Road Tips

Restaurant le Folichon - Terrebonne, QC

During the last night we were in Montreal for a company meeting just before Christmas, my boss took the North American sales and marketing staff out to dinner at one of his favorite places to dine at in the greater Montreal area, Restaurant le Folichon, located in the northern suburb of Terrebonne.  I'd heard this place was really good and I was looking forward to our meal there that evening.

Restaurant le Folichon (which roughly means "pleasant restaurant") is owned by chef/proprietor Christian Ouellette.  The restaurant is situated in an old small house in Vieux-Terrobonne, basically the older section of the city.  It is only a block from the picturesque Riviere de Mille Iles (River of the Thousand Islands) and walking distance to shops and parks in the city. (see map)  Chef Ouellette uses locally raised food products for his interpretation of French and Mediterranean food.  It is essentially styled after a French auberge - a traditional French inn that uses only meats and vegetables raised in the region in which the restaurant is located.    

The weather had turned cold during the day in Montreal and we took off from our hotel on the north side of Terrebonne and drove down a main road in an area that looked like any other place in North America - chain restaurants, stores, gas stations, etc.  The only difference is that the signage was all in French.  I've always said that if you can't afford to go to Europe, go to Montreal  for a few days.  (I also understand Quebec City has an even more European feel.)  

We turned off the main road as we got toward the old section of Terrebonne and went down a side street until we found Restaurant le Folichon.  The only problem was that there was some sort of winter parade going on that evening and the Old Terrebonne section of town was packed with people and parking was difficult to find.  My boss was able to find a spot in a public parking lot - albeit illegally - and after I dropped off my passengers, I drove around for about 15 minutes before finding a place to park about six blocks due east of the restaurant.  It had turned cold during the day and it was a cold walk back to the restaurant.  

The main dining room is small and cozy.  Wooden supports and ceiling beams are prominent in the room.  The room was bathed in soft lighting from lights hanging from the ceiling and pointed toward artwork on the wall.  There is a small dining area off to the side of the main dining room and an upstairs area for overflow dining or private parties.  I understand that there is an outdoor patio area at Le Folichon that they open in the warmer months.

The menu at Restaurant le Folichon will vary depending upon the fresh foods and ingredients Chef Ouellete can procure on a daily basis.  The evening we visited, the menu featured a five-course meal that consisted of a choice of soup or salad, an appetizer, a sorbet for palate cleansing, a main entree and a dessert.    

But, first things first - we needed drinks.  My boss ended up picking out a pinot noir from Domaine des Perdrix, a small winery in the Burgundy wine region of France.  He ordered up a couple bottles for the table, but in the meantime, I needed something to tide me over until the wine opened up in taste.  I was hoping they had the Boreale Blonde ale that I fell in love with on my visit last year to Montreal.  Unfortunately, they didn't have it, so I settled for a Rickard's Red.  

Since the menu was in French, I needed some help from my French speaking colleagues in interpreting the menu.  I could make some things out, but a few other things were sort of difficult to make out.  The menu featured locally raised deer, beef, lamb and bison, along with some seafood items.  Restaruant le Folichon also had a traditional Southern France Bouillabaisse on the menu that night - a seafood and vegetable soup that is initially boiled, then simmered.  

When it came time to order, I pretty much figured out what I was going to get.  I went the basic route getting the beef filet for my main entree.  Steamed fresh vegetables came with the filet, which I ordered rare.  For the first course, I ordered the minestrone soup and for the appetizer, I got the foie gras.  I hadn't had foie gras for quite some time, so I decided to sign up for that.  Everyone at the table ordered a little bit of everything, so it was going to be interesting to see what came out.  

Our soups and salads came out first.  My minestrone came in a medium sized bowl and was very good.  It featured clam shell pasta, small chunks of ground beef and an assortment of vegetables.  For a cold Canadian evening, I'm glad I got it over the salad. 

Next, the foie gras came out.  It featured two small grilled fois gras patties on small toasted bread and topped with a brown sauce.  Some assorted exotic vegetables were on the side as well as some torn bread to soak up the sauce.  Now, I'm far from an expert on haute cuisine, but I have had fois gras on a handful of occasions on my trips to France.  The fois gras at Restaurant le Folichon didn't compare in taste or texture to what I've had in Europe.  While it was still good, I just felt that I'd had better in the past.  I know, I know.  That sounds pretentious talking about foie gras like that, but I know what I like.  

After the foie gras and just before the main entree was served, our server presented us with a small cup of a red wine/grapefruit sorbet to cleanse our palate.  It had a nice citrus taste with a nice little dry wine finish on the back side.  It worked well in getting my taste buds ready for the main entree.

My filet entree was placed in front of me and it was a large chunk of beef adorned with a single French fry and swimming in a brown sauce.  Assorted vegetables, including a broccoli stalk and a whole cooked turnip, accompanied the filet.  I pretty much knew I was going to pass on the turnip and the broccoli stalk.  

The filet, itself, was tender, but it was a little overcooked.  I like my filet's rare, but this was more medium-rare.  I couldn't complain, however.  The flavor of the beef filet was still very good and it was juicy.  I did enjoy the brown sauce that came with it.  With the homemade bread they had on the table, I sopped up the excess sauce as I ate my filet.  The Domaines des Perdrix pinot noir went extremely well with my filet.  It had sort of an earthy taste and complemented my meal very well.   

 

Seated next to me, one of my Canadian colleagues had the bouillabaisse.  It featured large chunks of seafood in  what was described to me as a nice light tomato-based broth that had a hint of a spicy taste.  My colleague said it was very good, some of the best bouillabaisse he said he'd ever had.  I don't care much for seafood in a tomato stock, but it did look enticing.

Down the table, my colleague, Ian, had the lamb shank.   The locally raised lamb was tender and not too fatty, something that steers me away from lamb.  I sort of wish I would have tried the lamb at Restaurant le Folichon because I know if I ever find a good lean lamb shank somewhere, I'd probably like it.  Ian also said his lamb was very good.  

Across the table from Ian, my colleague, Todd, had le Folichon's version of "surf and turf" - a lobster tail with locally-raised deer venison.  Todd grew up on Prince Edward Island and I've known him for over 10 years.  He's pretty discriminating in his tastes for seafood, but I've also found that he likes farm-raised game.  I've never been fond of deer because of the gamey taste, but Todd said the farm-raised deer around the Montreal area is pretty good.  

And directly across from me, my colleague, Chris, had the bison.  He said he wished he would have gotten the beef filet, instead, as he found his bison to be a little overcooked - like my filet - and sort of dry.  Even with the brown sauce that he also had on his bison, he didn't feel it was as good as other bison he had in the past.

It was getting late and many of us had early wake-up calls for early morning flights back home in the morning.  When our server came around with the dessert menu, many of us said, "Non!" to dessert.  A couple guys had espresso, and while I do like a good espresso from time to time, I didn't want that one late in the evening, especially when I needed to get to sleep as soon as I made it back to the hotel.

Restaurant le Folichon was a wonderful experience, one that I enjoyed thoroughly.  Even though my filet was a little overcooked, it was still very good.  I didn't like the fois gras as I have at other restaurants, but it was still a nice treat.  My boss has been coming to le Folichon for years and I see why he keeps coming back.  The food, the service and the cozy ambiance is very tough to beat.  It was like being in a little rural restaurant/inn in the French countryside.  Restaurant le Folichon was one of those culinary joys that I get to experience from time to time.   

Villa Wellington - Verdun, QC

Last May, the chief technician for our company up in Montreal, Michel, came out to Iowa to pick up a treasure trove of old short-wave magazines that I had picked up for him in the Chicago area and transport them back to Canada.  His wife, Marisa, came back with him and I decided to cook some good ol' Iowa prime beef steaks on the grill when they came.  Michel is my partner-in-crime who shared the 40 oz. porterhouse for two with me at Stack Steakhouse in Las Vegas a couple years ago.  (Click here to see that entry.)  I had to be up in Montreal just before Christmas for a meeting, so Michel asked me if I could come in a day early and we'd go out to dinner.  He told me a couple days before that we'd be having dinner at a place in suburban Verdun called Villa Wellington.  He asked me, "Do you like Peruvian food?"  I told him that I'd never had Peruvian food before, let alone I didn't know what it was.  He said, "If you like seafood, you'll like Peruvian food."  

