Here is a rundown of some of the exciting things we ate on our recent trip to Montreal to see our son’s graduation from Concordia University. It was a very moving ceremony.
We started off with dinner at Le Moliere, an upscale bistro by a renowned chef, Antonin Mousseau-Rivard. I would compare this directly to Le Diplomate in Washington, DC for both the menu choices and overall quality.
We started off with an onion soup with a showy pastry dome, and then had leeks vinaigrette, a spring pea salad, tartare-frites, sweetbreads, and mushroom risotto.
The leeks were more pretty than delicious, and the pea salad didn’t register at all. The sweetbreads and the tartare were both excellent.
Next was a big meal for 8 people at Al Grillades, an Algerian restaurant at a location away from tourist Montreal. This was my first time eating at an Algerian place. The super highlight was the sardines farci, with really good merguez not far behind. Also very good were the lentils, and the borek. But instead of a folded bread as I expected, this turned out to be fat, juicy cigars with meat. The sardines:
We landed next at Cochon Dingue, a restaurant which started in Quebec City. Even the Quebecois amongst us was surprised at just how local the food was. We had an extraordinary poutine, a very classic grilled cheese sandwich with bacon and onion - this dish is as Quebecois as it gets. It was superb. Outstanding steak-frites, a dish I never pay much attention to, with an addictive mushroom sauce, and a duck confit salad, which was nothing special. No photos because we were too busy enjoying the food.
After an afternoon at the Biodome, we went to the nearby Hochelaga neighborhood for a late bakery lunch. This stop was exquisite.
Hochelaga is the most French-speaking neighborhood of Montreal, and Aube bakery had stunning looking viennoiserie. Since this was our lunch, we went for two savory items: a pizza and a danish:
Both pastries featured asparagus and ricotta. The danish had crushed and halved hazelnuts. The pizza was a focaccia with oregano.
Aube bakery does not have a sign outside. From the street, it looks like a closed hardware store. Not much fancier inside either.
Our final meal was a lunch at Lundis au Soleil, also not in tourist Montreal. This is a downscale place of very carefully prepared food and gentle prices. We got the entree+plat meal which was asparagus soup and arctic char with potatoes:
This was an excellent lunch, and we will com back for dinner sometime when there is a larger menu.
