IN WEDNESDAY’S BOSTON GLOBE FOOD SECTION we reported on our crawl of newish, higher-end burger joints in Atlanta, but last week we ducked out of town to snatch a few days in Montréal and Québec City. Our main interest, as you might guess, being the new & slightly used wine bars and restos there.
To pack as much as possible into an evening, our MO is to nip into one or two spots for a drink and a bite at the bar before settling into a table somewhere else. We’re walking everywhere – with the idea of achieving a same-day work-off of calories we accumulate at an alarming rate. Herein are a few of the things we took note of, in no particular order (click on any image for a better look).
That cold, rainy first night, we left our Old City hotel for a place we were warned not to miss, Le Comptoir, and passed by a storefront offering courses in wine, cooking and bar service. The sign touts Cours de Bar, Cours de Cuisine, Cours de Vin; in their English translation “Bar and Coach, Food and Coach, Wine and Coach,” which seemed perfectly clear to us, even if un concept nouveau. Unlike PIZZEDELIC which seems a more or less vieux concept (pizza, wine, beer) given new life via a rather clever name. We were briefly tempted to give the place a try, but changed our minds. Another time.
Further up the Boul St. Laurent we encountered Schwartz’s Deli and Moishe’s Steakhouse– both restos have landmark status. We stopped to marvel at the pastrami stacked helter-skelter in Schwartz’s main window. No attempt to style the pile. It’s just a marvelous heap. Moishe’s sign is captivating, for reasons I can’t really explain. We stared at it for some time until it began to rain harder and we pushed on.
The comfy confines of Le Comptoir are as sweet as advertised. The wine list here (a page, below left) is deep into Quadrant 1 territory (see How to speak wine bar now for an explanation). With a spectacular plate of charcuterie we sipped Thièrry Puzelat’s little gem of a gamay. The inside joke is that the property’s name, Le Clos du Tue-Boeuf is a homonym of du boeuf and thereby a jab at French wine impresario Georges Duboeuf, czar of Beaujolais nouveau. The way it says ‘down with factory wine, up with the real thing’ is sly and funny.
The word play motif was picked up by a black cloth tote a customer had stashed in a corner while she sipped her Tue-Boeuf. It reads “This bag is green.” It took us a minute to catch on. on.kjgbhd;akgh;akgh;adfkgh;adfkjgh;dfkgh;adkghakdjhg;kjgh;adkjgha;dkgh;akgh;akdhg;kadhjg;kjdh;kjdfh
Another night found us climbing toward the section of town known as the Plateau via the scrappy Rue St. Denis. Passing Hopital St Luc, we saw a number of employees standing outside the main entrance sneaking smokes, then noticed a patient with his back to the street, shod only in his hospital-issue booties, with one hand clutching the flaps of his johnny shut, with the other puffing steadily on his Marlboro. lkbj/lkj/lkj/ljh/ldkhjldkjh/lhj/lkhj/dlkhj/lkhj/lkhjwlhjwlhj/lkhj/wlkhjlghj/wlkhjwlhjwlhjwlhjwlkhjlkhjwlkhjwlkhj’lkhj’lkj’wlkhj’wlkhj
Our destination was a much-loved neighborhood spot called Au Cinqiuème Péché. We were put on to the place by a resident of the quartier.
We’d call it an upscale mom & pop except that the proprietors aren’t spouses, they’re sibs – Normandy-born brothers Benjamin (front of the house) and Benoit (chef de cuisine) Lenglet. The pair featured in a 2010 New York Times story about Montreal restos putting arctic seal on their menus. The assiette de phoquonaille (it’s fourth from the top on the blackboard menu at left – click to see) is seal four ways, including as a merguez-type sausage.
Later, I run into Audrey Tatou and her BF (I think that’s her BF) in the Au Cinquiéme loo and I can tell you she’s every bit as beautiful in person as she is on screen and in those perfume ads in Vanity Fair. Whatever was going on between her and the guy looked a little awkward. It didn’t strike me as the right time to request an autograph. We said good-bye, probably forever. dlkbjd;alkjbldjbldakjbnlajaldkjnbalkjnalnkjalkjlajn’lakjbn’lajnb’lkjnalknjb’alkjnb’alkjnb’alkj’a
That is, unless we hook up at Le Café du Monde, which I’m now beginning to think is a distinct possibility. A boisterous and shiny brasserie on the QC waterfront that Legal Sea Foods’ Harborside could learn something from manages to be a lot of fun even if the food is just so-so. ;flkgjlgjqlgkjlgjdlkjgdlfkjgdlkfgjlkgjldkgjdlkgjdlgjdlkgjldkjgldkjg’ldkjg’ldkgj’dlkgj’ldgkjqglkjdklnnnnnv gjkk A significant element is the dining room’s view of the enchantingly atmospheric St. Lawrence. Artefact, the sedate bar at the ritzy Aubèrge Saint-Antoine across the street has nothing to equal the Café du Monde’s view of the harbor or its regulars’ damn-the-torpedoes approach to a night out. The stemware here (above left) is crazy big, so big you can use your glass to peer at people at other tables without it being obvious they are under study. In the loo you get to watch a video on a flat screen display while using the high-speed hand dryer. Café du Monde is all about the gaze, it seems – and the laughter.
On the drive back, we stop off in Barnard, Vermont to visit the little winery I profiled in an April post (Hâutes Cotes du Vermont). Deirdre Heekins’ postage stamp-sized vineyard is as tidy as a pin. At left, a few hundred very young marquette vines are staked. At right, nascent wines finish their fermentions in carboys. dlk;dlkgj;dlfjdflj;lkj;ldfj;dfljldfjhdlfhj;ldfhj;dlfkhj;ldhj;ldkjh;ldsfghj;ldgfkhj;dlhjdlkhj;dfglkhj;dlhjljlkjhReach me at stephenmeuse@icloud.com