After landing at Pierre Trudeau International Airport and getting through customs quicker than any time I'd flown into Montreal before, I took the ramp from the customs area and immediately saw my bag on the carousel waiting for me.  After dropping off my declaration card with the customs agent at the baggage claim exit, I quickly got out to my rental car and set the GPS for Villa Wellington on located on Wellington St. in a nice little neighborhood of shops and restaurants in Verdun. (see map) Traffic - as it always seems in Montreal - was a bitch and it took me over an hour to go about 11 miles and I got to the restaurant around 6 p.m.  I parked just down the block from the restaurant and walked along the brightly lit street with large green and red Christmas circular lights hanging up and down Wellington Street.  With a little snow coming down - the first I'd seen in the season - it was almost a festive winter atmosphere.   

Meeting us for dinner that evening was Michel's wife, Marisa, and one of our customer service guys, Francois, who actually lived in Peru for five years working for the Peace Corps.  It was Michel who turned Francois onto the restaurant, I found out.  Michel said he has been coming to Villa Wellington for nearly 20 years, about the same amount of the years the Saravia-Ramirez family has been running the restaurant.  (One of the Saravia-Ramirez sons has opened a small Peruvian restaurant just down the street - Augusto al Gusto.)  Francois has worked for us about five or six years.  Once Michel found out that Francois lived in Peru for five years, he brought Francois to Villa Wellington one evening.  Francois said it was as close to the real type of Peruvian cuisine as what he had in his years in Peru.  

Francois - in addition to being fluent in English and French - is also fluent in Spanish.  And that helped.  The waiter spoke a little English, but was more comfortable in Spanish and French.  And the menu at Villa Wellington was in both Spanish and French.  Now, I can make out some words in both languages, but I was going to rely upon both Michel and Francois to guide me along this evening.  

The first thing Francois and I had to have was a beer.  I understood the waiter when he said, "Rickard's Red", the so-called leading red beer in Canada, brewed by the Molson brewery based in Montreal.  I asked the waiter if he had any Boreale beers, specifically the Blonde.  Unfortunately, he did not.  I fell in love with the Boreale beers on my last visit to Montreal the previous year.  

Starting off, they ordered up two different types of soup - a shrimp soup and a sort of seafood soup, kind of like a cioppino.  And Francois also ordered ceviche - raw fish marinated in a lime juice that cooks the fish.  I hadn't had good ceviche in years and Francois said Villa Wellington's was very good.  

While we waited for the first course, I took a look through the menu to see if there were things that I could pick out with my limited knowledge of Spanish and French.  Interestingly, they had a section for Mexican food (fajitas, mostly), Italian food (fettuccine alfredo, spaghetti, etc.), and something called "Canadian" food that featured fish and chips, a hamburger steak and, quite curiously, souvlaki.  I guess I didn't know souvlaki was a Canadian dish.   

Two large bowls soon came onto the table.  The first, at the lower left, was the Chupe de Camarones, a traditional Peruvian chowder with shrimp and potatoes in a cream sauce.  I was told by Francois that potatoes were a national staple in Peru with over 200 different varieties throughout the country.  "It's like each village has a special type of potato," he told me.  "Because of the difference in altitude and climate, the potatoes can change in texture and taste from area to area."  

The soup above right is called Parihuela - also known as "Peruvian Bouillebaisse".  It consists of a variety of Pacific whitefish and shellfish seasoned with Peruvian chiles and a Peruvian brandy called "pisco".  Both, I have to say, were just excellent.  The Chupe de Camarones was rich and flavorful with large pieces of shrimp and nice chunks of potatoes.  But the Parihuela featured large chunks of whitefish, shrimp and mussels.  It was much lighter in taste than the chowder-style soup.  In fact, Michel - who is a big eater - told me that he'll sometimes just order a big bowl of the Parihuela just for himself.  

The ceviche - Ceviche Mixto - was a combination of lime marinated shrimp and whitefish served with pickled onions and served on a bed of endive with some sauces off to the side.  I first had ceviche on a trip to Isla Mujeres off the Yucatan coast in Mexico about 15 years ago.  I had never had anything like it before and the ceviche I've had since then has never come close to the taste of what I had in Mexico.  But I will say the ceviche at Villa Wellington was superb. We made short work of the ceviche.  

After finishing what was basically the first two courses of the meal, Francois started to ask me what I fancied in food.  I said, "Come on, you know me, man.  I won't do like raw squid or octopus, but I will try about anything.  You seem to be doing pretty well turning me on to Peruvian food already." 

Francois called the waiter over and began to talk to him in Spanish, the two carrying on an animated conversation.  When Francois finally said, "Si! OK!" after a minute or so, the waiter smiled and left the table.  He said, "I ordered a couple things for us to try.  Both are true Peruvian dishes."  

I asked Francois if he spoke any Spanish when he first went to Peru.  He said, "No, none.  Just French and English."  He said working with Peruvian farmers taught him that he had to learn Spanish, and learn it fast.  "I just picked it up along the way," he explained.  "It was all out of necessity."  He said he was conversing in Spanish in about six months.   

About 15 minutes later, the waiter brought out the first of the two entrees.  It was called Lomo Saltaldo - basically Peruvian fajitas with grilled beef strips, sauteed onions, peppers and tomatoes, and - surprisingly - potato strips, sort of like French fries.  It was served without tortillas and each of us just grabbed a spoon full and put it on the plate.  It was actually very good.  And the French fries in the mix were really the highlight.  

While we were noshing on the Lomo Saltaldo, the waiter brought out the second plate - this one a diverse house entree mix of beef and seafood called Piqueo Wellington.  It featured a mixture of anticuchos - basically grilled skewered meat; seafood ceviche; fried calimari; grilled octopus; and causa - a sort of hybrid "catch-all" type of Peruvian food that features potatoes, herbs and marinated onions.  For good measure, Francois also had a small dish of beef off to the side and he offered me a bite of it.  It was sort of chewy and tough, but it wasn't unpleasant.  He said, "Do you know what it is?"  I said I didn't.  "It's beef tongue," he said.  Ugh!  I probably wouldn't have eaten it had I known, but I will say it wasn't bad.  I didn't have another bite, however.     

But the other stuff was pretty good.  I focused on the Lorno Saltaldo, the antichucos and the ceviche.  It was all very wonderful.  It was definitely a horizon-broadening experience for me. Michel looked at me and said, "Isn't this just great?"  It certainly was.  I'm glad he invited me to join them for dinner.  

As we were finishing up the meal, Francois turned to me and asked, "Do you like green tea?"  Sure, I'll drink some of my wife's green tea from time to time, especially when I have a cold.  And since I was on the back side of a nasty cold that I had caught the week before, I thought some tea would be nice.  Francois and the waiter began to speak in Spanish and speaking back and forth for a few moments, Francois said, "Ah!  Good!  They have it.  This will be a treat."  

A few moments later, the waiter brought out some coffee for Marisa, a glass of milk for Michel ("I don't know," he said.  "I just like having milk after a meal like that."  Hey, I like milk, too!), and a couple small tea pots with a couple tea bags.  Francois took the tea bags and put it in my small tea pot to steep for a few minutes.  When I finally poured the tea and took a sip, it was sort of a refreshing experience.  He said, "Do you know what you're drinking?"  

He showed me the outer pouch that the tea bag came in.  It was called Mate de Coca  (ma-TAY day Coke-ah) - basically an herbal tea taken from the leaf of a coca plant - the same thing that cocaine is extracted from.  Quite actually, Francois was surprised that Villa Wellington had Mate de Coca at all.  "It's supposed to be illegal to export any coca leaf product from Peru," he told me.  "Somehow they're able to get it from somewhere."

When the waiter came back, Francois asked him in French where they were able to get the Mate de Coca.  The waiter replied and Francois started to laugh.  "He said, 'I don't know! It just shows up,' " Francois told me.  While it didn't have any effect like cocaine would, it was a very refreshing tea to drink.  Francois explained to me that shepherds in the higher elevations chew on coca leaves "from the time they get out in the field each morning."  They'll put four or five in their mouth and it helps them stay energetic throughout the day.  "And at those high elevations, and we're talking 3000 meters (about 9800 feet) above sea level, they need all the help they can get," Francois explained.  I have to say not only was it a wonderful dinner, the conversation was great and I learned a lot about not only Peruvian cuisine that evening, but Peru, as a whole.    

My first experience at a Peruvian restaurant was fun and certainly educational.  The food was interesting and very good at Villa Wellington.  I went over to Michel and Marisa's house for a nightcap and Marisa kept trying to get me to eat some Christmas cookies, but I was so full and satiated from my meal that I couldn't have any more than one.  I couldn't thank them enough for the hospitality they showed me all evening long.  Villa Wellington was one of those very memorable meals.    

