More must-eats in Montreal

Before I blog about the many delicious soups I've been cooking up, let me show you two more food items you 'must-eat' while in Montreal. First up is Schwartz's. We actually went to Schwartz's shortly after hot sandwiches were available (around 10am) for an early Sunday morning smoked meat sandwich. This was important, as there is virtually no line at this time.

A variety of lean, regular, and extra fat sandwiches ready to be eaten (each $5.90).
Oh and do you see that sign up in the corner? The one about 13.95/pound of smoked meat that is hot or cold? My friend bought about 6.6 pounds of that (almost a small baby!) to bring back to Toronto. I'm guessing her family is still enjoying small chunks of smoked meat from Montreal!

Pickles always make sandwiches taste so much better!

Another food item you must eat while in Montreal is poutine! This poutine was from a restaurant in Old Montreal. Cheese curds make a big difference in poutine. They must have that squeaky feeling to it as you bite in. Drizzled with just the right amount of gravy and accompanied with little nibblets of fries. 

Schwartz's Montreal 
3895 Saint-Laurent Blvd.
Montreal, QB
(514) 842-4813
http://www.schwartzsdeli.com/

Upscale dining in Montreal - at Le Pois Penche

     To complete our grand food tour of our full day in Montreal, it felt quite appropriate to eat at a french restaurant. We chose Le Pois Penche mainly because a co-worker had recommended it. Looking at their menu you may be slightly taken aback by their rather expensive prices. They are after all a traditional brasserie with all the usuals complete with a list of overpriced wines. They also advertise themselves as an upscale dining experience that is unpretentiousness with good service. While some reviews by patrons (e.g. chowhound, travelocity, expedia etc..) agree with them, most that I found while researching a bit about the restaurant found them to have rather pretentious and arrogant waiters, bad service, but solid food. My friends and I decided that we would try out the restaurant for ourselves and see how it went. First, to start our visit to the restaurant on a positive note, we made a reservation for 8:30pm on a Saturday night one day before our visit. The woman on the phone seemed rather friendly and was quickly able to confirm that their prix frixe menu ($23) was still available for a Saturday night dining experience (this was the main reason we wanted to try this restaurant).  
     Upon arriving at Le Pois Penche, the atmosphere seemed hurried and laid back at the same time. Making a reservation ahead of time was a good idea as we were quickly shown to our table while other guests waited a tad longer. The restaurant was fairly full for 8:30pm, there were patrons at the bar, enjoying their meals with friends and at the oyster bar. We sat down and were quickly given some crunchy baguettes to chew on. The waiter introduced himself, gave a few suggestions about wines (although wasn't very certain about recommending a particular type of white wine), and drink orders appeared fairly promptly afterwards.

There were 5 prix fixe available all paired with our choice of soup or salad. There was the pan seared salmon, the 'Curtis chicken', steak frites, fillet of sole, and the pappardelle pasta roasted duck with spring truffles. For $23 this seemed like a fair price. Here is what we ended up ordering.  

Lobster Bisque: Another try at lobster bisque,
hoping that it wouldn't be as salty as the one at L'academie.
This one included some sour cream which was a nice complement.
It also helped that the soup was hot, creamy, and not too salty!

The Salad option

Pan seared Salmon with fresh seafood broth & garden vegetables

Fillet of sole: with tomatoes & feta cheese, black olive tempenade
 and "fresh tomato salad" (in this case, I think it became 2 pieces of bok choy!?).
Really odd combination with the large pieces of boy choy. Somewhat out of place right? 

By the end of our prix fixe meal all appeared happy with their selection. Service may have been inconsistent at times (e.g. waiting for refill for water), but still fairly decent as they were attentive to requests. Their only drawback was that it took a tad longer to complete the request. We didn't find anything close to the negative remarks made by other previous patrons and we enjoyed our time at Le Pois Penche. I would recommend, though, that if you were to go to order off the prix fixe menu. This really seemed to be the best choice for quality, quantity and cost. Other entrees around the restaurant looked equally appetizing, but I'm certain it was for a much higher price! We ended our meal with some delicious profiteroles as one of my friends had never tried them before. They were light, fluffy, stuffed with vanilla ice cream (which I think is much better than cream) and perfectly delicious. Drizzled with just the right amount of chocolate sauce they were a great end to our meal. 

Le Pois Penche
1230 de Maisonneuve Ouest
Montreal, QC
(514) 667-5050
closest station - Peel
www.lepoispenche.com

More montreal eats!

