Friday, October 1st
The conference started on Tuesday the 5th, but I arrived the previous Friday to see the city and stay with a friend / colleague and his wife. They live in a beautiful early 20th century apartment right off of McGill University's campus and 2 blocks from downtown.
For dinner we walked down Prince Arthur street towards the “Plateau” area. Over Saint Laurent Prince Arthur turns into a pedestrian-only street, and is lined by French Bistros and other touristy shops. It seems to be the most touristy section of this French side of Montreal, but was reasonably priced and bustling with locals, students, and tourists alike. We had dinner (Duck Confit) and some house wine and just relaxed in the cool weather.
Saturday, October 2nd
Once the whole party had arrived in Montreal, we decided to head up to Fairmount to get the famous bagels at
Fairmount bagel bakery
74 Fairmount Avenue West http://www.fairmountbagel.com/
Saturday, October 2nd
Once the whole party had arrived in Montreal, we decided to head up to Fairmount to get the famous bagels at
Fairmount bagel bakery
74 Fairmount Avenue West http://www.fairmountbagel.com/
Walking down Prince Arthur, we came to Avenue du Parc and caught the #80 bus going NW. Due to construction at the Fairmount stop, we got off at Saint Viateur and du Parc. Walking on Saint Viateur we encountered a really nice neighborhood with lots of people and really great looking cafes, patisseries, and bagel places. Plenty of Orthodox Jews were out wearing big cylindrical fur hats for the Sabbath. We decided we would have to come back and spend some time at the cafes. Taking a right down Saint Urbain, we came to Fairmount and made a left, arriving at Fairmount bagel.
There was a line out the door and the wait was worth it. An “All dressed” (everything) bagel with lox and cream cheese was the order. Montreal bagels are good, but very different than NY bagels. Smaller with a much bigger hole, its almost like a pretzel - with much sweeter dough. Good, but I’ll stick with my NY bagels. Our next goal was to make it up to the
Jean Talon Farmers Market
7070 rue Henri-Julien http://www.marche-jean-talon.com/
We walked over to Saint Denis, and took the #30 up to Rue Jean Talon and walked SW down Jean Talon towards the market. The #30 took us up Saint Hubert which was densely packed with shops and people. The market is huge and dense with people and food. Lots of produce along with cheese shops, meat shops, creperies, etc. We split some sausage sandwiches and a chocolate and caramel crepe.
After some of a local Canadian-style red ale at a bar in little Italy, we moved on to find the Metro at Beaubien and Rue de Saint Vallier. The Metro is very fast and easy to use. Each line has dedicated tracks so its very simple to get around and hard to get confused. Its modeled after the Paris metro and runs on tires which allows it to accelerate and decelerate faster, travel at a higher max speed, and go up and down steeper grades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Metro
That night, we made plans to check out a jazz show that was part of “Pop Montreal,” a city-wide music festival, and decided to hit up Schwartz’s for their famous smoked meat sandwiches. The line was too long so we ended up next door at Coco Rico bbq chicken. Real cheap, fast pulled pork sandwich or bbq chicken with roasted potatoes and a salad = perfect.
In the course of wandering back to Saint Laurent from the jazz show at about 11:30, we stumbled upon a corner bar at Rue Roy E and Rue de Bullion:
Else’s
156 Roy Street East
Even at 3:30am, Saint Laurent was packed with people looking for late night food, and we found it in
Shish-Taouk
3633 St Laurent This falafel place is open 24/7 and while not amazing, had really good baklava.
Sunday, October 3rd
Brunch happened at about noon on Sunday, when we took Anne-Marie’s word for it and found
Reservoir
9 Duluth E
brasseriereservoir.ca
Make sure you pan around to the right to see some graffiti mural art typical of Montreal.
We had to wait a few minutes for seats, but this French Brasserie / cafe was worth a wait 10 times longer. Unbelievably good food (fall-off-the-bone short ribs with a brown sugar-ish glaze for starters) with great espresso. I won’t even try to describe the food which ranged from those amazing short ribs to poached eggs on cheese bread to omelets, but suffice it to say 5 stars. Perfect thing for a hangover.
