Packed with some wonderful culinary experiences, spirit lifting vistas, sights and scenery and most of all, abundance of cherished loving, family bonding. My abbreviated food crawl during the past week has been most memorable and precious. Sadly, our last meal at the Michelin 1* Legende in Quebec City added an unexpected sour note to our otherwise splendid food crawl.
When dining out in upscale restaurants, one of the most despised things I dislike encountering is one that involves being charged a hefty price for the meal but still feeling hungry whilst paying the bill!
Do not get me wrong, the food at Legende was actually quite creative, unique, visually appealing, tasty and enjoyable. Although in some areas, the chefs were a bit heavy handed with the salt ( the tomato dish ). Sadly, a satisfactory end result was not fulfilled largely due to the miscalculation of the chef’s overall menu creation and planning. IMHO, the prime reason and failure that causes the meal’s demise of not achieving an acceptable quality/quantity/value ratio was not the use of uncommon and exotic ingredients but rather, the labour intensive elements and in some cases, the presence of overly redundant and irrelevant components which added to the complexity, required down sizing and hence an elevated cost component to the meal. Case in point, our impressive 8 course / $140 tasting menu at Montreal’s Buillon Bilk was near flawless, sumptuous and a filling affair. Contrary, our 6 course / $ 135 offering at Legende was stingy and lacking in substance. Appetizer portions were midget one bite hors d’oeuvres size. However, the most absurd was the meat entree course featuring 4 thin slices of stingy, roughly 3oz in total, pieces of meat, gimmickily paired with a bowl of three sauces……a couple of which are mediocre tasting and totally irrelevant! This is tantamount to trying to get full by eating a Shawarama but offered without the pita bread and vegetable/pickle condiments … .only the bare-bone meat pieces garnished with Tahini and some Hummus were served!!
Our tasting menu offered the following courses:
6 East Coast Oysters topped with local Boreal condiments (optional $18 addition)
Hors d’oeuvres:
Wild rose and marigold potato
Crispy tuille, maitake mascarpone cream and Clos de Roches cheese
House made Tofu butter, fermented seaweed, smoked maplewood emulsion
Appetisers:
Seared scallop, celeriac and verbena sauerkraut, beurre blanc, lemon verbena oil.
Charcoal grilled tomato, aromatic tomato broth, Cap Tourmente hazelnut condiment
Main course:
Koji-aged beef steak, herb crust, caraway honey, coal and chanterelles sauce, herbs sauce, potato sauce
Palate cleanser and dessert:
Quebec strawberry granita and marigold milk
Honey cake, thuja cone mascarpone creme, haskap sorbet, haskap compote, honey tuille
On the surface, based on the intriguing description, the menu offers so much ‘ potential ‘…but sadly?! Sigh!
Thank God for a late night opening place offering Poutine close to our hotel! 
