Food and Family North of the Border
We had two very memorable dinners in Montreal. Not only for the food (which was excellent), but for the meal experience. They were family gatherings of the best possible kind: long meals filled with laughter and good conversation. As much as I enjoyed them what made me even happier was watching my in-laws (my father-in-law especially) just taking in every moment of being with their two daughters and on Saturday enjoying the added company of a cousin and his wife who coincidentally also took a trip to Montreal this past weekend. The family meal is a dying institution in America and it needs to be saved.
My choices at Saturday’s dinner at Brasserie Brunoise included a superlative mushroom and chorizo soup and a pan-seared skate wing. The soup was beautiful and clean, the earthy mushroom flavor offset by the spicy bite of the half-moon slices of chorizo. I found myself grabbing bread out of the bread basket to soak up every drop. The skate wing was moist, mild and perfectly cooked with a well-balanced sautéed veg garnish that I’m pretty sure included fennel. The restaurant is located across the street from the Bell Centre which makes me worry that it won’t do well as it’s really a place for a long, loud, laughter filled meal with lots of wine and not a pre-game pub burger. I’m glad we put the place to good use and the staff gave us plenty of time and space (not to mention refills) to enjoy our time together.
Sunday featured a return to that enemy of the arteries, Au Pied de Cochon. Summer time is seafood time at APDC so I opted for the special starter of head cheese and shrimp and a main course of the APDC lobster roll (whole lobster tail with house-made mayo and lettuce on toasted bread topped with, what else, cold foie gras). The starter was pure unctuous, heart-stopping joy with three cubes of warmed fromage de tete that melted pure porky goodness over my tongue. The shrimp part of the dish was a little bit of a letdown as it was those teeny-tiny shrimp you usually see in delicatessen shrimp salad and they didn’t taste like much. Ah well. The lobster roll was excellent if a little short on lobster meat since I chose to have a 1 lb lobster instead of the 1 ½ or 2 pounder as I hadn’t considered the fact that they would use the same size bread regardless of how much lobster you ordered.
Dessert was the star of the show on this visit. I had a “white cake” served in a maple syrup reduction that was inspired by the Quebec poor-person’s dessert of maple syrup served over white bread. It was sweet without being cloying (though my father-in-law found it too sweet for his taste) and for me real maple syrup is an excellent “sometimes food” treat.
Once again it was great to see my in-laws enjoying the company of their daughters around the dinner table. The kitchen was a bit slow at APDC – we had a 9pm reservation and actually got seated a few minutes early but didn’t get out of the place until after 11:30pm but nobody seemed to mind much. Family time is precious and APDC is also the kind of place where it’s fun to watch what people at other tables order especially when they get the big, ornate seafood towers or the enormous whole pig’s trotter with foie gras that I managed to consume on a previous visit.
All in all, it was the happiest weekend I’ve had in a long, long time with great company, perfect weather, and terrific diversions. Hell, I haven’t even described how much fun we had watching Saturday’s UFC show in a packed sports bar with everyone cheering for local boy Patrick Cote in the semi-main event. Nor did I detail watching the greatest tennis match ever played along with the entire staff of 3 Brasseurs in Vieux Port who stopped working during play and the patrons who didn’t seem to mind the slowed service because they too were mesmerized by what was transpiring across the Atlantic. Maybe next post.
My choices at Saturday’s dinner at Brasserie Brunoise included a superlative mushroom and chorizo soup and a pan-seared skate wing. The soup was beautiful and clean, the earthy mushroom flavor offset by the spicy bite of the half-moon slices of chorizo. I found myself grabbing bread out of the bread basket to soak up every drop. The skate wing was moist, mild and perfectly cooked with a well-balanced sautéed veg garnish that I’m pretty sure included fennel. The restaurant is located across the street from the Bell Centre which makes me worry that it won’t do well as it’s really a place for a long, loud, laughter filled meal with lots of wine and not a pre-game pub burger. I’m glad we put the place to good use and the staff gave us plenty of time and space (not to mention refills) to enjoy our time together.
Sunday featured a return to that enemy of the arteries, Au Pied de Cochon. Summer time is seafood time at APDC so I opted for the special starter of head cheese and shrimp and a main course of the APDC lobster roll (whole lobster tail with house-made mayo and lettuce on toasted bread topped with, what else, cold foie gras). The starter was pure unctuous, heart-stopping joy with three cubes of warmed fromage de tete that melted pure porky goodness over my tongue. The shrimp part of the dish was a little bit of a letdown as it was those teeny-tiny shrimp you usually see in delicatessen shrimp salad and they didn’t taste like much. Ah well. The lobster roll was excellent if a little short on lobster meat since I chose to have a 1 lb lobster instead of the 1 ½ or 2 pounder as I hadn’t considered the fact that they would use the same size bread regardless of how much lobster you ordered.
Dessert was the star of the show on this visit. I had a “white cake” served in a maple syrup reduction that was inspired by the Quebec poor-person’s dessert of maple syrup served over white bread. It was sweet without being cloying (though my father-in-law found it too sweet for his taste) and for me real maple syrup is an excellent “sometimes food” treat.
Once again it was great to see my in-laws enjoying the company of their daughters around the dinner table. The kitchen was a bit slow at APDC – we had a 9pm reservation and actually got seated a few minutes early but didn’t get out of the place until after 11:30pm but nobody seemed to mind much. Family time is precious and APDC is also the kind of place where it’s fun to watch what people at other tables order especially when they get the big, ornate seafood towers or the enormous whole pig’s trotter with foie gras that I managed to consume on a previous visit.
All in all, it was the happiest weekend I’ve had in a long, long time with great company, perfect weather, and terrific diversions. Hell, I haven’t even described how much fun we had watching Saturday’s UFC show in a packed sports bar with everyone cheering for local boy Patrick Cote in the semi-main event. Nor did I detail watching the greatest tennis match ever played along with the entire staff of 3 Brasseurs in Vieux Port who stopped working during play and the patrons who didn’t seem to mind the slowed service because they too were mesmerized by what was transpiring across the Atlantic. Maybe next post.
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