It was a cool, overcast day, but not raining, so we trudged up towards Mont Royal and the large statue right off of Avenue du Parc. Here, every Sunday, a drum circle forms with many musicians and spectators along with a “gypsy market.” I was quite impressed with the group. There were enough legit musicians to hold each jam together and keep it from just becoming noise which is what happens at most drum circles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamtams
We spent the rest of the day working (my friends) and watching the Eagles implode (me) at the
Cafe Art Java
645, avenue Du President-Kennedy
caffeartjava.com
Good espresso and an urban-college-cafe type setting. We decided to get some Italian for dinner after a snack of homemade crepes made by our hosts. Yelp once again did not disappoint us and we loved
Chez Ennio
1978 Boul. de Maisonneuve Ouest
Run by an elderly couple, the inside of this small basement restaurant feels like my grandmothers house - lace doilies and all. Huge portions of pasta (looked like a half pound of linguine) and an all around delicious meal. I particularly thought the red clam sauce was fantastic. Its over on the west side of downtown, and to get there we walked down Saint Catherine. This seems to be the main drag for shopping and it was busy even on a Sunday night.
Monday, October 4th
To start off the day, we wanted to check out the cafes on Saint Viateur that we had stumbled upon on Saturday morning. We once again caught the bus on Avenue du Parc heading NW and got off at Viateur. After grabbing some bagels at Saint Viateur Bagel (not as good as Fairmount), we stopped in at a classic Italian cafe:
Cafe Olimpico
124 St-Viateur St. W
This has been called the “best cafe in North America” by someone on Yelp. I won’t go that far, but it has a great feel, and great espresso. The Italian guys behind the counter are lightning quick and know what they’re doing. Italian soccer is always playing on the TVs and there is a nice patio with wooden benches for hanging out when the weather is nice (like this day) and discussing the relative merits of cafe au lait and cafe latte.
We walked over to Saint Laurent and down to Avenue Laurier. Heading NE on Laurier we walked into a beautiful neighborhood with a big park - Parc Sir Wilfrid Laurier. This seems like a great place to live - quiet, clean, and interesting. Every townhouse on the tree-lined streets is unique.
Just down the street from the park is
Le Fromentier
1375, avenue Laurier Est
The bakery was rather quiet as it was Monday afternoon, but even the pre-made sandwiches were killer. Great bread and great ingredients = great sandwich.
Walking back down Laurier, our next destination was a famous patisserie:
Patisserie de Gascogne
237 Laurier O
degascogne.com
Well known for its pastries and chocolates, we sampled some of each with some more great espresso. Top notch.
And as if we hadn’t already been spoiled with the best food and drinks known to man, we walked right up the street only 2 blocks away to
Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel
29 ave Laurier ouest
dieuduciel.com
Literally “Brewery God of Heaven,” this is undoubtedly one of the best (if not the best) microbrewery I have ever visited. I wound up coming back 2 more times in the next week, each time amazed at the quality of the beer. The best imperial stout I’ve tasted, a fantastic American style IPA on cask, an incredibly well-balanced quadruple Belgian, and plenty of others. If you go one place in Montreal go here.
Tuesday, October 5th
Before the conference began on Tuesday, Erik and I went up the stairs behind McGill University to the top of Mont Royal. Gorgeous views of the city and the changing October leaves. Well worth the effort.
Wednesday, October 6th
After a long day in the conference rooms, a reception was held at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal at the Universite de Montreal. It was cool and raining, but my friends and I decided to head out on the town. Our first destination was back to Dieu Du Ciel which was packed and as fantastic as we had remembered. We spent a good 2 hours there before stopping at a very chic French bistro on Saint Denis:
Restaurant L’Express
3927 Rue Saint-Denis
Definitely a good place for a late night snack, and definitely very French. We sat at the counter and the waiters spoke only passable English. That was OK though as everything on the menu was tasty. My grilled cheese with ham hit the spot and my friend’s homemade raviolis and goat cheese salad looked great, especially all washed down with the distinctively malty Canadian-style red ale. I would definitely check this place out again.
Friday, October 8th
The conference ended at about 1pm, and before game 2 of the NLDS: Phillies vs. the Reds, we decided it was time to finally check out Schwartz’s smoked meat.
