal! :-)