Day 1 Montreal: Road trip! Clear skies and good driving let us make Montreal in good time. We checked into Maison Francois Denis, a funky apartment just a short walk away from Au Pied de Cochon. Once you make it up the craaaaazy spiral stairs, the apartment itself is very clean and very quiet even though it’s on a main street.
The next stop in the city was at La Chouette cafe for a much needed coffee. We didn’t know it at the time, but they’re very popular for their cookie decorating sessions where they bake the cookies in house and let you personalize them yourself. No decorating for us, but the lattes were delicious.
Dinner! Au Pied de Cochon: Yep, this is the temple of foie gras and gastronomic excess. Excellent food. The only just okay dish was their signature duck in a can. They make the cans in house as a vessel to cook the duck in. This isn’t a real conserve, so it’s not something you can buy and have in your cupboard. What’s inside is cooked to rare but the flavours were muddied and it tasted mostly of cabbage. Fun gimmick, but far outshone by the other dishes. I wouldn’t order it again.
Menu:
Duck temaki:
Foie gras nigiri:
Foie gras and poached pear:
Duck in a can:
Standout of the night was the guinea fowl and morels. If you like morels, they’re stuffed into the guinea fowl, sauteed and also pureed into the sauce:
Dessert was an over-the-top rich pouding chomeur - cake cooked in a butter maple syrup sauce. Move over, butter tarts:
Definitely worth the trip. We waddled back to the apartment.