     I apologize for the time between my last post to this one since my computer has been rather inconsistent as of late - starting up and working, then starting up and freezing! It has been quite a battle! Luckily I backed up all my pictures, was finally able to find a computer to use, and can now share with you more Montreal Eats, Toronto eats & some new ones you may not have tried around Edmonton! 
    So, going back to Montreal. After the market we hit up my latest favorite french dessert/snack - macarons at La Maison du Macaron. The shop is quite small and tucked away off a main street on Rue de la Roche. However, once inside you're greeted with a macaron tree, huge macarons (see below!), and rows upon rows of various flavoured macarons! I was in macaron heaven!! 

huge macarons!

Of course samples make it even better! 

Look at those pied!

 Since I was after all in a macaron house, I had to pick up a box for my family. I picked up Noisette (hazelnut), Pistache (pistachio), Citron (lemon), Fruit de la Passion (passion fruit), Chocolat au lait (Milk Chocolate), and Framboise (raspberry). One box of 6 macarons was $8. Next stop after sweets is something salty! On the way to our next food destination, we stopped by St. Viateur Bagel and picked up a dozen fresh hot bagels to bring home. Despite the bagels' freshness beckoning to us, we were stuffed - mainly from lunch at the market and eating a good plate of samples at the macaron house!

One of the many famous St. Viateur Bagel cafes

Bagels all ready to be bought & eaten hot!

With warm bagels in hand we quickly hopped on the subway to one of the Juliette et Chocolate shops. The rain was coming down fairly hard by then, but that didn't dampen our spirits as we were anticipating some yummy crepes & chocolate. We were definitely not disappointed! Below is our milk chocolate, banana & strawberry crepe, my dark chocolate and raspberry smoothie (which just about ruined my appetite for dinner as I spent had to take the rest with me in a to-go cup and spent almost 2 hours trying to finish it off!), and my friend's White chocolate with Bailey's smoothie.   

  La Maison du Macaron
4479 de la Roche 
Montreal, Quebec
closest station - Mont Royal
tel: (514) 759-9290
www.lamaisondumacaron.com


St. Viateur Bagel
3 locations throughout montreal. I went to the one at 1127 Mont Royal East
tel: (514) 528-6361
http://www.stviateurbagel.com/content/?id=63



Juliette et Chocolat
various locations across town.
1. 1615 St-Denis
2. 377 Laurier Ouest (corner of Parc)
3. 3600 St-Laurent (corner of Prince-Arthur)
http://www.julietteetchocolat.com 

A Saturday morning in Montreal - Jean Talon Market & Première Moisson

With only one full day in Montreal, my girlfriends and I intended to make the most out of it. In order to help with our food ventures and of course to see a bunch of places in Montreal within a short span of a day, we figured that buying the one day pass was the best bang for our buck. For $7 each, all of Montreal was accessible complete with the added bonus of the ticket being good for a full 24 hours from the time of purchase! With tickets in hand, we ventured far north on the metro line to our first stop the Jean Talon Market.  

Lots of vendors with food to sample & buy!

Yes, you're seeing clearly!
That entire bucket (smaller ones) of roma tomatoes is $5!!

Rows upon rows of fresh vegetables & fruits. 

hot hot peppers!! 

After touring the market for a bit we started getting hungry. With the rain coming down faster, we quickly ducked into a place where a number of people were eating. Since, I hadn't paid attention to where we had gone, I quickly realized that we were in one of Montreal's well known bakeries - La Première Moisson. This is not just any bakery as they had fresh breads, pastries and cakes to buy, charcuterie, sandwiches and salads. They even had a tasting station!    

Charcuterie, meat, pastries and desserts to purchase. 

Their lunch special that day was your choice of half a sandwich,
a salad, and a soup or dessert with a hot drink for $11.51.
Pictured above is half a ham & swiss with a side salad.

I went with the dessert as I had heard so much about it.
Strawberry shortcake.

Another 'salad' option to accompany the sandwich.

Marche Jean-Talon

7070 Avenue Henri Julien
Montreal, Quebec H2S3A3
(514) 277-1588

http://www.marche-jean-talon.com/

Subway: Station Jean-Talon or Station de Castelnau (the market runs for several blocks along Rue Jean Talon)

La Première Moisson

http://www.premieremoisson.com/index/ 

various locations around Montreal. This one was located inside Jean-Talon Market.

Montreal - Restaurant L'Académie (Crescent St)

Since Restaurant l'académie had been recommended by a few friends we decided to eat there on our first night in Montreal. This also worked out well as we had planned on walking down St.Catherines street to do some shopping before heading to dinner. 

