Montreal

Ted and me in Montreal.


The famous smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz's Deli.


The cobbled streets of Old Montreal.


Horse-drawn carriages were all over in both Old Quebec City and Old Montreal.


A bronze in Old Montreal.


This almost made us feel guilty for taking 9 days off the bike. Almost.

Much of the Montreal portion of our trip was centered around the F1 Grand Prix, but we also did a bunch of other things.

Ted had decided in advance that he wanted to treat us both to some fantastic meals in Montreal, and he did just that. Our first night's reservation took us to Laloux, which was a wonderful French bistro. We opted to order from the a la carte menu, rather than trying the tasting menu, and we were very happy with all of our dishes. The highlight of the meal was definitely Ted's pan-seared foie gras, which was the best foie gras either of us had ever had. It was delicious. Really, the whole dinner was great. Our waitress seemed a bit pretentious, but the sommelier more than made up for it with his great attitude.

The following night we went to Raza, which was fun because it was completely different from Laloux. Raza is very modern and tiny, seating a max of only 24 people. In all there were only 4 people working in the restaurant: 2 for the front of the house and 2 in the kitchen. Since neither Ted or I had ever done a tasting menu with wine pairings before, we opted to do the 7 course tasting menu. The wine pairing was a good decision because all of the wines were from South America, and we were not familiar with a single one! It was a super novel, fun menu. The foie gras here was far from as good as that at Laloux, simply because the chef was trying too hard to make a neat presentation; foie gras is so good on its own that he was doing too much to it. After a dinner of ceviche, fish, foie gras, duck, beef, a pre-dessert, and a dessert, we were stuffed!

Sunday was mostly devoted to the race, though we did get a simple Italian dinner and a few drinks downtown. Although the Grand Prix was over, the downtown was still crazy. It was amazing to see how huge of an event the race was for the entire city, with several downtown blocks closed exclusively for F1 parties. There were concerts and boothes everywhere you looked, and it made for fantastic people-watching. We sat at an open-air bar that overlooked the street, and it was highly amusing to watch the passing traffic. We truly saw all types, from women dressed like prostitutes to old couples.

With the race over, Monday was our day to really explore Montreal. Our day began with a visit to Schwartz's Deli, a Montreal landmark. I had read online that it is considered a sin to order anything but the smoked meat sandwich, so that is what we both went with, and it was great.

We walked our lunch off with a long walk to Old Montreal, which has less of a European feel than Old Quebec City, but still feels very old. We wandered in and out of shops before winding our way back to the hotel for a nap.

That evening we headed to the Dieu du Ciel microbrewery, which was recommended by our friend Dave. I really enjoyed two of the beers I tried, one brewed with hibiscus, and one a vanilla chocolate stout. I'm pretty sure Ted liked them all!

This pretty much concluded our trip. I will, of course, have to do one more entry devoted to the Grand Prix itself, so that will be coming!