Schwartz’s Deli
3895 St Laurent
schwartzsdeli.com
The line was out the door as usual, but we only waited about 20 minutes. We all got the standard “smoked meat” sandwich. Its good - basically a type of smoked corned beef. The bread had something to be desired - untoasted and basically just a way to hold the insides of the sandwich together. I think the best way to have Schwartz’s would be to order a large amount to go and then make the sandwiches yourself at home. The other couple at our table was from south Jersey - so definitely a big tourist attraction, but worth the visit.
The rest of the evening was spent at a few bars on Rue Crescent downtown watching the ballgame. There seem to be plenty of good bars here, but one we stopped at was Hurley’s Irish Pub. It's huge and has a good beer selection and good bar food.
Montreal: Parting thoughts
What a great city. Clean, vibrant, and interesting. Lots of great neighborhoods, and a great metropolitan center city. Tons of good food and drink. It left me with the impression that its a city I could live in, and also a realization that I had seen only a small fraction of what it has to offer.
There was a line out the door and the wait was worth it. An “All dressed” (everything) bagel with lox and cream cheese was the order. Montreal bagels are good, but very different than NY bagels. Smaller with a much bigger hole, its almost like a pretzel - with much sweeter dough. Good, but I’ll stick with my NY bagels. Our next goal was to make it up to the
Jean Talon Farmers Market
7070 rue Henri-Julien http://www.marche-jean-talon.com/
After some of a local Canadian-style red ale at a bar in little Italy, we moved on to find the Metro at Beaubien and Rue de Saint Vallier. The Metro is very fast and easy to use. Each line has dedicated tracks so its very simple to get around and hard to get confused. Its modeled after the Paris metro and runs on tires which allows it to accelerate and decelerate faster, travel at a higher max speed, and go up and down steeper grades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Metro
That night, we made plans to check out a jazz show that was part of “Pop Montreal,” a city-wide music festival, and decided to hit up Schwartz’s for their famous smoked meat sandwiches. The line was too long so we ended up next door at Coco Rico bbq chicken. Real cheap, fast pulled pork sandwich or bbq chicken with roasted potatoes and a salad = perfect.
In the course of wandering back to Saint Laurent from the jazz show at about 11:30, we stumbled upon a corner bar at Rue Roy E and Rue de Bullion:
Else’s
156 Roy Street East
This turned out to be one of the best spots we found. Good beer, great scotch selection, great atmosphere and great bar tending. We hung around until after closing time (3am) when the bartender kicked us out with a shot of Jameson (as seems to be the custom). On the way out she recommended a place for brunch which turned out to be fantastic.
Even at 3:30am, Saint Laurent was packed with people looking for late night food, and we found it in
Shish-Taouk
3633 St Laurent This falafel place is open 24/7 and while not amazing, had really good baklava.
Sunday, October 3rd
Brunch happened at about noon on Sunday, when we took Anne-Marie’s word for it and found
Reservoir
9 Duluth E
brasseriereservoir.ca
Make sure you pan around to the right to see some graffiti mural art typical of Montreal.
We had to wait a few minutes for seats, but this French Brasserie / cafe was worth a wait 10 times longer. Unbelievably good food (fall-off-the-bone short ribs with a brown sugar-ish glaze for starters) with great espresso. I won’t even try to describe the food which ranged from those amazing short ribs to poached eggs on cheese bread to omelets, but suffice it to say 5 stars. Perfect thing for a hangover.
It was a cool, overcast day, but not raining, so we trudged up towards Mont Royal and the large statue right off of Avenue du Parc. Here, every Sunday, a drum circle forms with many musicians and spectators along with a “gypsy market.” I was quite impressed with the group. There were enough legit musicians to hold each jam together and keep it from just becoming noise which is what happens at most drum circles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamtams
We spent the rest of the day working (my friends) and watching the Eagles implode (me) at the
Cafe Art Java
645, avenue Du President-Kennedy
caffeartjava.com
Good espresso and an urban-college-cafe type setting. We decided to get some Italian for dinner after a snack of homemade crepes made by our hosts. Yelp once again did not disappoint us and we loved
Chez Ennio
1978 Boul. de Maisonneuve Ouest
Run by an elderly couple, the inside of this small basement restaurant feels like my grandmothers house - lace doilies and all. Huge portions of pasta (looked like a half pound of linguine) and an all around delicious meal. I particularly thought the red clam sauce was fantastic. Its over on the west side of downtown, and to get there we walked down Saint Catherine. This seems to be the main drag for shopping and it was busy even on a Sunday night.
