Reflections on a Week in Montreal

Scenes from Montreal (clockwise from upper left): Asian spiced salmon with a spicy slaw, classic row houses, local strawberries at Marche Jean-Talon, amuse bouche, paella burners and Serrano ham, the Arts Complex, me at the Botanic Gardens, Montreal waterfront

Please dear readers, forgive my absence. I have been spending all my spare time on my other blog (School of Eating Good) and traveling around a bit. Then I had a pet emergency. But, I'm back and I'm will try to be more regular with my posts.

I visited Montreal in early July with a few of my college friends. We went for the Jazz Festival. If you are a lover of great music, you should try to get there during the Montreal Jazz Festival. It's fantastic. While you are there, you will eat well. Really, really well. Like Toronto and Vancouver, Montreal is a foodie paradise. It is every bit as multicultural as these other large Canadian cities but it feels like you are in an old European city. Besides the food, you can enjoy fantastic museums, a world-class Botanic Gardens, and go to the top of the tower built for the Olympics in 1976. There is great shopping, a beautiful and charming historic Old City, and close proximity to the deep forests of Quebec for hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter. Or visit Parc Mont-Royal, where you can see those forests within the city.

Bringing this back to food, those forests produce the most maple syrup of any place in the world, 80% of all maple syrup. Not surprising given that the sugar maple is a Northeastern native and Quebec has a whole lot of maple forest. We visited the Maple Museum in the Old City, full of all things maple syrup. I bought a cookbook (of course!), Cooking with Quebec Maple Syrup by Anne Fortin. It is filled with maple recipes from the traditional to the cutting edge from some of the finest restaurant kitchens in Montreal. I can't wait to try out a recipe for lamb shanks au parfum d'erable.

Montreal boosts an impressive array of ethnic restaurants: Cambodian, Venezuelan, Portuguese, Greek, Ethiopian, Thai, Korean. The list goes on and on. There is a small Chinatown with excellent Asian shopping. I even found rambutans, my daughter's favorite fruit:

We spent a morning at the Marche Jean-Talon, one of three large everyday produce markets. Produce comes from Quebec and all over the world. Of course, I had to find the wild mushrooms, and I found some very wild ones, indeed!

Those are Amanita caesarea, American Caesar's Mushroom, a species I was surprised to see in the market. There are many similar looking Amanita that are poisonous so these guys must know what they are doing!

Here are a few more images from the market. Frankly, I could have spent all day there!

We ate very well during our 5 days in Montreal, sometimes picking restaurants at random, sometimes using the recommendations from our excellent hosts, Bob and Mariko of Bob & Mariko's Bed & Breakfast.

We had a truly cross-cultural experience in a Korean restaurant, a kimchee quesadilla! It wasn't terribly spicy but quite tasty and makes the perfect post-bar snack. We enjoyed a French meal at Cafe Cherrier. I had a Toulouse sausage. I'm not sure what the sausages from Toulouse are supposed to taste like but it was delicious and moist, accompanied by perfect pommes frites (as one would expect at a French cafe). We found out-of-this-world pastry at Mamie Clafoutis. Not exactly French pastry, it definitely had a French-Canadien spin to it. They earned their French creds turning out baguette worthy of any Parisian boulangerie. We enjoyed excellent gelato; traditional Belgian moules (as well as curried mussels, Thai-style mussels, and Provencal-style mussels), frites, and local beer; Portuguese live-fire grilled sardines with piri-piri sauce; and when in Montreal, you must try the smoked meat. Smoked meat is cured, spiced, smoked fatty brisket and it's sort of like pastrami but it has its own special spice blend. I recommend it highly, but if you like your meat lean, it may give you a scare. As my Jewish grandmother would say: "Live a little. A bit of fat never killed anyone." :-)

Clockwise from the upper left: Kimchee quesadilla, Schwartz's Deli, what a selection of salami/saucisson/cured meat, moules, Schwartz's window full of smoked meat, Toulouse sausage and frites

For another uniquely Jewish Montreal institution, visit Fairmount Bagels. Montreal is now considered the only place to get traditional bagels. Given that most bagels in the US have little resemblance to traditional bagels, you may be disappointed by these. They are fantastic, to my mind - chewy, fairly small, and the perfect carrier for a smear and some salty lox. Fairmount turns them out around the clock so you can have a bagel hot from the wood-fired ovens whenever you like, even post-barhopping.

