After a morning of wandering the Underground City
we took the bus up St. Laurent to the Smoked Meat
district. Schwartz's, the famous deli, had a huge
line out front, so we went across the way to its
closest (in every sense) competitor, the Main St.
Lawrence Steak House, which was sad and run-down
with a small sad clientele.
We had no trouble getting a table - it was not
more than half-full, and the tables had one or
two diners, in contrast to Schwartz's, where every
seat is filled, and if you can't fill your table,
they seat someone else in the empties.
Carol had a poutine, so I had my first taste of the stuff
(it was okay, but what's the big deal about fries and
gravy with white rubber erasers on top?), and a chopped
liver (came with fried onions, good, and mustard, weird)
on a bagel. I had a smoked meat sandwich, which was very
good, the meat with plenty of chew (and a fair amount of
fat) and a good smoky spicy flavor.
A pitcher of Boreale Blonde went well, although,
truth to tell, a half-pitcher would have gone better.
The cashier-waitress would not accept a tip.
We left pleased; I imagine others would, too.
The difference between the two delis appears to be that
at Schwartz's, prosperous people leave a bit of their
happiness there; from Main, less prosperous people
take home a bit of happiness. Which is better? I
tend to go with the underdog, especially when the
meat is better.
Carol found a shop to poke around in, so I braved
the crowd at Schwartz's and got a to-go order of
their smoked meat to refresh my memory.
We do like the meat at Main better - it's got more
chew and more smokiness; Schwartz's is more like
your ordinary black pastrami that you'd get anywhere,
although it is quite a bit garlickier than Main's.
Carol took one bite of Schwartz's and refused to
eat any more, making a wry face. Main has ruined her
forever for Montreal smoked meat!
-
Brunoise is an easy ten-minute walk from the hotel.
That and the fact that it's one of the hottest
dining destinations in town made it a no-brainer
for our fancy birthday meal.
Started festively with the house bubbly, Saumur Cuvee
Flamme Gratien & Meyer n.v., which was nice and
toasty rich, with smallish bubbles - if not Champers,
at least reasonably close.
An amuse: cream of corn with smoked salmon and a shrimp
- pretty standard, nice flavors. Carol thought the fish
was overwhelmed by the rather strong corn taste. The
shrimp came avec head and shell and antennae, which
might be an inconvenience or a turn-off to some. It was
an okay shrimp, poached in a quite salty court-bouillon.
Carol's entree was a caricature of tall food - a tower of
smoked mackerel with Belgian endive, apple, and brioche,
glued together with honey butter and garnished with mujjol
(i.e. fake) caviar. She questioned the wisdom of the honey
butter, but comparison tastes with and without showed that
the stuff did the dish no harm (although no particular good,
either). The fake caviar was a silliness - put me in mind of
Cooking for Nitwits, in which one makes fake caviar out of
squid ink and tapioca pearls (don't try this at home!).
Her main course, salmon grilled with five-spice and
garnished with lobster foam and a crab raviolo, was
pretty nice, the fish done medium-rare, the spicing
judicious: sort of what the rather bizarre crusted
Arctic char we'd had at the Institut Hoteliere a few
years ago (oh, was it 1999? gee, how time flies)
would have aspired to. The raviolo was odd - just a
bunch of crab stuffed into an al dente pasta envelope;
I'd have bound it and flavored it and made it into
something more interesting than just a costly garnish.
I was looking to have the rabbit ballottine with
black pudding, but the waitress said that this was
being substituted by a rabbit ballottine with
chorizo. At the time I wondered, why on earth would
they do that? but as I type the answer comes clear -
the black pudding, quite perishable in any case, must
have gone off, the weather being quite warm (aside
from some thunderstorms on Monday, we had perfect
balmy weather throughout our stay). Strike one. My
second choice was the smoked fish, strike two. I
ended up with something I'd normally never order,
white asparagus with blood oranges, grapefruit, mint,
pickled onions, tempura white anchovy (it was this
last that made the dish interesting to me). Everything
was pretty good (although the anchovy was just a
pickled anchovy such as you get in the tapas bar, and
which the tapas bar gets from a Spanish can) and the
flavors didn't war with one another: so the dish, though
not exactly a hit, wasn't exactly a strikeout, either.