Monday, October 4th
To start off the day, we wanted to check out the cafes on Saint Viateur that we had stumbled upon on Saturday morning. We once again caught the bus on Avenue du Parc heading NW and got off at Viateur. After grabbing some bagels at Saint Viateur Bagel (not as good as Fairmount), we stopped in at a classic Italian cafe:
Cafe Olimpico
124 St-Viateur St. W
This has been called the “best cafe in North America” by someone on Yelp. I won’t go that far, but it has a great feel, and great espresso. The Italian guys behind the counter are lightning quick and know what they’re doing. Italian soccer is always playing on the TVs and there is a nice patio with wooden benches for hanging out when the weather is nice (like this day) and discussing the relative merits of cafe au lait and cafe latte.
We walked over to Saint Laurent and down to Avenue Laurier. Heading NE on Laurier we walked into a beautiful neighborhood with a big park - Parc Sir Wilfrid Laurier. This seems like a great place to live - quiet, clean, and interesting. Every townhouse on the tree-lined streets is unique.
Just down the street from the park is
Le Fromentier
1375, avenue Laurier Est
The bakery was rather quiet as it was Monday afternoon, but even the pre-made sandwiches were killer. Great bread and great ingredients = great sandwich.
Walking back down Laurier, our next destination was a famous patisserie:
Patisserie de Gascogne
237 Laurier O
degascogne.com
Well known for its pastries and chocolates, we sampled some of each with some more great espresso. Top notch.
And as if we hadn’t already been spoiled with the best food and drinks known to man, we walked right up the street only 2 blocks away to
Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel
29 ave Laurier ouest
dieuduciel.com
Literally “Brewery God of Heaven,” this is undoubtedly one of the best (if not the best) microbrewery I have ever visited. I wound up coming back 2 more times in the next week, each time amazed at the quality of the beer. The best imperial stout I’ve tasted, a fantastic American style IPA on cask, an incredibly well-balanced quadruple Belgian, and plenty of others. If you go one place in Montreal go here.
Tuesday, October 5th
Before the conference began on Tuesday, Erik and I went up the stairs behind McGill University to the top of Mont Royal. Gorgeous views of the city and the changing October leaves. Well worth the effort.
Wednesday, October 6th
After a long day in the conference rooms, a reception was held at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal at the Universite de Montreal. It was cool and raining, but my friends and I decided to head out on the town. Our first destination was back to Dieu Du Ciel which was packed and as fantastic as we had remembered. We spent a good 2 hours there before stopping at a very chic French bistro on Saint Denis:
Restaurant L’Express
3927 Rue Saint-Denis
Definitely a good place for a late night snack, and definitely very French. We sat at the counter and the waiters spoke only passable English. That was OK though as everything on the menu was tasty. My grilled cheese with ham hit the spot and my friend’s homemade raviolis and goat cheese salad looked great, especially all washed down with the distinctively malty Canadian-style red ale. I would definitely check this place out again.
Friday, October 8th
The conference ended at about 1pm, and before game 2 of the NLDS: Phillies vs. the Reds, we decided it was time to finally check out Schwartz’s smoked meat.
Schwartz’s Deli
3895 St Laurent
schwartzsdeli.com
The line was out the door as usual, but we only waited about 20 minutes. We all got the standard “smoked meat” sandwich. Its good - basically a type of smoked corned beef. The bread had something to be desired - untoasted and basically just a way to hold the insides of the sandwich together. I think the best way to have Schwartz’s would be to order a large amount to go and then make the sandwiches yourself at home. The other couple at our table was from south Jersey - so definitely a big tourist attraction, but worth the visit.
The rest of the evening was spent at a few bars on Rue Crescent downtown watching the ballgame. There seem to be plenty of good bars here, but one we stopped at was Hurley’s Irish Pub. It's huge and has a good beer selection and good bar food.
Montreal: Parting thoughts
What a great city. Clean, vibrant, and interesting. Lots of great neighborhoods, and a great metropolitan center city. Tons of good food and drink. It left me with the impression that its a city I could live in, and also a realization that I had seen only a small fraction of what it has to offer.