Le Fin Farfadet - Le Gardeur, QC

I found myself in Montreal at our head office for meetings with the Cambridge Audio people just before Christmas this past December. It was a short trip to Montreal - I was in and out of there in less than 48 hours - but it's always a treat to go there. After a long day of meetings on products and marketing, we retired to a small European-style restaurant near our offices in northeast suburban Le Gardeur - Le Fin Farfadet. My French is not good, but I'm learning as I go along and I believe Le Fin Farfadet translates loosely into "The Last Elf" or "The Last Leprechaun". Either way, that's why there's a little gnome on the logo for the restaurant.

Le Fin Farfadet specializes in "farm to table" cuisine using naturally raised products found in Quebec. The menu will feature a revolving selection of wild game such as elk, deer and even kangaroo that are raised on farms. The restaurant also features naturally raised, near-Kobe grade beef, as well as fresh seafood brought into Montreal's ports on a daily basis. Owner/Chef Michel Mendes will only use the freshest foods available to him that day, hence the ever changing menu.

Le Fin Farfadet is located along Rue Notre-Dame, a main thoroughfare in Le Gardeur. (See map) It's housed in a beautiful little stone house with an addition off to the north side of the building. I wish I could have gotten a picture of the front of the building, but it was night and I couldn't get a good shot of the structure.

Inside, the stone walls of the main dining area as you first walk into the restaurant transports you to rural France where you might find one of hundreds of auberge restaurants that specialize in serving locally grown foods. It was like walking into a restaurant that had been around since the 18th century.

The dining room off to the side is obviously an addition with wooden walls and a more modern feel. We were lucky in that Michel Mendes set us up at a long table in the main dining room surrounded by the stone walls. The lighting was subdued and the atmosphere was very pleasant.

Our server that evening, Jonathon, had a pretty good grasp of the English language, but started off explaining the menu in French. My Canadian colleagues had to do some quick translating what he was saying. It turns out that each dining experience at Le Fin Farfadet is a five course meal - six courses if you wish to get an appetizer. It starts off with a small "chef's choice" appetizer, followed by soup or salad, the electable appetizer, then a sorbet palate cleanser before the main course. The main course is followed by a house-made dessert. This sounded like it was going to be a great dining experience.

The menu for the evening hung on a chalkboard on a wall near our table. It featured the five appetizers they had that evening and seven main courses. I could figure a lot of it out, but thanks to my colleagues Simon and Todd, they helped me on the ones that I couldn't get. One of the appetizers that I couldn't get was a smoked Kangaroo Tataki (more on that later). I figured out foie gras - foie gras is foie gras wherever you go - as well as the shrimp cocktail. They also had escargot au gratin - steamed snails topped with bread crumbs and garlic (that got my attention!), and caviar soaked in vodka.

The main entrees that evening consisted of ravioli with cheddar and goat cheese, a basa filet (basa is a type of catfish that is found primarily in SE Asia, but the basa on the menu was farm raised in Quebec), deer spare ribs (Oh, yeah - barbecued deer ribs. We could smell the smoke from the pit when we walked in.), a duck breast, lamb shanks, the near-Kobe grade beef filet, a lobster tail served with a tomato-based sauce (French cooks call it an "Americain" sauce - or sowse, as my colleague Simon playfully pronounces it), and a pork chop with a dagano cheese sauce. Michel Mendes announced before we ordered that he only had three of the pork dishes left that evening. I seriously thought about getting one of them. 

The only drawback to the menu was that the prices were, I thought, rather exorbitant.  $60 bucks (Canadian) for the filet and $52 for the pork chops was an eye-opener.  It sort of made me shudder when I began to think about what I really wanted for dinner.  

While we decided on what to get for dinner, the first course came to the table. It consisted of a small toasted round bread topped with cheese, bacon bits and chopped tomatoes with fresh oregano. The bread was very thin, almost like a miniature thin-crust pizza. And it was very, very delicious.

As my boss, Daniel, was perusing through the wine list, we decided to get a drink to start off the evening. They had Boreale Blonde on tap, a very pleasant and light tasting beer that is brewed in the small Quebec town of Blainville, just north of the Montreal metro area. It was a very good tasting beer - one that I had never tried on previous visits to Montreal. I immediately liked it.

When it came time to order, I was still waffling back and forth between the beef filet and the pork chop. I don't know what kept me from telling Jonathon that I wanted the pork chop, but I heard myself tell him that I'd take the filet - rare. I had my choice between the soup and salad and I got the salad. And for funsies, I got the escargot au gratin.

Seated around me, my colleagues Simon and Ian both got the deer ribs, while my colleague, Matt, got the lamb shanks. My colleagues Chris and Todd got the filet. Ian and Simon also got the smoked Kangaroo Tataki - once again, more on that later.

The wine that Daniel picked out that evening was a 2005 Cotes Rocheuses, port of the Saint Emilion co-op of wineries from the Bordeaux region of France. It's a blend of 60% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Franc and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. It had a nice body to the wine and had a very flavorful fruity taste to it. It was a wonderful wine for a wonderful dining experience. 

The salads and soups were brought to the table as the second course kicked in. Simon had gotten the soup (above left) and I want to say it was a cauliflower and celery root soup. I had never heard of celery root and Simon explained to me that they take the ball of the celery root, shave off the outer ball and puree that into a soup. Simon categorized his soup as "pretty good".

The salad (above right) was a nice mixture of greens and vegetables with a housemade oil and vinegar combination. It was good, but nothing that was outstanding.

Next was the appetizers for those who ordered. My escargot was served on a sizzling hot holder, six little snails covered in bread crumbs and garlic.  A small digging device was provided to get the meat out. I was cheated on one of the snails - I didn't get any meat out of it. However, the other five were absolutely delicious. The combination of the garlic and the escargot sent my head spinning. I was tremendously happy I decided to order those.

But the interesting appetizer was the one that Ian and Simon got - the smoked Kangaroo Tataki. Tataki is the Japanese cooking method of pounding meat or seafood, then searing it rare. After it the Kangaroo meat was seared, it was brought out to the table covered in a glass top with a hose attached to it that went back to this sort of Hookah-looking device that featured a burning chamber on the top. A small piece of blackened wood was placed into the chamber and it was set on fire. The smoke was sent through the hose and into the glass lid. The smoke lingered in the dish for about a minute, giving the Kangaroo meat a little wood flavoring to it.

Here's a short 10 second video that Ian shot of the process of smoking the Kangaroo Tataki -  Click Here  (After you've finished watching the video, be sure to hit your "return" arrow to return to the article. If you click the "off" or "X" on the video, you'll go back to your home page.)

Ian offered me a bite of his smoked Kangaroo Tataki. Well, this was certainly a first for me. It didn't taste like beef, but it wasn't gamey in taste, either. It had a smooth texture to the meat, somewhat chewy, but wasn't unpleasant in the least. I still don't know if I'd order that at some point, but it was interesting to try.

After those of us who had appetizers finished those, we were then brought the sorbet palate cleanser. It was a combination of apple and calvados - an apple based brandy from France. I normally don't like the taste of apples, but it was a refreshing mid-point in the dinner and a nice way to get the palate ready for the main course.

Just before the main entrees were brought out, Jonathon and another person came out with wooden boxes containing large French-made Laguiole steak knives.  It was quite the presentation.  Possibly a little over the top, but still a nice touch in my book.

Those of whom ordered the steaks got their meals first. My filet was resting upon a salt block, topped with a brown sauce that had a good taste (below left). Assorted vegetables sat with it. The steak was cooked a little more rare-plus than rare, but that was fine with me. My colleagues were still buzzing about my little episode at Uncle Jack's Steakhouse in New York City a couple months prior and wondered if I'd have to be sending this steak back. Nope, it was fine and dandy with me.

The two interesting plates were the ones in front of Simon and Ian - the deer spare ribs. First of all, I'd never heard of deer spare ribs before. The wide bones were prominent on their plates with ample amounts of meat surrounding them. Ian says his deer ribs weren't all that tender and wasn't quite the taste like you can get from farm-raised deer.  He said there was something missing in the taste for him.  Plus he wasn't particulary enamored with the homemade barbecue sauce.  "I was expecting more from the sauce," Ian said.  "It was kind of 'eh!'."  

Simon offered his opinions in writing to me about his deer ribs - "The deer spare ribs were a big disappointment. Seems like the chef thought, 'It doesn’t matter too much how we season the meat, we’ll put some sauce on it after' – so the meat itself was rather dry and had no particular ‘deer’ taste to it. The sauce was obviously slathered on the meat at the moment of service, simply didn’t adhere to the meat and was a simple sweet bbq sauce with no spice to it. I miss the One Star Ranch in Atlanta. Certainly not worth the $52 they were asking for."