As it was sort of summery, instead of the veal cheeks
and sweetbreads that I'd envisioned ordering, I went
with something quite a bit lighter, the seared scallops
(excellent, six big ones, crusty on one side and rare
on the other), crawfish tails (numerous, frozen, ok),
artichoke hearts (good), and caramelized fennel (great),
sauced with a vinaigrette containing tiny dice (get it?)
of olives (too strong) and tomatoes (inessential). A
really big serving of mostly excellent food: if it were
just the scallops and the fennel, I'd have been just as
happy, though, and the kitchen would have saved a couple
bucks. But confusing variety of flavor seems to be back.
I'd ordered the Clos du Papillon Closel, which would have
been terrific with the scallops and pretty good with the
fish, but they were out: no surprise, as at 40$-odd this
was a real bargain; a hurried consultation with the wine
list yielded a rather lesser wine and not much of a deal,
Crozes-Hermitage Mule Blanche (Jaboulet) 01 at 58$, but
one that went pretty well with the scallops, by virtue of
its good acidity, and quite well with the salmon, because
of its extreme richness on the palate. A very thick wine,
with all sorts of fruit - exotic, citrus, and stone, in
that order, and an unctuous palate: almost as though there
were some Viognier in it, which there isn't.
At this point we were rather full, both in tummy and
spirit, but dessert comes.
Carol ordered the cherry clafoutis (pretty good but no
cherry pits) with sour cream ice cream (odd), which
comes with a tiny cute cup of cherry milkshake on the
side (very odd - I'd say enormously strange; it tasted to
me like spoiled cherry yogurt).
My frozen pistachio parfait with bitter chocolate sorbet,
raspberries, and a raspberry-mint nage was excellent, with
a pronounced fresh-roasted pistachio flavor (i.e., not
tarted up with almonds or almond extract) and an almost
overwhelming chocolatiness, which went very well, The
raspberries and mint added complexity but not much
interest; on the other hand, they didn't ruin the dish.
As I didn't want to waste 25-40$ a bottle at the state
store to taste these things, I ordered a flight of cidre
de glace (think eiswein only made with apples) -
The Pinnacle 01 had a bright green apple aroma, but on the
palate it was acrid, bitter, quite unpleasant, tasting more
of stems and peels than of apple - in fact there was little
apple at all on the palate. Carol wanted to finish it, even
though we both thought it was trash, because she was
brought up waste-not-want-not, but I prevented her.
Pinnacle reserve speciale 02, on the other hand, had a
muted aroma, which improved in the glass. It was richer,
with a good mouthfeel, and a sweetness to balance the
pronounced acid and a touch of that same bitterness. A
fairly enjoyable drink.
These came in about 2-oz pours, just the right amount -
for the good one, anyhow.
Cafe au lait was the usual thing.
Toward the end of the meal, Zach, the proprietor, came
back and asked how we'd liked everything, and we were
appropriately enthusiastic; I was actually almost fulsome
about the scallops, not my usual trait. Lest he get the
big head, I demurred about the regular Pinnacle and Carol
about the cherry milkshake, but we promised to return.
Little does he know, though, that last time we were in
Montreal was 6 years ago.
The bill was not too disagreeable.
= =
For our last day, we decided to make use of our bus passes
again and went downtown to Peel St. and more of the
Underground City (looks like any other mall to me, but I
am no connoisseur of shopping), where Carol picked up some
junk jewelry; then off to Pie IX to take a quick look at
the Olympic Stadium; then there was a choice between the
Botanic Gardens and lunch, so we made the obvious choice.
Restaurant l'Academie is conveniently half a block from
our hotel, and we passed it bunches of times, noticing it
quite popular. Earlier, we'd passed Biere et Compagnie
and noted the 20 or so mussel preparations for 16$ or so,
all you can eat on Monday through Wednesday, and Carol
thought that might be fun; l'Academie serves about 10 such
dishes for 11$, not all you can eat ... but it was there
before us, and I said, how many more mussels would I want
anyway. So we went in and found that the place is almost
exclusively Francophone, which was okay - between my broken
French and the waiter and his broken English and Carol with
her smile, we did fine, although it took an iteration or
two before I realized that this was another BYOB and that
the state store was next door. I excused and came back with
the Inniskillin Chardonnay 03, as it was cheap, Canadian,
and cold. Not too bad - lowish concentration, good acid,
taste of unripe apples, some lemoniness, not much oak.
Carol went for the mesclun salad with raspberry vinaigrette
followed by veal in mushroom cream sauce with tagliatelle
and grilled vegetables (red pepper, eggplant, yellow
squash); all pretty normal, although near-beef would be a
better description of the meat. Sauce was very nice.