     There are actually several Restaurant l'académie in Montreal. We ended up eating at their popular Crescent street location, just off of Rue Sainte Catherine. The big drawing point at l'académie is that they have a relatively good price point for their food and that you can BYOB. There also doesn't seem to be a corking fee attached, so needless to say there were 

many patrons around us bringing not just one or two bottles of wine, but cases of them!

     A quick glance at their dinner menu indicated that they had a mix of French and Italian style dishes. They also had some dinner specials where you could choose from a soup or salad, a main, and a coffee or tea ranging in price from $20.95 (Italian sausage penne) to $33.95 (grilled fillet of beef with port sauce). We all decided on the soup of the day (lobster bisque) as we were all feeling a bit cold.

Lobster Bisque ($2.95)
notes: We were super excited about this soup originally as we craved something warm.
Unfortunately, this particular lobster bisque was super salty, to the point that we could not taste the lobster
or any seafood flavour at all. Luckily their fresh baguettes came in handy to help sop up the soup - but by this time we used it mainly to have something hot in our system.

Fettucinie Nastabe: Smoked Salmon, green onions in a cream sauce ($15.95)

Spaghetti Bolognese: tomatoes & viande ($14.95)

Linguine Vongole: clams in a tomato and white wine sauce ($15.95)

     Thankfully, the pastas tasted much better than our starters and were a decent portion size. I ended up eating most of my pasta as leftovers was not a viable option given that we were staying at a hotel with no fridge. Plus, we doubted that we would actually eat the leftovers when we got back to the hotel.

     Restaurant L'Académie @ Crescent street is arguably a decently nice restaurant with beautiful furnishings and decor. They're also able to successfully seat and serve a large number of patrons in their 3 story restaurant. It was evidently busy as we were seated quite next to their kitchen and could see servers moving back and forth while we were there. Service was prompt in the beginning, but began to dwindle off as the night got later and more patrons arrived - there was a second wave around 9pm. Nevertheless, a good place to go if you're looking for decent priced food, large portion sizes, and the ability to BYOB - just stay away from their lobster bisque.   

Restaurant L'Académie - Crescent Street location

2100 Crescent Street

Montreal, QC

(514)664-4455

http://www.lacademie.ca/ (check website for other locations)

Mon-Thu,Sun 11:30am-10pm

Fri-Sat 11:30am-10:30pm

also note: restaurants close early in Montreal!

Montreal - Le Westin, Olive & Gourmando

     This past weekend, I headed to Montreal for a girl's trip. We decided that the most economical, time saving, and relaxing way was to use Via Rail to travel there. This was definitely the best choice, since our Via rail itinerary had us leaving Toronto Union Station at 6:50am arriving in Montreal at 12:30pm. To make our trip extra relaxing, we ended up staying at the beautiful Le Westin Montreal ; partly because it was situated in the perfect place (with Old Montreal behind the hotel and new montreal in front), their heavenly beds & heavenly shower heads of course, and finally what made it much more affordable was their 'pay rates equal to your birth year' (i.e.paying regular price for the 1st night, and then the 'pay your age' for the 2nd night).
     Right after settling into our hotel, we set out to explore the city and to get ourselves some lunch; albeit a late one as finding our hotel, checking in and settling into our room took a bit of time. Since Olive & Gourmando was only 0.68 km from our hotel in Old Montreal we decided to head there. Upon arriving, there were quite a few people in the restaurant. Our wait was not too long - about 10 minutes and we were soon shown our table. Ordering at Olive & Gourmando reminds one of being in a Marche where a table is reserved for you, you`re handed a piece of paper and when you order you pass your paper over so she can write down your order. Once you`re done ordering, you sit down and wait for your food. Thankfully, my ability to read French although limited was not horrible so I was able to make out the various sandwiches and soups available for the day.

One of the only hot sandwiches left: goat cheese melt with
carmelized onions and ketchup for dipping 

pastries galore!

Tomatoes, cuban chicken, guacamole - this one had a
 slight kick to it after a few bites  

These very very delicious - a bit on the pricey side though for 3.25 each
Olive & Gourmando 
http://www.oliveetgourmando.com
351 St. Paul West
Old Montreal, QC
Tuesday - Sat: 8am-6pm


Le Westin Montreal
270 St. Antoine West
514-380-3333
closest to station Square-Victoria or Place d`armes
http://www.westinmontreal.com/