We just got back from a week in Montreal, a city unlike any other in North America in that everyone speaks French and a lot of men wear mismatched plaid shirts and shorts, usually with socks and sandals. The women are beautiful and chic but smoke several packs of cigarettes a day, resulting in throaty, really sexy speaking voices. Of course you could say "I am looking for a houseplant" in French and it would sound lustily seductive. I was hopeful that the haut cuisine of La Belle France would translate across the Atlantic, but sadly, it does not, except for a preponderance of baguettes and orange marmalade.
To be fair, we didn't take any fancy clothes so our options were limited to sidewalk bistros and casual pubs. It doesn't matter whether the food is Canadian or Afghan or Japanese, the menus all share one food item peculiar to Quebec (but quickly snaking its way west through the other provinces.) This item is called Poutines, and where it is listed prominently on virtually every menu in town, it is usually followed by two or three exclamation points, as if to say "you've been searching the world over for something fresh and exciting and now you have found the most incredible delicacy, enjoy"!!!
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| Mmmmm, Cheese Curds |
Poutines are disgusting. They are overdone French Fries topped with oozing cheese curds and slopped with thick brown gravy. Denizens of Montreal are inexplicably mad for them; they are sort of the Sprinkles Cupcakes of Canada. They eat them all day long. They eat them at breakfast with cafe au lait, at lunch with a spork and a beer, and at dinner with exquisite sterling silver cutlery. When I ordered my first (and only) poutines and the waiter set the plate in front of me, I trotted out my best high school French and said
Excusez-moi, serveur, mais vous avez placé juste à tort le petit-déjeuner du chien en face de moi. He was astonished that I had compared this mess to the dog's breakfast and insisted that I try it. I made a big show a taking a huge bite, which seemed to satisfy him, so as he turned his back I delicately removed it from my mouth by hacking it onto the sidewalk. I poured the rest of it in in a potted fern next to me, which promptly died.
In Old Town Montreal, with its ancient buildings, sorbet shoppes and a Cirque du Soleil tent, we had a wonderful Croques Monsieur (ham and cheese sandwich) with about twenty-five pounds of French Fries. I made hexing signs at our waiter when he approached me with a bowl of glistening curds and a ceramic boatful of gravy, and he skittered away nervously. The India Pale Ale I drank with it was delicious and cold.
We went to a place called Dunn's Famous (I was like famous
what since it seemed like a dangling
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| Dunn's Famous....what? |
modifier but I was shushed.) It turns out they are famous for their smoked meat sandwiches. I asked if smoked meat was like pastrami or brisket or corn beef or something and the waitress just tossed her curls at me and said I'd have to see for myself. (She said it in French, so she might have actually said something entirely different regarding my diminished mental abilities, not sure.) I ordered the Smoked Meat Reuben and it was exactly like pastrami/brisket/corned beef. I think Dunn's is famous just for being famous like that dreadful reality show family where everyone's name begins with a K. You know who I mean. Don't make me say it.
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| Piazzetta on Rue Ste Catherine |
Piazzetta looked interesting, with its bright red sidewalk cafe and attractive servers. They had some weird toppings on the menu I'd never seen in a pizza place before, like beef tongue and chicken feet and of course freaking cheese curds, but I went sort of All Italian American and ordered the single serving pepperoni, "fully dressed." (I guess modesty prevails in Montreal to some degree since naked pizza is frowned upon.) It was a rectangle of crispy flatbread with a modicum of mozzarella, some tasty sliced tomatoes and 12 discs of bland, slightly pink meat that reminded me of Canadian bacon but with less spicy heat.
Honestly, the best meals were the daily breakfast at our guesthouse, called La Conciergerie. Every morning we welcomed a generous repast of yogurts, fresh fruit, cereal, juices, and muffins, all ratcheted
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| Ooh la la, Le Petit Dejeuner Etait Magnifique |
up by accompanying rarities never found in your more mundane "breakfast included" places. Two days we had boiled, spotted quail eggs, and another time yellow plums from Southern Ontario. The owner dispatched a lackey every morning to the local patisserie, so we could also indulge in fresh, aromatic croissants, little breakfast tarts and brioche with butter and homemade jam. I sort of never wanted to leave but I feared another pants fastener debacle and the owner was too nice a guy to be blinded by brass projectile jeans buttons.
All in all, it was a great trip if not exactly a gastronomically adventurous one. I am glad to be back in Dallas and just starting to think about which inventive, chef-driven kitchen we might be gracing with our presence tonight. I heard there's a new French place in the Park Cities that we might try. If they feature poutines on the menu I'll probably make a scene.
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