Montreal

[Orik]

I haven't been. There's a lot of Beba on my feed, and Mon Lapin of course, and all sorts of popups at Vinette. 

[Steve R.]

That’d be us.  Been here since the end of April, leaving Monday.  Having never set foot in Montreal before, & having a month to get around, of course we went to Joe Beef a couple of times.  I was kinda surprised that I liked it.  Excesses are not totally gone, portions are large, prices are what their fame allows & the food was really good.  Also been to many of the other well known standards.  All good food, nothing to really write much about, but its a very good food city.  

What has stood out have been a couple of fixed price chef’s menu places that would be at home in Paris: Candide & Tandem.  Very nice pairings at Candide, with some local Quebec product (and nothing cloudy or fizzy or cider-y), while Tandem is byob (which is problematic for non heavy drinkers, as we had 7 courses of unknown in advance food coming out of the kitchen — we brought a Sancerre and a Gigondas to be relatively safe & it worked out fine, with a half bottle of the red coming home with us).

Details upon request.  Other places visited were La Prunelle, Helicoptere, Le Vin Papillon, FoieGwa, L’Express, Schwartz’s, Nora Gray, Etat Major, Lemeac, Au Pied de Cochon, Le Maison de Mme Dumpling, Gus, Ma Pouille Mouille, Chez Leveque, Quattro, Maison Publique, Caribou Gormand and, before we leave, probably Thanjai.  And Atwater & Jean Talon Markets.  And, my favorite supermarket of all time, Marche Adonis (the one on St. Catherine). Unbelievable.

[joethefoodie]

You go to supermarkets?!

How was Nora Gray? I seem to recall almost liking it a lot. But I'm interested in their newer venture, Gia?

I want to go to Vinette and wish it took ressies, but we'll try to work it out.

[Steve R.]

Nora Gray gets a lot of mixed reviews these days, but we liked it a lot.  First of all, it was Ginny’s birthday, the waiter was solicitous without being overbearing, and the place was upbeat.  And, it is a 5 minute walk from our apartment.  All that sets a good stage.  Secondly, we ordered well.  We started with the focaccia & an order of fried fiddleheads.  The ferns were seriously good & can replace calamari anytime.  Nice array of butter and spicy stuff for the bread and a couple of other good dips for the fiddleheads.  We each then had a ½ order of pasta: her, the gnocchi w/asparagus (young, thin, crisp) & pancetta; me, the ramp linguini w/whelks, fennel and breadcrumbs.  Both pastas were perfectly done & very tasty.  Ginny then had a pork chop with rhubarb mustarda & I had a great piece of halibut in a small amount of lobster broth, served with cannellini beans and pancetta.  No room for dessert, but they brought out one, comp’ed for her birthday.  It was good, whatever it was.  I guess that the only qualm I have is about the wine list.  Long, but not inspiring.  At least given my limited knowledge.  And, I’m pretty sure that the mark-up was at least 3x retail.  But, the bottle of red they helped us choose, was perfect for Ginny’s food and I managed to get a good glass of white for my main.  On the other hand, this meal (factoring in the Canadian $ exchange rate) wound up under $300 w/big tip, so I have no complaints.  I’d go back.  It was a 7:30 table on a Thurs and, although they were turning walk-in attempts away, the table was ours for as long as we wanted it.

[joethefoodie]

Last night was interesting,  as during the day I got a telephone call from Lemeac saying they wouldn’t be able to accommodate our reservation, as the restaurant was not able to open due to something or other. So, a bit of a scramble, and we ended up at Atwater Cocktail Club.  Some good cocktails, and then we decamped next door to Foiegwa, where dinner was also quite acceptable.  
 

Including some of the best fries I’ve had in a long time.

[joethefoodie]

Our non-AirBnB rental apartment happens to be right across the (pedestrian-only in the summer) street from an outpost of St. Viateur, so when in Rome…

 

Not bad, when super fresh.  But I’ll note they almost start getting stale after an hour or two.

[joethefoodie]

Oh, also right across the street from…

 

Which makes Montreal bagels that much better.

[joethefoodie]

Since I figured it would be good to eat some vegetables after steak frites the night before, and a big ass sausage for lunch, LvP did us well.

Some local snap peas and scapes. Quite good, even if they don’t (weirdly, in my opinion) string the snaps. I always do. These were served with a yougurt based dressing, to dip in or pour on. We dip.

A really great dish of morels and peas in a fantastic brodo. 
 

Dessert was a serving of the best Carvel ever.

Many more dishes were consumed; just no pix.  And we drank wines by the glass…maybe a lot of them.

 

[Steve R.]

On 6/21/2022 at 9:54 AM, joethefoodie said:

Last night was interesting,  as during the day I got a telephone call from Lemeac saying they wouldn’t be able to accommodate our reservation, as the restaurant was not able to open due to something or other. So, a bit of a scramble, and we ended up at Atwater Cocktail Club.  Some good cocktails, and then we decamped next door to Foiegwa, where dinner was also quite acceptable.  
 

Including some of the best fries I’ve had in a long time.

Yeah, but the ones they had topped with "béchamel au Parmesan" were even better.

We actually liked our dinner at Foiegwa better than our lunch at Lemeac.  Apples and oranges for sure, but still... 

[joethefoodie]

Yes, I know.  Schwartz’s is the place. But…

Snowdon’s was damn good. The matzo ball soup wasn’t bad either.

[bloviatrix]

That photo is just cruel.

[prasantrin]

If you do happen to go, I like the fries at Schwartz's. 

[joethefoodie]

I just need to post this before I go any further:

1)  At every restaurant we dined at this trip, the staffs were incredible.  Friendly? Sure. But I was blown away by how knowledgeable about the menus everyone was, to say nothing of the wine lists. It's pretty cool, when coming from here, where half the time you want to smack your waitperson. Or at least I do. Friends in the business here might be a little jealous.

2) I don't recall seeing this policy here, but giving one wine list and one regular menu to a table of two - how fucking silly is that? And at every place, I asked for second menus, which wasn't a problem. But why?

3) Thursday night, we were sitting next to someone who is evidently a fairly famous chef in Montreal. I knew he must've been someone, since he had more tats that the average bear, and also a bit of a TV chef look...

Nice to be able to leave your restaurant for others to run on a Thursday night.

3) Yes, Montreal bagels (imo) are not great. But being right across the street from that outpost of St. Viateur meant I could actually use them while still warm, which makes them...better than not great. But the real revelation was buying a couple of whole wheat ones, whole wheat being a variety of bagel I generally disdain here. These, however, were way better than the not great not whole wheat ones.

4) I have never seen so much street construction in a city; nor have I ever driven on such bad roads - the equal of, or maybe even worse than, here?

[Orik]

Yeah montreal roads are famously terrible.

[joethefoodie]

45 minutes ago, Orik said:

Yeah montreal roads are famously terrible.

@Orik - I couldn’t believe it! Not only that, every 5th street is a detour or something.  Orange cones abound!