To my right, my colleague, Matt, showed off his lamb chops. I'm not big on lamb, but I'll have to say that these looked delicious. They seemed to be topped with the same brown sauce that was on my filet. The meat was so tender that he didn't have much trouble getting his knife through the meat. Matt said the lamb chops were "wonderful".

After dinner was finished, our final course was brought to the table. It was actually a two-part dessert. The first part was a cream parfait topped with wild berries and housed in an edible white and dark chocolate tulip-shaped cup. The berries were fresh, considering it was the middle of December, and it was a nice little after dinner treat. After the desserts were finished, out came an dessert drink - a strawberry/tequila concoction (above right) that was in an edible white chocolate thimble cup. I found out the hard way that it was edible in that I raised the drink to my mouth and pursed my lips around it. When I did that, the cup broke and the remnants of the drink dribbled onto my black shirt. That's what I get for showing off.

After dinner, we were the final group in the place - dinner had started at 6 p.m. and it was close to 9 p.m. Jonathon showed me around the wine cellars they had in the place. They actually had three - a white wine cellar in the main dining area that was chilled to 3.5 degrees centigrade (38.4 degrees F). The reason I knew that is that they had it printed on the glass door. The red wine was housed in the addition to Le Fin Farfadet and Jonathon invited me into that small wine room. Here's a picture I took of him. He had sort of a Vince Vaughan look to him, I thought.

There was another wine room back in the corner of the addition dining room and I asked Jonathon what was in there. "That's our expensive wine room," he said. "Bottles of wine start at around $500 and go up from there. We've got a number of bottles of wine that are over $1000 dollars."

I have to tell you, I'm blessed to be working for a company that allows us to have overly memorable meals from time to time. My experience at Le Fin Farfadet will be one that I'll remember for quite sometime. Getting together with my colleagues and people from our manufacturers is always a great time. When we get to experience a wonderful meal like the one we had at Le Fin Farfadet, it makes it even more special.  Even though I liked it, my colleague Simon wasn't overly impressed with Le Fin Farfadet.  "I think ‘Le Fin Farfadet’ is vastly overpriced and they pride themselves on a lot of ‘tricks’ (smoked kangaroo at the table, big Laguiole steak knifes in wood boxes – etc)," he writes.  "But they simply don’t compete with the restaurants you can find a mere 20 minute drive away."    

Montreal certainly does have some excellent restaurants.  I'd like to try one those restaurants Simon is talking about at some point.  But for me, Le Fin Farfadet was a wonderful dining experience.    

Grange Vin + Bouffe - Montreal

Another "tapas" style restaurant we went to while I was up in Montreal for company meetings was a place called Grange Wine + Bouffe (Wine and Beef).  It was very similar to Pullman, the restaurant we'd visited after I had arrived in Montreal.  While the concept wasn't much different, the decor decidedly was. 

Dave Bernier and Martin Beauchamb are partners in Grange.  They also own the wildly popular Cafe des Eclusiers located on the St. Lawrence River near the port of Montreal, not far from Grange.  Cafe des Eclusiers boasts that they have the largest outdoor patio in Montreal and it's probably true as the large patio overlooks the river.  The story has it that Bernier was traveling through Europe looking for different varieties of wine to buy and bring back to Cafe des Eclusiers.  He found a number of rather small and rustic restaurants that served small portions of food along with great wine.  Upon his return, he talked Beauchamb into opening up a small restaurant similar to the ones he encountered during his trip.

Grange Vin + Bouffe is located in a section of the city known as Old-Montreal, just a couple blocks from the St. Lawrence (see map).  It's an area that's going through some gentrification, but it's also an area where it can get pretty rough after dark.  It was about six in the evening when we pulled up in front of Grange. 

As I said with Pullman, their decor is sort of a contemporary industrial motif that gives it an edgy feel to the place.  With Grange, it's more of a contemporary rustic decor - sort of like they'd found an old barn, cleaned it up, put in some nice tables and chairs and opened a restaurant.  There was a lot of brick and wood throughout the place, old light bulbs that hung from cables strung from the ceiling, but there was sort of a homey feeling to the restaurant.  (The bar area of Grange - below left.)

  

There were eight of us that evening and we settled around a large table near the good sized bar toward the back of the restaurant.  In the picture above and to the right, here is my colleague, Todd, patiently waiting for the rest of us to show up. 

When we did all show up, we were given menus by our waiter.  Once again, I deferred to my colleague Ian who is much more well-versed in European wines than I certainly am.  And he picked out a winner - a 2005 Le Filigare Maria Vittoria chianti classico reserva from Italy.  It was robust and overly flavorful.  I love wines that just "pop" in your mouth when you take a full drink.

Grange's head chef Tommy Matteau specializes in Quebec terroir cuisine - something that I sort of found is pretty popular in Montreal during my visit.   The concept is very similar to what is served at a French auberge- basically a small country in that only serves food grown, raised or caught in the immediate area.  There are dishes that feature braised piglet shanks, grilled portobello mushrooms with Manchego cheese, and barbecued duck breast.  Grange also featured a raw bar that served freshly shucked oysters on the half-shell, chilled shrimp and an interesting concoction of fresh snow crab, served on watercress and then topped with lime infused tomatoes.  

I just let the Quebecers in our group order stuff up.  We got a little bit of everything - Foie Gras mousse with pistachios and a sort of jelly; cognac beef tartar, mini bison burgers, and green bean poutine.  Poutine (peu-TIN) is sort of the regional "comfort food" in Quebec.  It consists of french fries mixed in with cheese curds and topped with a brown gravy.  I've had it, it's OK.  Grange's green bean poutine had, naturally, green beans instead of french fries, then they mixed in caramelized onions and cheese curds before topping it with not brown gravy but with a dijonnaise and marjoram sauce.  It was actually pretty good.

We also got some roasted pickled beets with grilled slices of chorizo sausage, mixed with goat cheese and hazelnuts and topped with real honey.  That was pretty good, too.  An interesting dish we got was the marinated octopus and shrimp, mixed with white beans.  I was a little apprehensive about the octopus, but it was actually very good.  

We kept ordering stuff - salmon tartar, semi-cooked foie gras served on gingerbread chips, and some oysters.  We even ordered up more of our favorites like the beef tartar and the mini bison burgers.  It was all very, very good.

The restaurants in Montreal expand my horizons when it comes to innovative gastronomic taste explosions.  Grange Vin + Bouffe was one more example of "outside the box" thinking that gives many restaurants in Montreal a cutting edge quality to their menus.  You just can't find restaurants like this in the Midwest.  Or maybe there's some in Chicago, but I certainly haven't found them yet. 

Le Restaurant Apollo et Traiteur - Montreal

Our last night in Montreal recently, our boss, Daniel, took the sales managers out to a fairly new restaurant that he wanted to try - Le Restaurant Apollo et Traiteur.  Apollo, as it's normally called by the locals in Montreal, is the concept of chef Giovanni Apollo, a fairly well-known local caterer (traiteur is French for caterer) who specializes in organic or "food from the land" for his menus.  There are actually two Apollo restaurants nearly across from one another - Le Bistro Apollo - and Le Restaurant Apollo that we went to.  A little more about that later. 

Giovanni Apollo is somewhat famous in the world of gastronomy.  Known for his cooking classes, his catering business and now his two restaurants, Apollo champions the concept of molecular cuisine by focusing on a food group and then making a number of tapas-style offerings out of that one particular group.  For example, he may have fresh salmon one evening and he'll make four different styles of salmon to try.  That same evening, he may have fresh pheasant and he comes up with four different ways to prepare the wild game.  Nearly every evening, Apollo has beef, seafood, venison and wild game foods on the menu. 

Giovanni Apollo has also tapped into the "fast food" market for urban professionals who don't have time to make lunch or dinner, but who want high quality food to enjoy.  He makes a number of fresh foods that are either bought as fresh or frozen for dining later on.  Apollo also has two rooms in a nearby hotel that he uses for catering functions such as weddings, corporate events and other occasions. 

But Le Restaurant Apollo is his big draw.  In a recent article in a Montreal newspaper, Le Restaurant Apollo was named one of the Top 10 restaurants in the city.  That's saying an awful lot considering there is some world-class dining in Montreal.  And that's also why Daniel wanted to try the restaurant out. 