I had the soup of the day, cream of carrot, not too sweet
nor too creamy, but with a vivid carrot taste and a strong
undertone of chicken stock: I rather liked it. My moules
Madagascar came in a lovely cream and Cognac sauce with
lots and lots of green peppercorns - a huge serving, maybe
all I could eat anyway, with thick somewhat ugly frites
made from old potatoes (so: very brown, rather sweet, some
crisp, some not crisp).
The wine cut all that creaminess well.
As this was our one meal of the day, we had dessert; my
marzipan torte was well-flavored if way too sweet (the
waiter warned us); it came with a blob of custard with
some Jell-O-like substance on top, which moderated the
sugar a bit. Carol's creme caramel with lemon was
acceptable if not the paragon of creaminess. The bill
was not disagreeable at all.
After lunch, we picked up our bags at the hotel
and decided to take public trans to the airport,
as the next cheapest way, the Aerobus, was 13$
a person extra. So: subway to Lionel-Groulx, bus
to Gare Dorval, transfer to the other bus whose
second stop is the airport. 1 hour 5 total from
downtown, counting an unexplained 10-minute stop
on the subway and a few minutes' wandering around
looking for the 204 bus, which, as it turns out,
stops across the tracks from the regular bus stop
during rush hours, as this way it doesn't have to
lose 15 minutes negotiating the killer Avenue
Dorval traffic circle . Total cost: 0 (would be
7.50$ without the pass). Difference in time from
taking the Aerobus: negligible.
0531 US2783 YUL PHL 1945 2126 CRJ 3D
They have an experimental station where you get
to check your own bag at the kiosk; we tried it:
Carol got her luggage tag and no boarding passes;
I got boarding passes and no luggage tag. So we
had to go to the counter anyway, where a friendly
US Air agent fixed things right up.
Customs and Immigration took ten minutes tops.
Luckily Star Gold gets one into the Maple Leaf Lounge, so
we hunkered down there. Comfy chairs, free Internet, cheese
and crackers, soft drinks, 10 different beers (2 on draft),
a dozen or more liquors, self-service bar. Cookies.
Carol found the comfiest chairs - clamshells a la 1960, in
colors (orange, yellow, purple) that were probably bright
and lively when the chairs were installed, many years ago.
They were pretty comfy, though. She went off to check out
the Internet stations; I inspected the beer selection,
starting with the drafts.
Raftman - very yeasty, lemony, not interesting.
U (not otherwise identified) - bright yellow,
quite yeasty but with little other taste; Carol
described it as "beer-flavored water."
Defeated, I fell back on Mott's Clamato extra epice -
primary flavor of celery, followed by black pepper,
red pepper, tomato, MSG, and high-fructose corn syrup.
No clamminess of any sort. Almost as artificial-
tasting as the beer.
Other things tasted:
Taylor Fladgate Late Bottled Vintage 1999 - I had
rather high hopes for this, as I'd picked up a bottle
for myself at a rather bargain price earlier. Well,
at this point it tastes like slightly prune-flavored
sugar syrup. No wonder it costs $16 a bottle, rather
cheap for just about any kind of Port. It is, I will
admit, very smooth.
Biere Maudite (Unibroue) - very very yeasty (with
live cultures in the bottom of the bottle), rather
molassesy, a touch of sulfur on the nose. According
to the bottle [translation from the French; the
English version says nothing like this] - "this beer
should be drunk with great respect for its warming
and comforting effect." As it might, at 8% alcohol.
We left about 5 after 7, as our boarding passes said
that boarding was at 7. Boarding wasn't until 7:30ish.
The flight itself was insignificant but for a very
high-energy and rather cute flight attendant.
A potty stop at the club, which was just closing,
and then Carol saw me off at the gate for
US 18 PHL BOS 2230 2346 321 9A
This is I figure the best row on the plane, and
I had it all to myself. The flight came in 15 early,
with me snoozing most of it, and then I walked out to
baggage claim, where the inevitable happened. They
lost my bag. I shrugged. I figure they probably
went through it looking for contraband (they alway
do when I check bags internationally; you'd think
they'd learn their lesson, but I am not confident
that they ever will; your tax dollars at work), and
by the time they got bored, it was too late for the
bag to make the connection. Anyhow, I got a call at
10 the next morning, and the delivery guy came
shortly thereafter: the bag was intact, although
the TSA inspector (in Philadelphia! of all places)
wasn't as careful as usual, and my stuff wasn't
properly repacked. Nothing missing, though.