Below are the names and addresses of all the places I remembered to keep track of, if you are lucky enough to find yourself in Montreal in the future.

Pagliacci Bistro Gelati
125 Rue Prince-Arthur E for gelato

Cafe Cherrier
3635 rue Saint-Denis for reasonably priced French

Mamie Clafoutis
3660, rue Saint-Denis for amazing pastry and bread

Bieres et Compagnie
4350 St Denis, for moules frites and an excellent selection of beer on tap

Schwartz's
3895 Saint-Laurent Blvd for the best smoked meat

Bob & Mariko's B&B
3458 Avenue Laval, I would stay here again. Great hosts and a great location!

Marche Jean-Talon
7070 Avenue Henri Julien

Fairmount Bagels
74 rue Fairmount Quest

Yet another pretty Dessert photo

Happy Birthday to Jenny! You can read Jenny's poems by following the link on my blog page(Le Poeme). I made this cake for her birthday dinner. It's another Maida Heatter beauty. It's called the Montana Mountain Cake. Because it's about as tall as a Montana mountain (the nice icing peaks don't hurt either). And, I didn't even bake the layers in 8" cake pans, as she says you can. It would have been ridiculous!

It's three tall layers of delicious mild chocolate cake with loads of coffee-caramel 7-minute icing. Very impressive - when you walk in the door, the guests all go "Oooh!" and "Aaahhh!" Even more ooohs and aaahhhs when they taste it.

People ask me if I like baking desserts best. Certainly, the adulation is lovely. I really love cooking, with baking another part of cooking. I don't really understand people who say they can't bake, especially great chefs/cooks. If you meet me, don't tell me you can't bake. You might not be able to bake this cake as your first (or even 10th) foray into baking, but you can bake. Takes a bit more attention to detail, but if you can follow a recipe, you can bake.

Food Shopping & Dining in London: Part 2

In this post, I'm going to share my experience with Asian food, including our visits to Chinatown. Like any Chinatown, there are ducks hanging in the window. Also chickens, pork belly, and large squid. I just love Chinatowns. London's isn't as large as Toronto's, or San Francisco's but it's a good one. From a restaurant point of view, it's overwhelmingly Chinese, but the markets run all over Asia. You have to look pretty hard to find non-Chinese produce in the San Francisco Chinatown. I know because we were on the hunt there for rambutans last August and we found them in one market. We looked in every single market on and just off Grant. But, in London, there was a large, multi-storied market right in the middle of Chinatown and they had everything. Here are the rambutans, my daughter's favorite fruit:

In the background, there is a  large chunk of jackfruit (the light green thing to the right) and finally, the unforgettable durian (those brownish-green spiny things in the upper right corner). I have seen frozen durian before but never fresh (no doubt because of its pungent nature). When we walked by, it kind of smelled of sewer but it wasn't totally off-putting. Of course, I didn't get really close and sniff. It didn't smell that good!

This market had every kind of condiment, sauce, and what-not. Much of it was unintelligible since the labels weren't particularly descriptive:

Not sure what one does with all-purpose sauce - anything, I guess. Then there were these jars of Burmese, well, I'm not sure what! If you needed something Asian in London, this is the place to come. Certainly, it was interesting wandering through this place.

We enjoyed some Chinese pastries. One of the odd things about Chinese pastry is it's not easy to tell what is sweet and what is savory. Even the sweet things aren't that sweet. I really enjoyed the coconut buns: soft white bread stuffed with slightly sweetened coconut.

We had dim sum, because that is one of Pamela's favorite things. It was OK, not as good as Toronto. I expect there is great dim sum in Chinatown somewhere but I can't help you with that one! It was far more expensive than the usual dim sum experience. But, so was nearly all the food in London.

We did find very good and reasonably priced Chinese food in Earl's Court at Dragon Palace. It was a tiny place, about 8 tables and a small bar. All the food was really delicious and lovely. They do dim sum there but we went for dinner. The dumplings we had as an appetizer were first-rate so I imagine the dim sum is excellent.