After a long day of meetings, we drove down to the Little Italy section of Montreal and we parked along Boul Saint-Laurent near the two Apollo restaurants (see map).  We made the mistake of walking into the bistro on the west side of Boul Saint-Laurent thinking that was the place, but the maitre d' - in broken English - informed us that we were looking for the restaurant across the street and down a couple doors. 

After we finally figured out where we were supposed to go, we were seated at a long table in front of a floor to ceiling window with etched glass at the bottom which looked out onto Boul Saint-Laurent and the busy pedestrian traffic that continually walked by.  I'm glad that we had at least three French speaking people at our table because the maitre d' and the waiter spoke NO English, whatsoever. 

  

Le Restaurant Apollo offers no alcohol service, but encourages patrons to bring their own bottles.  Daniel had dipped into his wine cellar at home and brought along three bottles of a great French wine that he'd picked up on one of his trips to Focal.   The wine was Madiniere blend from the Yves Cuilleron winery in the Cote Rotie region of France.  It was very, very good.  It had a full body and left a great taste on the palate.  In doing some research on the wine, I found that it was also not very cheap.  So I have to thank Daniel for being so gracious and generous for sharing some of this outstanding wine with us.

One of my colleagues doesn't care for wine all that much, so Simon picked up some of the local beer for us to have, as well.  One of the beers he brought was "La Fin du Monde", which translates into "The End of the World".  It's a Belgian-style golden ale from the Unibroue micro-brewery in Chambley, Quebec.  It was full-bodied and had a kick to it - Unibroue's triple fermentation process gave it a 9% alcohol content by volume.  In comparison, most American mainstream beers have a 3.2 to 5.0 alcohol content.  I'm generally not big on Belgian-style ales, but it was very good. 

The menu for Le Restaurant Apollo was pretty simple - it was on a chalk board that was taken to each table by the waiter.  However, it was in French and even though I can generally read some French and get an idea as to what the word is in English, this was a little further outside of my vocabulary.  Todd and Simon even had a little bit of trouble coming up with English translations to some of the items they had on the menu.  But we were able to just get through it all right. 

Daniel decided to just start picking out some things and bring them to the table tapas-style.  That way we'd have a little bit of everything to share and pass around the table.

Daniel, in French, ordered up a lot of things.  I sometimes can pick up French conversations, but he and the waiter were talking too fast so I couldn't understand what they were saying.  Finally, he told us, "I ordered duck, beef, venison, veal, scallops, and salmon.  That should get us started."   Boy, I'll say - and THEN some!

The duck was the first thing to come out.  The waiter brought three different settings with duck dishes (right).  Quite honestly, other than foie gras and just regular duck breast meat, I didn't know what I was eating.  And it was probably for the better. 

The duck was prepared four different ways and served on a wooden tray.  From the first bite of the foie gras, well, it was soon a free-for-all with guys fighting to get the last morsel of food from the trays.  It was actually great fun.  The taste sensations were overwhelming and we made short work of the duck.

The scallops and the beef were brought next.  The beef had a carpaccio, small tenderloin medallions in a mushroom wine sauce and a couple of other preparations.  The scallops were big and meaty and served with sort of a liver pate on one plate.  They, too were very good. 

The veal, salmon and venison came out last and we were just going to town on the food as fast as the waiter could bring it out.  The veal (left) featured a grilled shank, small tenderloins and thin strips that were in a red wine reduced brown sauce.  It was unbelievable.

The salmon featured a couple of sushi-style offerings and sort of salmon-mousse that was also excellent.  The venison, compared to the other dishes, was rather tame and somewhat gamey in taste.  It was definitely more tough to chew and didn't have quite the taste explosion that I found with the other preparations. 

We all agreed that we needed more food (there were 8 of us), so we decided the duck, the salmon and the beef had to come back to the table.  Daniel ordered three more each of those dishes.  I'm sure the people at Apollo had to wonder about those crazy guys up front ordering more food and having a good time laughing in between bites.

By the time we fought over and finished the final morsel of the excellent food at Apollo, the waiter came out with a dessert menu.  Honestly, I wasn't interested in any more food, but they did have creme brulee.  Actually what they did was to bring six small desserts per tray that featured the creme brulee, a fruit parfait, a chocolate hot dog in a pastry (seriously - take a closer look at at the hot dog shaped thing when you click on the picture!), and three other things that I don't quite remember what they were.  Daniel ordered three trays of desserts.  The creme brulee was very good and the chocolate hot dog was interesting, but also good.  The chocolate hot dog was something called an "inspiration pastry" that French chefs will come up with when they want to make an interesting dessert.

We had more than enough food, more than enough wine and the dessert just sent me over the top at Apollo.  I've eaten at some unusual and great restaurants during my nearly 8 years of working for my company.  But I can honestly say that Apollo was one of the more unique restaurants I've been to given the menu, the food preparation, the presentation and the overall experience at the place.  I'm still shaking my head over the numerous taste sensations I experienced that evening.  It was truly one of the all-time gastronomical highlights of my life.   

Pullman - Montreal

Montreal is a unique city in that they have a lot of European-influenced restaurants throughout the city.  For a very late lunch on the first day I was in the city recently, some of my colleagues and I ate at a trendy wine/appetizer bar called Pullman in the central part of Montreal. 

When I arrived in Montreal, I was sort of hungry.  I didn't have breakfast because I had a scheduled 8:30 a.m. flight out of the Quad City Airport in Moline and I had a 11:00 a.m. connecting flight out of O'Hare to Montreal.  I figured I'd have no problem getting something to eat at O'Hare before I flew on to Montreal.  But the plane coming in to Moline to take us to Chicago didn't arrive at the gate in Moline until 9:10 and we didn't back out of the gate until 9:45. 

By the time we landed in Chicago and deplaned, it was 10:35 a.m.  The connecting flight was in the F gates of Terminal 2 - I had come into the C gates of Terminal 1 at O'Hare.  I had 25 minutes to get all the way across the airport.  Thankfully, there's an inter-terminal bus between the C and E concourses that boarded right next to the gate I came into from Moline.  I was able to hop aboard that and make it over to the E concourse and then walked to my flight on the F concourse.  They were boarding for the flight to Montreal - I was the last one on the flight.  So, I didn't get a chance to get anything to eat.

A quick two hours later, I'm in Montreal.  I whizzed through customs - the new international terminal at Montreal's Trudeau Airport (it was known as Dorval the previous times I'd flown in) was much more efficient than the old international terminal.  The only fear I had was that my bag didn't make it to Montreal.  Long story short - after waiting for a half-hour before the bags from my flight did get on the carousel, my bag was there and I was out the door through the secondary customs area meeting up with my colleague, Ian, who had flown in to Montreal from his home in Toronto.

We were both hungry, but we had to first meet up with some of our other colleagues at a cigar place in downtown Montreal.  Since Cuban cigars are legal in Canada, a couple of my American colleagues love to go to these "cigar bars" to try a fat Cuban cigar.  I'm not a smoker, but I wasn't going to bitch.  Actually, the place we went to - La Casa del Habano - was pretty neat.  If I were a smoker, I would have dove in and enjoyed an authentic Cuban cigar, myself.

La Casa del Habano (see map) featured two large humidor rooms where the temperature and humidity were kept constant.  In fact, an associate would have to let you into the locked humidors to keep the atmosphere constant in the rooms.  After you make your selection, you pay for the cigars and then you're invited to retreat into the bar area in the back of the establishment.  There's a small four seater bar and about a dozen overstuffed chairs and couches to sit on.  I was worried that my clothes would wreak of tobacco, but there's a strong air-filtration system in the room and with about 10 guys in the room (including four of my colleagues) smoking big ol' cigars, I couldn't tell I had been anywhere near tobacco when I peeled off my clothes getting ready for bed later that evening.

One of the joys of the place was that they had an impressive selection of Scotch to choose from.  While I didn't partake in the smoking of authentic Cuban cigars, I did treat myself to a couple glasses of Oban whisky.  It was fun catching up with everyone and I didn't mind that my stomach was still rumbling due to not having any food in it for nearly 20 hours. 

Actually, La Casa del Habano is a world-wide chain with locations in 55 countries on six continents.  Of course, there are none in the U.S.  I can almost imagine the flood of locations opening across the country once the Cuban blockade is lifted.   It's actually a pretty neat place and a pretty neat concept, even though the amount of smokers continues to drop. 

