Montreal Eats

Here are some of the places where we stopped to eat on our trip to Montreal. I must say most of it was delicious but not everything.

On our first day we started off at the acclaimed Schwartz's Deli on Saint-Laurent boulevard, we waited in the pouring rain for about thirty minutes but it was totally worth it. We each got a sandwich and shared fries, coleslaw and a pickle. Of course we could pass up Schwartz's signature black cherry cola which funnily enough is produced right around the corner from my house and I've never seen it for sale anywhere.

Montreal Smoked Meat

Our second stop was at Burritoville, beside Concordia University in the English speaking part of Montreal. Our friend Steve owns this hip vegetarian/vegan restaurant. You can choose between tacos, quesadillas, or burritos with really different fillings than your traditional meat and lettuce. The sides are amazing, they make three different types of tortilla chips, homemade salsas, sprout salad, quinoa and three types of homemade ice teas and lemonades. 

3 Bean Chili Burrito & Sprout Salad

Our second day we took the trip up to the Mt. Royal plateau area and had some wonderful poutine from one of the best places to get poutine in Montreal, La Banquise. Their poutine is cheap but excellent. We got the traditional poutine with a side of hot peppers, they have so many alternative types of poutine but I just can't get past the traditional cheese curds and gravy. And these cheese curds were to die for!

Traditional Poutine

We also stopped by Fairmount Bagels, to get some bagels for our trip home and of course we couldn't pass up a fresh one right out of the oven to snack on with some excellent whipped cream cheese. Our dinner that night was nothing to talk about so I'll move on to our french macaron experiences. Altogether I bought macarons from three different shops in Montreal.

The first we stopped at was La Maison du Macaron, while the shop is lovely and they have a great selection of flavours I found the flavours weren't strong enough especially the shells. Some of the fillings had flavour but it found them generally bland. Also they didn't stay fresh, drying out only after a day.

Matcha, Peaches, Caramel & Mocha

Peaches and Cream macaron

The second place we stopped at was Point G, their macarons were amazing. They came in a super cute package, which also kept them really fresh. They had some great flavours including poppy, cassis, lavender  and lime/basil (which was really tangy). I though I had taken pictures but I ate them all sorry :( 


My final macaron experience was at Dr. Frost (which I have already posted about here), these were probably my favourite, the shells had tons of flavour and I loved the ice cream in the middle...yumm ice cream!

And finally a video of some of the places we visited while we were in Montreal made by mkphotographics. It includes the Biodome, the Olympic Stadium (tower), Mont Royal and our train ride on VIA rail.

In Montreal from Marc Koecher on Vimeo.

Enjoy!

D'lish Cupcakery

Last week I posted a review of OMG Baked Goodness with my friend Cailin from A White Picket Fence.  We had some communication issues because I posted on just one cupcakery from our cupcake crawl and she posted both. So, time for my second post from our cupcake crawl.

D'lish Cupcakes is located in the trendy neighbourhood of Queen St. W. right around Niagara St.  I must say the cupcakes that I tried were delicious (or d'lish) but the one major thing that bothered me was that the store looked exactly like Sprinkles. Their decore, menu, presentation and packaging were very similar.  On to the taste...

My Review

1) Belgian chocolate - the cupcake was a good, moist chocolate cupcake with (a too runny) marshmallow filling the chocolate ganache was quite good.

2) Red Velvet - AWESOME!!! It has a very dense and smooth texture (as  I said in my last post I have a texture issue), they added some spice which was really nice.

3) Carrot - there was way too much butter in the icing and the cupcake was more like a muffin.

One good thing is that they only use 100% butter in their icings and cupcakes, no shortening here!

Overall, I'd go back.  Their cupcakes are really good, you can tell the baker has taken a long time to perfect the recipes.

Enjoy!

Herbal Infusions

I love tea, I especially love loose leaf tea.  My favourite place to get loose leaf tea in Toronto is Herbal Infusions. Herbal Infusions has a great selection of teas including black, green, white, oolong and herbal.  They have just launched their online shop, the are currently shipping all over Canada and the United States.  They also have a Tea of the Month Club, which means you get a 50g bag every month so you can sample the new teas, fun eh!

Currently, my favourite tea is the Grapefruit Eucalyptus. Perviously, it was the Cocoa tea which is the shells of cocoa bean, this tea is amazing.  Herbal Infusions is the only place in Ontario that has this tea, you have to go try it!

Not only do they sell loose leaf tea, they also sell tea pots, cups, presses, flavoured sugar, honey and anything else you need to make a great cup of tea.  To top it off they have a tea bar where they make tea lattes, regular tea, iced tea, iced tea lattes, etc.  I think it's worth the visit if you are downtown, the employees are super friendly and knowledgable and you'll get a great tasting tea.

tea from an UNESCO site

Sugar

Shop

Enjoy,