Montreal Day 2 - Saturday July 09

On Saturday morning we caught up on our sleep after the Thursday/Friday red-eye flights and corresponding lack of sleep.  We headed to the Plateau area for coffee, lunch and shopping.  I am convinced the only way to get around Montreal is by Metro (subway) and bus service.  The service is cheap if you buy daily ($8) or 3 day passes ($16) which gives you full access to the entire system, information is available on their website (www.stm.info).  We took the Orange line Metro from Square Victoria to Mont Royal, stopped at the tourist info booth at the Metro station to get a recommendation on an excellent café for espresso drinks.  The young man at the info booth referred to a new tiny café ‘Flocon Espresso’ (781 Mont Royal Est, 514-903-9994, http://www.floconespresso.com/).   The café had a total of 12 seats inside and 4 outside, but size doesn’t matter…. especially when it comes to good coffee.  We enjoyed our café americano’s and decided to find a place for lunch as it was approaching noon.   While we have tried many good bistros and restaurants on the plateau I wanted to try something new so we wandered up (and down) Rue St Denis and finally came across a really funky looking, busy café ‘Le Barbare’ (4670 Rue St Denis, Montreal, 514-288-8377).  We took a table towards the back of this very eclectic café and quickly got past a perceived language barrier to choose from their rather extensive printed menu, but opted for the weekend brunch specials on the chalkboard. 

We had two orders of ‘bene homard-chorizo’ eggs benedict with diced lobster and chorizo sausage and one grilled cheese-bacon sandwich with 3 cheeses and side bacon.  The eggs benedict combination was far to strange for us not to try and we were not disappointed, even while we enjoyed our eggs I kept on trying to find something wrong with the combination of eggs, lobster, chorizo and tangy hollandaise sauce but couldn’t.  The skillet potatoes that were served with all of our lunches were not terribly good, steamed russet potatoes fried in oil and seasoned with rosemary just did not appeal to any of us.  The grilled cheese sandwich made with aged cheddar, mozzarella, goat cheeses and bacon on foccaccia bread was excellent, the cheese flavours complemented one another and the bacon was just right for the sandwich.  In addition to the oily potatoes the sandwich was served with a side of ‘f o lards’ which is quite common in Quebec.  The ‘f o lards’ are beans with pork, I haven’t had much experience eating beans with pork since being a teenager so really can’t judge their quality relative to other restaurants so all I can say is they were beans with pork.  Lunch included brewed coffee which was actually quite good, a pleasant surprise since I usually avoid brewed coffee.  Since I am on vacation and it was after 1100 I decided to enjoy a local cidre rose, very refreshing on a warm sunny afternoon.  Lunch for 3 including tax and tip was a reasonable $60.

Shopping along Rue St Denis

After lunch we did some clothes shopping along Mont Royal and St Denis, then stopped in at Arthur Quentin (3960 Rue St Denis) for a quick browse through the imported French linens, tableware and kitchen goodies.  I maintained control leaving the store with a French cookbook on terrines, a cheese slicer and a great restaurant recommendation from one of their helpful, friendly staff.  Then we needed to get back to the hotel to make it to the Cirque de Soleil show ‘Totem’ at 1700, before heading back to the plateau for the first of 2 amazing dinners at my Montreal Mecca ‘Au Pied de Cochon’.

After our slightly delayed arrival  at ‘Au Pied de Cochon’ (536 Avenue Duluth Est, Montreal, 514-281-1114, www.restaurantaupieddecochon.ca) we were greeted by our favourite server and fellow foodie Sarah-Jane.  We met Sarah-Jane in 2009 and immediately connected based on our interest in food and wine.  We have shared restaurant recommendations with one another, in particular ‘Judas Goat Taberna’ (27 Blood Alley, Vancouver,604-633-1912, www.judasgoat.ca) which has enjoyed a spike in foodie visits based on the number of people Sarah-Jane and I have sent to this tiny Spanish-inspired tapa bar in Downtown Vancouver (a review of Judas Goat at a later date).  Sarah-Jane got us started with glasses of petite-chablis while we decided what we were ordering.  Ordering was fairly easy since we have booked consecutive nights at APDC to have a seafood platter one night and one of Martin Picard’s signature pig dishes on our second night.  Tonight was the night for the seafood platter so we just needed to choose some light starters.  We picked a number of small dishes to share and loved them all.

The ‘Foie Gras Cromesquis’ (2 for $3.50) are pefectly sized morsels of deep fried breaded foie gras.  They are about the size of large marbles (as big as a loonie) and have huge foie gras flavor, once you’ve let them cool for 2 minutes to avoid scalding the inside of your mouth with hot duck liver! 

The marinated smoked sausage (also $3.50) is a nice smoky, briny european weiner that disappeared almost as fast as the foie gras cromesquis.  A half order of ‘house made boudin’ arrived at the same time as the ‘poutine’.  In an effort to keep our calorie and fat intake down we opted to skip the foie gras option for both of these dishes, but if you have room (in your belly) you are well advised to try them both on your next visit. 

The boudin noir, blood sausage, was served on a bed of the PDC mashed potatoes with melt in your mouth baked apple slices and topped with caramelized shallots.  Simply heavenly! 

The poutine, a French Canadian classic, is prepared to perfection by the APDC staff, with big white chunks of Quebec cheese curds nestled into perfectly done French fries (cooked of course in duck fat) and topped with a decadent, beefy gravy.  I could feel the cholesterol building in my arteries as I enjoyed my share of the poutine.  During dinner we enjoyed a couple bottles of French white wine from the Loire Valley produced by Domaine Phillipe Tessier which is not available in any restaurant in BC.  A nice crisp Cheverney that went well with our entire dinner.

After our starters we prepared for the amazing mains.  Jeff and I ordered the ‘Plateau du Plateau’ seafood platter while Phil order the ‘Pied de Cochon farci with Foie Gras’.  We have had both of these dishes on previous visits and tonight was just as amazing as the past.  The seafood platter had an incredible selection of seafood including: razor clams, giant clam, sea urchin, squid, malapeque oysters, whelks, conch, soft shell crab, and scallops. 

Each was prepared in their own special way and generally served in/on their shells.  We were far too busy devouring the amazing selection of seafood to note how each were prepared but some highlights included: malapeque oysters with cubed ocean water aspic, sautéed conch with a lemon vinaigrette, diced razor clams on their shell with chopped walnuts, seared scallops with fresh seawood salad, and big chunks of whelks in a creamy aioli. WOW, what an amazing platter for $95 for 2 people. 

The Pied de Cochon (PDC) farci with seared Foie Gras ($45) was as big and rich as I remember when I ordered it last year.  Phil kindly offered Jeff and I the 150 grams of seared foie gras that topped his wood fired roasted pigs' foot (we would never, ever refuse such a kind selfless offer from anyone!).  This dish is prepared by deboning a large pigs foot from the ankle to the elbow, then stuffing the deboned pig forearm with chunks of pork and foie gras, the stuffed foot is breaded and roasted in a huge wood fired oven while being basted with some secret potion created by Martin Picard to create one of the tastiest preparations of something most people would turn their nose up at, not us!  The stuffed PDC is served on top of the PDC mashed potatoes, a saute of mushrooms, tomatoes and herbs, then finally topped with of seared foie gras.  What was remarkable was that Phil with his 6’6” frame and 30 year old appetite could not quite finish this amazing dish.  He gets full points for trying, and he tried hard!
Needless to say, there was no room for dessert, but we did have room for a couple glasses of Amaro Montenegro which we used to toast Sarah-Jane’s birthday.  She celebrated her birthday barely one hour after the end of our amazing meal.