OK, so I told you all that to get to the nitty-gritty - my visit to Pullman.  We met up with our Montreal colleague, Simon at the trendy little wine bar in the central part of Montreal on Ave. du Parc (Park Ave.) (see map).  The concept of Pullman is simple.  They had a ton of great wines from around the world available either by the bottle or by the glass, and a menu of appetizer including cheese, nuts, small sandwiches, and something called "foie gras cookies."  I sort of wanted to try those. 

Pullman opened about seven years ago, housed in a building that is over 130 years old.  Co-owners Catherine Belanger and Bruno Braen also owned a small restaurant in Montreal's "Little Italy" district, "Le Petite Italien".  Braen's main job, however, is as an architect and designer of interiors for restaurants.  Braen's design for Pullman is somewhat of a contemporary industrial feel.  Lots of a hard edges, unconventional chairs and a combination of wood, metal and ceramic are found throughout the restaurant.   The center piece of the restaurant is the wine goblet chandelier that hangs from the ceiling over the main bar. 

Pullman is named after George Pullman, the inventor of the sleeping rail car and the luxury rail car.  A picture of Pullman hangs just inside the front door in the main bar area.   I think the concept of the Pullman is supposed to be sort of like being on a Pullman luxury rail car, although I didn't quite pick that up on my visit.  In fact, I don't even know if there's a Montreal connection with George Pullman.  The naming of the restaurant after Pullman is somewhat of a curious deal.

Belanger and Braen have traveled the world in search of some of the best wines they can find.  The bulk of the wines on the wine list at Pullman I was unfamiliar with.  In fact, my colleague, Ian, is pretty well versed in Italian and French wines and he wasn't overly familiar with many of the wines, either.  "A few things I recognize," he said, "but I'm clueless on most of these." 

We took a seat in a booth on the upper level of Pullman and I really didn't care what we got - I was hungry.  The menu was basically a sheet of paper that you checked off for the dishes you wanted.  There were a lot of interesting things I wanted to try.  We sort of discussed what they had on the menu and decided to order up a little bit of everything. 

We ordered up a couple of bottles of an Italian chianti I wasn't familiar with, and a French red - Mas de Gourgonnier Rouge Les Baux de Provence.  Then we ordered a slew of appetizers to tide us over until dinner.  Our waitress, a cute and petite French-Canadian blonde, was pleasant and funny, even though her English was a little choppy.  My colleagues, Simon and Todd, are both fluent in French, however, and they made sure she got our orders correct.

What we ordered were the mini-bison burgers that were served with matchstick potato fries.  The bison burgers were lean and a little dry, but it was no matter to me.  I was hungry and I probably would have eaten fried liver at that point.  But they were pretty good, so good that we got another order of them.

Another thing that we ordered again after devouring the first plate was the venison tartare that came with homemade potato chips.  The venison tartare had a garlic/lemon/spicy taste to it and was served with some capers.  The venison tartare went quickly, to the point that we were fighting over the last bit with both plates that came out. 

We also got an order of fried calimari and onion rings - breaded and deep fried big chunks of calimari with Pullman's lightly breaded onion rings.  Both the calimari and the onion rings were not all that greasy, and they had a nice taste to them. 

Another interesting thing that I tried was the Russian-style Gravlax.  Gravlax is basically raw salmon that has been seasoned with salt, dill weed and sugar and wrapped and cured for about 24 to 48 hours.  Gravlax began in Sweden where the fishermen would literally bury the fish in the sand and the sea salt would cure the raw salmon.  The Russian-style Gravlax at Pullman was served with caviar on a small piece of bread.  It was damn good!

One other thing that we got were some port-steeped cheddar grilled cheese sandwiches.  Port-steeped cheddar consists of a high grade of sharp cheddar cheese, then they steep, or saturate, the cheese in a sweet port wine to give it an extra zip in taste.  Those little things were very good, as well. 

While some people may equate a place like Pullman as a tapas bar, the food on them menu at the restaurant is far from the typical Spanish tapas restaurant.  However, there is some similarities in that both Pullman and a tapas bar will use indigenous ingredients that are grown, caught or raised in the area.  Pullman was a rather unique place for me and one that I enjoyed immensely.   The food was good, the wine was great, the local scenery (read: the local women) was wonderful.  I really like experiencing new things when I'm on the road and Pullman was definitely a new thing for me. 

Okinawa - Le Gardeur, QC

I work with a group of guys who seem to have a ravenous taste for sushi.  One of my colleagues is so weird about fish that he loves sushi, but hates any cooked fish.  One of the guys in our office outside of Montreal was telling us about this little sushi place that wasn't far from our headquarters.  He said, "You wouldn't think by looking at this place that they have some great sushi, but they do."  He handed me a take-out menu from Okinawa, the little sushi place.  I was pretty impressed by the amount of different types of sushi they had to offer.  I told him it looked good.  Then he said, "Maybe we should go there for lunch today."  I certainly couldn't say no.

During our lunch break from training on the Siltech and Crystal cable lines, a group of 10 of us went over to Okinawa to have some sushi.  My colleague was right - from the outside, Okinawa didn't look like much.  It wasn't anything more than a hole in the wall in the middle of a strip mall less than a mile - or for our Canadian friends - about a kilometer from our office (see map).  But if anything is more constant, I've found that some of the best restaurants aren't all that inviting from the outside, while some bad places to eat are spic and span on the facade. 

They tried their best to make the inside of Okinawa reminiscent of a traditional Japanese restaurant.  There was a lot of bamboo fixtures and three private dining rooms where people would sit at a low table with their shoes off in the tradition of fine Japanese cuisine.  While the menu had some beef, chicken and pork dishes, we were there for the sushi.  There was a small sushi station toward the back of the restaurant. 

Now, going to a sushi restaurant with a big group is sort of confusing to me.  I don't know if I need to order for myself, if we're ordering for the group or whatever.  We finally decided to team up in twos to order the sushi, I was paired with my colleague, Chris - the guy who loves sushi, but hates cooked fish.  I know, it's weird. 

I had a big breakfast earlier in the day back at the hotel, so I wasn't overly hungry.  I decided not to get sushi but go with the sashimi - basically sushi without rice.  I didn't want the rice to get me stuffed in a hurry.  Chris ordered up sushi when we filled out the order form that we shared.  I got a spicy tuna roll, however, as a start, then I picked out tuna, yellowtail, salmon, smoked salmon, sweet shrimp and something I don't see very often on a sushi menu, halibut.   Given Montreal's proximity to the North Atlantic, I figured the halibut would be very good.

I really wanted to go with a Japanese beer with my sushi - they had both Asahi or Sapporo in bottles at Okinawa.  But I was afraid of getting tired for the afternoon session.  The husband and wife couple from Siltech/Crystal, Edwin and Gabi, had a 6 p.m. flight schedule to go back to the Netherlands, so they didn't have any problem ordering up beers to go with their massive amounts of sushi that they ordered.  Edwin said, "We'll need to eat a lot of food now because we probably won't eat again until tomorrow after we get home." 

The only problem with sushi places is the anticipation and the wait of getting good sushi.  They usually bring the specialty rolls out first, but at Okinawa, they didn't.  It was about 20 minutes before sushi and sashimi began to show up at the table.  And by that time I was ready.

There was a time that I thought that sushi was nothing more than cut bait.  I didn't really begin to like sushi until about 15 years ago.  Since then, I've become somewhat of a sushi connoisseur - or as my wife and I like to joke, we're sushi whores.  I immediately know when the sushi isn't that great - it doesn't have the wholesome taste or chewy texture that good sushi should have.  From the first bite of my tuna sashimi, I knew that the sushi at Okinawa was outstanding. 

My colleagues, Jon and Chris, eat a lot more sushi on the road than I do (they cover the west coast for our company).  Both thought the sushi was great.  One of my Montreal colleagues, Todd, who also eats a lot of sushi, yelled down the table to me, "Isn't this great?  And it's cheap!"  He and some other guys from the office go to Okinawa all the time.  

My boss, Daniel, was seated next to me.  He leaned over and said, "We have some very good sushi places in Montreal.  But this is one of the best we've found." 

A couple three of the guys had sushi for appetizers, but ended up getting teriyaki-marinated strip steaks for their lunch.  Each steak wasn't very thick, less than a half-inch thick, but my colleague, Ian, said that it was "pretty damn good."  The steaks smelled great when they brought them out to the table.   

We had some fun at Edwin and Gabi's expense when they brought out a huge bamboo boat filled with sushi that covered our end of the table.  It was so huge that they couldn't maneuver it to get to the multitudes of sushi they'd ordered.  Gabi was gingerly trying to move it around and she ended up knocking over Chris' water glass which emptied into our much smaller sushi platter.  She felt so bad that she immediately ordered up more sushi and sashimi for Chris and I.  Quite honestly, it was no big deal for me.  Since I was having sashimi with no rice, I was fine.  But Chris' sushi got pretty soggy. 

