Its over 6 years later, but I figure that I might as well tack our 3 dinners in QC this past weekend onto this thread. We ate at Le Pied Bleu, Ophelia & Bistro St. Malo. All were excellent & we’d put each on our rotation if they were in Brooklyn.
Le Pied Bleu is a small restaurant with maybe 5-6 tables in a shared space with a butcher shop. It is a Lyon-style bouchon. One guy up front tending to everyone & one guy in the kitchen. My wife and I both have different tastes in wine so, although we were both drinking reds, we wanted recommendations by the glass. Although busy, he efficiently brought over different tastes based on our interests & we found perfect accompaniments for our meals. We loved the time we spent in bouchons in Lyon years ago and looked forward to finding something approaching this here. We did. Although the usual frisee in the salad was replaced with a larger leaf lettuce, everything else in this salad was perfect, from the egg to the lardons to the dressing. My wife’s goose, goose heart & foie main dish was really good, while the 4 boudin main I ordered had 4 different home made blood sausages that were excellent. Not a light meal & no dessert was possible.
Ophelia was totally different. Situated on a loud restaurant row & rated #1 in seafood on TripAdvisor, we were cautiously optimistic. The room(s) were completely renovated into a multi-leveled modern space with lots of bar, booth and table seats. It was very nicely done — something I dont usually say about modern. The menu is large and they apparently consider themselves a meat and fish place. More than one couple was celebrating with steak and lobster platters that boggled the mind, but we were conservative and only mildly overate. My chowder was excellent, as was my wife’s octopus carpaccio. She then had a very nice NY Strip Steak & I had an equally good fresh roasted cod. This is a loud, upbeat place with very good food. Again, a recommended dinner destination.
Our 3rd dinner might’ve been the most enjoyable. Three friends were also in QC & we all went to Bistro St Malo. The staff all look like me; that is, they obviously enjoy overeating. And, as the night went on, they were all getting loud and friendly with the remaining customers. Lots of end of meal drinks, funny stories and laughter. But the food more than stood up to the entertainment. From the snails to the foie au torchon to the mussels to the octopus to the cassoulet to the seafood stew to the apple pie with vanilla ice cream — everyone really liked everything. The wine list was nice as well & several of us found a solid white to go with our seafood dishes, while the red Morgon Beaujolais went well with the meats.
Three for three. We got out of there before we screwed up our average. Now for Montreal.
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