We also enjoyed Malaysian food in Chinatown at Rasa Sayang. It was cheap and fantastic - big flavors. I had Beef Rendang, which is full of complex spices with some heat. Wish I could have eaten there a few more times, especially for the Singapore Chili Crabs.  So much food, so little time. Sigh.

Next time I'll finish up with the rest of our dining which includes Indian (yes, I'm aware that is Asian as well), British, Spanish, and BBQ/Steakhouse.

The specifics:

New Loon Moon Supermarket, 9A Gerrard St in the heart of Chinatown

Chuen Cheng Ku, 17 Wardour St, Chinatown: OK but not exceptional dim sum

Dragon Palace, 201 Earl's Court Rd, Earl's Court: excellent Chinese food and reasonably priced

Rasa Sayang, 5 Macclesfield St, Chinatown: tasty, cheap Malaysian and Singaporean food

Food Shopping & Dining in London: Part 1

Dining in London is not the disaster that many believe. I'm sure it once was a disaster, but nowadays, it's a multicultural paradise of food. It's not cheap food, mind you, but it is often absolutely fantastic.

I spent about 10 days in London at the beginning of April. I did my best to sample a broad range of food: Indian, traditional British, Spanish, Chinese, Malaysian, even street food inspired by the Seychelle Islands. Some of it was just OK while some of it was amazing.

In Part 1, we're going to the pinnacles of food markets: the Food Halls in Harrod's, and Borough Market, and we're going to have a little street food.

If you are a foodie, you have to go to Harrod's. Not just for the food, but for the over-the-top decor. Here's what I mean, a picture from the Seafood and Meat Hall:

Yeah, Whole Foods is nice, but this is crazy stuff! The sheer abundance is overwhelming. There's a room with just produce, another just of chocolate, tea, coffee, and candy. One with charcuterie, cheese, baked goods, and prepared foods (everything from British savory pies to Asian dumplings to sushi). All beautifully displayed, and, of course, priced to match.

If you know me, you know I need to take a picture of the mushrooms. Slim pickings in early April.

Since it was a few days before Easter, there had to be brightly colored eggs. Harrod's definitely goes for the brightly colored!

And lastly, there is chocolate. Oh my, there is chocolate. They were selling chocolate from over a dozen chocolatiers. But, these were the cutest!

OK, that's enough of me gushing over Harrod's. On to gushing over the Borough Market. We were there a bit early and it was a gray, cold day so we were not inclined to hang out. But, it was obvious that, along with Harrod's, this is the place to get top quality food. Here's a picture of some stunning fish, almost all of it from the waters around the UK.

See the sign for the Cafe in the background? Pamela and I had a honest British breakfast there. Eggs, bacon, ham, bubble & squeak (look it up). The woman who cooked our food had the best working-class British accent of the trip. I felt like I had stepped into a scene from Mary Poppins, listening to her talk.

I also loved the map for the Borough Market:

On to street food. One day, we had the paella for sale in the courtyard of Covent Garden Market. They make it in huge paella pans. We saw the same thing at the Portobello Market (more on the food there in a second).

Good cheap eats, one of the least expensive lunches we had in London. And Covent Garden Market is a cool place to stroll (though packed with tourists).

Next up, the Portobello Market. Huge market of food, antiques, fleas. You get the idea. It goes on for blocks and blocks. It takes place every Saturday on Portobello Rd, near Notting Hill Gate. Since it was the day before Easter, it was absolutely mobbed.

Not exactly conducive to strolling and shopping! But, we did manage to find some cool stuff, like this can of Spanish tuna. I think it was at least 1 kilo. Biggest can of tunafish I've ever seen!

All the obvious places to eat were at least 4 deep but we managed to find this stand of Seychelle Island inspired street food. Lovely people and the woman on the right makes a mean goat curry. It was fantastic, and I ate plenty of goat when I worked at a Caribbean restaurant.

If you ever find yourself at the Portobello Market (lucky you!), look them up. The stand is called Vinn Goute and the food is delicious and unusual.

Next time, we move on to Chinatown and Asian food.