Anytime we get together to eat sushi, it's just a free-for-all with people offering samples of what they are having, or people jumping up with a pair of chop sticks to scrounge something off of someone else's plate.  Todd offered me a bite of his unagi - which was fresh eel sushi.  I declined, saying that eel wasn't quite a delicacy for me.  He said, "No, no!  You've got to try this.  This is the best eel I've ever had!"  

I tried it and, yeah, it was pretty good.  Not good enough for me to order the next time we go to Okinawa - or at any other sushi restaurant, for that matter.  But it was pretty tasty.  Todd popped another one in his mouth and made a satiated "Mmmmmmmm....." sound with his mouth full of unagi sushi.

I was overly impressed with the sushi at Okinawa.  As they say, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover and you shouldn't judge restaurants by their outside appearance.  I trust the judgment and the expertise of my colleagues when they tell me Okinawa is one of the best places for sushi in the greater Montreal area.  It was very, very good.     

Pacini - Repentigny, QC

When I think of Italian restaurant chains, I think of Olive Garden, Carraba's or Macaroni Grill - all three places that seem to be popular with people, but there is probably much better Italian food in the vicinity if you just looked.  That's why I went to Pacini with a little bit of apprehension when we went out for lunch on my recent trip to Montreal. 

Pacini is a 25-restaurant chain with franchise locations throughout Quebec.  The first Pacini was opened nearly 30 years ago by Pierre Marc Trembley.  Trembley began to sell franchises for Pacini locations about 20 years ago.  In April, Pacini opened a 26th location - the first one outside of Quebec in Calgary.  The Pacini restaurants in Quebec and Calgary now employ close to 900 people and have revenues of over $34 million (Canadian) annually. 

One of the big draws for Pacini is their trademarked "Bread Bar".  These "bars a pain" as they're known in French feature a number of fresh baked breads, sliced and put in baskets to choose from.  The customer then gets their choice of a number of different types of butter - herb butter, garlic butter, plain butter, etc. - and then they can toast the bread on a open flame grill.  It's a unique concept and definitely one that I've never encountered before. 

Another unique thing about Pacini is that they actually run their own culinary school in the small Italian town of Bassano del Grappa situated near Venice.  Noted Italian chef Frederick St.-Aubin heads "L'Acadamie Culinaire Pacini".  Not only is the culinary school a source for chefs for Pacini, it also acts as a test kitchen for many of the dishes that either have been or will be featured at Pacini restaurants.  I don't think they're doing that at Olive Garden these days.

We took a couple vehicles to the Pacini location in suburban Repentigny, near our office northeast of Montreal (see map).  The Repentigny Pacini is located in a strip mall that looks similar to any strip mall you'd find across America - only everything was signed in French (the northeast side of Montreal is highly French Canadian).  A brisk lunch crowd was in the contemporary decored restaurant.  There were 10 of us for lunch and we took two large table next to each other - half of the group sitting in booth seats, the remaining number of us sitting on comfortable and sturdy chairs.

The menu at Pacini is very diverse with rich pasta dishes, rustic pizzas and also features a number of breakfast specialties - something you don't expect at an Italian restaurant.  All orders at Pacini come with your choice of soups of the day and the unlimited Bread Bar.  One of my colleagues, Todd, said, "The food is pretty good for a chain.  But the Bread Bar is the draw." 

The waiter brought out lunch menus for us to look over, but after a quick conversation in French with my boss, Daniel, he went back and retrieved the full dinner menu.  Daniel said, "The lunch menu is sort of limited and they'll make anything at anytime here."  All right, that was fine with me. 

I'd had a pretty good sized breakfast just about three hours prior so I wasn't looking to get anything heavy for lunch.  One thing that caught my eye was the Salade Italienne, Pacini's Italian Salad that featured mixed lettuce greens topped with artichoke hearts, spicy capicollo ham, roasted red peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes.  They finish the salad off with a balasamic and roasted garlic dressing.  While others at the table were going with a pasta dish, I thought that would be enough for me.  I also had my choice of the soup du joir, so I went with a cup of the cream of broccoli soup. 

  

Then it was time for the bread bar.  I went up with my colleague, Todd, and he showed me the drill.  They have a cabinet that houses about six different types of sliced bread stored behind glass doors.  You pick your bread and then you have your choice of differently types of whipped butter with seasonings to put on the bread.  Once you get your choice of bread and spread on your choice of butter, you turn to this open grill with a fan hood above the grill.  One side of the grill is hotter than the other as the gas is turned up a little more for a quicker toasting.  But I also found that the butter will drip off more so than if you do it on the cooler side of the grill.  The bread was soft and fresh and I went with a slice of the sesame seed and a slice of the roasted onion bread.  I put the herb butter on the sesame seed slice and the garlic butter on the roasted onion slice.  It was a pretty neat concept - and I wondered why I hadn't seen something like that in the States. 

My cream of broccoli soup was good, served in a small cup.  I could dip my bread in the soup cup and it was even more delicious.  And it wasn't long before our entrees, including my salad showed up at the table. 

The plate of lettuce and toppings was overly generous.  The greens were fresh as were the artichoke hearts and cherry tomatoes.  I especially liked the spicy capicollo they had.  It was deli fresh and very good. 

I was asking some of my colleagues if their pasta dishes were good.  My colleague from the San Francisco Bay Area, Jon - who had the fettuccine linguine topped with shrimp - said, "Yeah, mine's very good!  Surprisingly very good."  My other colleagues were in agreement.  The pasta dishes did look good.  My colleague, Simon, who is from Montreal, told me, "Pacini's not the best Italian in town, but for a quick lunch fix it's pretty good." 

Yeah, I would say Pacini was pretty good.  I thoroughly enjoyed my salad as it reminded me of a St. Louis-style salad with wonderful flavor and generous portions.  Pacini may not be the first choice for Italian for me if I were to go back to Montreal on my own and search out a good Italian restaurant, but if nothing else was available and you were hungry, Pacini would work just great.  It sparkles against the countless and faceless Italian restaurant chains we have in the states. 

Estiatorios Milos - Montreal

I was excited to visit this place when I was in Montreal recently.  Estiatorios Milos - or mostly known as just Milos -  is a place that some of my colleagues have visited in the past but I've never had the chance to go.  So when I was told we were going to eat at Milos one evening during our company meeting in Montreal, I immediately said, "Yes!" 

Estiatorios Milos is the flagship restaurant of Costas Spiliadis' restaurant empire that stretches from Montreal to New York to Athens.  Spiliadis, a Greek immigrant, came to New York as a 19 year old student.  After school, he moved to Montreal and opened a night club.  In 1980, he changed the night club into a Greek restaurant that served only the freshest fish available. 

One story about Spiliadis during his early days of running Milos - he would only buy fresh and good looking fish - something that wasn't readily available in Montreal at the time.  Spiliadis would drive to New York City and shop at the Fulton Fish Market three times a week.   He brought the fish back with him to Montreal and waited for the customers to show up.  They didn't.  Spiliadis wouldn't freeze the fish - he knew freezing the fish would compromise the taste - so he ended up giving the fish away to the stray cats hanging around outside in the alley. 

But people eventually came and Milos thrived.  Eventually, Spiliadis would have fresh fish flown in almost every day from Greece, caught by family fishermen - on hooks, not caught in nets to cut down on wasting fish - that he befriended over the years.   He also has a number of fresh North Atlantic seafood to offer, as well.  Spiliadis eventually opened a Milos on 55th St. in New York and a Milos in his home country of Greece.  

Estiatorios Milos is located on avenue du Parc in central Montreal (see map).  It's an area of Montreal where a lot of immigrants from all over the world end up living and there's a large number of ethnic restaurants in the area.  Milos is housed in a non-descript building that has sort of a contemporary industrial look on the facade.  10 of us, including my colleagues and the husband and wife team that heads up Siltech and Crystal cables from The Netherlands, descended upon Milos one cool Montreal evening. 

We took a table toward the back of the restaurant where an ice shelf filled with fresh seafood showed what we could get that evening.  While the menu features a number of fresh seafood entrees, they also feature prix fixe courses for dinner, along with a family style offering of whole fish that is basted in olive oil pressed from olives grown on Spiliadis' family estate in Greece, then lightly grilled.   My boss made the decision to do just that for our main course that evening.  He ordered the grilled red snapper and the grilled sea bass.  

Milos offers a wide variety of Greek wines on their wine list.  They also feature some interesting wines from France, Italy and a smattering of California wines, as well.  Milos has been lauded by a number of wine magazines as having one of the best selections of wine in Montreal.  Spiliadis also owns Cava Spiliadis, a noted wine store that imports and sells Greek wines.  Since we were going to be eating seafood that evening, my boss ordered up bottles of the 2007 Tsaktsarlis Domaine Bibila Chora, a Greek chardonnay that was light, but flavorful with the seafood.  

We also ordered a large round of appetizers before the main entree was brought to the table.  The first thing to come out were a couple plates of pan-fried zucchini and pan-fried egg plant with pan-fried Saganaki cheese wedges and sides of tzatziki - the Greek cucumber sauce that is more known to go with gyros.  The cheese, I understand, comes from farms about 45 miles to the west of Montreal and it was excellent.  We had three plates of that for the whole table and, quite honestly, I was sorry to take my last bite when it was gone.  The Saganaki cheese was just great.  

Our next round of appetizers consisted of fried calimari served with a zesty tomato creme sauce.  The calimari was absolutely wonderful - lightly breaded and lightly fried with a wonderful batter coating the outside.  The tomato creme sauce gave the calimari a little more spark to the taste.

Not stopping with just two appetizers (I love it when we go out to eat as a company - we're all "foodies" in our group), we had a couple heaping plates of grilled octopus.  Now, I'm not big on octopus, but Milos' octopus is flown in from Greece, caught in the waters off Crete in the Mediterranean Sea.  My colleague, Todd, coaxed me to have a bite of the octopus appetizers and I was pleasantly surprised with the taste.  The octopus is served cut into bite sized pieces on the large plate and it didn't taste like any octopus I've had before.  It had a sort of smokey, grilled taste to it that wasn't overpowering and rather pleasant.  It was hell to look at, but it was wonderful to eat. 

It wasn't long after we finished off the octopus platters that our fish showed up at the table.  Here's a picture of the presentation.   The red snapper is at the top, the sea bass below.  Some of the more adventurous members of our party fought over the cheek of the fish - supposedly a delicacy in some countries.  I was happy with just trying some of the flaky filets they cut up and served with olive oil.

The sea bass was very good.  It was grilled perfectly, it wasn't fishy tasting at all, it was light and flavorful.  The red snapper, however, was disappointing.  It was over-cooked and somewhat chewy.  I didn't care for the red snapper as much as I liked the sea bass.  Everyone agreed the snapper was over-cooked.  Given that my last two or three experiences with red snapper have not been favorable, I will probably never order it again if it's offered on a menu.

Of course, after dinner we had to have dessert.  Milos' dessert menu features a number of traditional Greek desserts, as well as fresh fruit, a Key Lime tart and cheesecake.  One thing they have are Loukoumades - basically Greek beignets that are deep-fried and then sprinkled with cinnamon and chopped almonds along with a thyme-honey concoction that you can drizzle on top.  Although I wasn't all that hungry after dinner, we ordered up a little bit of everything including the Loukoumades, the Key Lime tart and we couldn't pass up Milos' own homemade Baklava.  I'm a sucker for good Baklava.

And I wasn't disappointed in the least with any of the desserts.  We shared a little bit of everything at the table.  The Loukoumades were surprisingly good.  They had a wonderful sweet cinnamon taste to them.  I don't usually care much for almonds, but the nut taste was subdued.  The Key Lime tart was OK - sort of a fluffy Key Lime pie, mainly.  But the Baklava was some of the best I'd ever had.  Light and flaky, the homemade Baklava was just out of this world.  By the time the last Baklava was eaten, I was stuffed.  But I seriously considered ordering up another batch just to take back to the hotel with us.

Other than the over-cooked red snapper, Milos lived up to my lofty expectations.  My colleagues had talked in glowing terms about the food at Milos and, overall, it didn't disappoint.  I can easily see why Milos is one of the top international restaurants in Montreal and why it has spawned a number of imitators over the years.

Montreal

I work for a French-Canadian company located in the Montreal suburb of Le Gardeur (see map).  Every once in a while, we're called into Montreal for meetings.  Last year, we had a meeting scheduled in early March - but I couldn't go as I was recovering from my first hip replacement.  And I really missed out on that trip as my boss took the sales guys up to Quebec City for a couple days.  He apologized to me before they even went, saying that we'd do it again at some point.  Actually, I'm kind of glad I didn't go because I understand it was unusually cold with well below freezing temperatures the whole time they were there.  Other than the good restaurants they ate at, I was told by my colleagues that it was not a pleasant experience. 

This year, however, we were summoned to Montreal for training on two high-end Danish audio cable lines we picked up recently - Siltech and Crystal.  I hadn't been to Montreal for quite some time and I was really looking forward to going.  At one point in time, Montreal was on my list of five North American cities I wanted to visit (the others were Memphis, Seattle, San Antonio and San Diego - I've yet to visit San Antonio and San Diego).  My first visit was 8 years ago when I was hired by the company, and I'd made two other trips to Montreal for meetings.  But we figured that it had been over four years since I was last in Montreal.  

The demographic of Montreal is highly diverse.  It's about as European as you can get and still be in North America.  It's sort of a cosmopolitan melting pot of cultures and customs as both Francophone and Anglophone Quebeckers co-exist with a large Italian population, along with Irish, English, Scottish origin people.  There's a large Jewish and Arab population, and a growing Asian population, as well.  The largest Haitian population in Canada is in Montreal.  Only Paris has more French speaking people inhabiting the city.  It makes for some very interesting neighborhoods and restaurants.

Montreal is also the home of a high percentage of very beautiful women.  I don't know what it is about the women in Montreal, but I have seen some of the prettiest and most striking women on my visits to the city.  Many of the women have a very European look to them.  It's difficult to be out somewhere and not find yourself staring at one of the beautiful women you'll encounter in the city.  One of my Montreal colleagues told me, "Your parents probably told you it's not polite to stare at someone, but the women in Montreal take staring at them as a compliment." 

The architecture of Montreal is very European, as well.  A lot of the buildings and residences have a French flair to them.  There's a lot of ornamental wrought iron work on townhouses and condos that line the wide streets of the city.  

One thing that struck me from my first visit to Montreal are the amount of private swimming pools in the city.  In  the summer and early fall months, when you fly over the city on the final approach you can see countless swimming pools in the backyards of homes throughout the city.   My boss has a house north and east of Montreal that is on a cliff overlooking the St. Lawrence River.  He has a swimming pool.  When I asked him one time why all the swimming pools were around the area, he sort of shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't know.  I guess I never really noticed that there were a lot of pools."  

But one of my colleagues told me, "When the weather gets nice in Montreal, we just want to get outside.  So people will put pools in their back yards.  They only use them, maybe, four months out of the year, but they get a lot of use."  

Montreal is still a pretty gritty city, though.  There's areas that aren't safe after dark.  One of my colleagues got his briefcase stolen out of his rented SUV last year.  It contained his laptop and his passports (he has dual American and Canadian citizenship).  While they were at dinner, someone came up and smashed the window of the SUV and grabbed his briefcase.  I noticed walking in a couple areas while I was near downtown Montreal a lot of shattered glass on the sidewalks.

One of my colleagues told me that when the first Quebec Referendum that would pursue independence for the province from the rest of Canada came up 30 years ago, a number of people with money fled the Montreal area and settled in Ontario.  He said, "It basically went from being a city with people who had money to a blue-collar city almost overnight."  Crime became rampant in the city, but efforts by city officials to curb crime have been overly successful as the crime rate in Montreal has dropped over 40% over the past 15 years.  Still, you've got to be careful of what you leave in your car in plain sight - even during the day.  

Montreal has some world class restaurants and we visited a couple during our meetings.  We also went to a couple small, but interesting cafes, as well.  Look for posts on those places in the coming week.

One of my Montreal colleagues, Todd, got married in late May.  We were invited to the wedding and Cindy was very keen on going.  But airline prices to Montreal were over $600 per person.  With the amount of money we spent on our trip to Hawaii still burning our bank accounts we just couldn't pull off going to his wedding.  We could have driven, but it's almost exactly 1000 miles between the Quad Cities and Montreal.  That would have been a two-day trip both ways.  Cindy was upset that we couldn't go and I was upset that I couldn't take her.  But I'm hoping that one of these days my boss will call a meeting and ask us to bring our wives along (he's done that in the past, but before my time with the company).  I think Cindy would get as big a kick out of Montreal as I do.