Dinner at Le Garde Manger

I love the show Chuck's Day Off. It's a program on Foodtv Canada and I love Chuck Hughes' cooking, plus he is rather easy on the eyes which doesn't hurt. He also happens to have a restaurant in Old Montreal so I dragged my friend Roxy down there last Friday.

The restaurant is rather trendy. So trendy in fact that there isn't even a sign for it. It's like a speakeasy in the 1920', you just have to know that it is there. I had to double check the address to make sure we were at the right place.

You will all have to bear with my so-so pictures for this post. Shooting in the dark is not my forte and the only light in the place were little candles on each of the tables.

 

Please forgive the blurry pictures. I had a very off picture taking night.

 

To start off I had a lychee Martini which was excellent. I could have easily had a few more of these. It was actually my first time ordering one and I think it could become my go to drink when going out.

By this time I was ravenous. When the waitress brought out the bread basket I practically attacked it. There were different kinds of bread and a paprika, cream cheese and caramelized onion dip that was absolutely delicious. We actually went through the entire basket and asked for another one.

 

I ended up having salmon tartare for an appetizer. I wish the picture had come out better because it was amazing. The stuff on top is panko not coconut flakes which is what it looks like. The quality of the fish was extremely good considering we are in Montreal. The chunks of salmon had been tossed in a light citrusy vinaigrette along with fresh chives and green onions and at the base there were crunchy buttery croutons. The differing textures in the dish, the soft fish and the crisp croutons, were very interesting.

 

Roxy had the lobster salad. It was basically two lobster claws on a bed of lightly dressed greens with two giant onion rings. She said it tasted good but that the onion rings were not hot which was a disappointment as the differing temperatures would have made a good contrast.

 

 

This was my main course: lobster poutine. This was so good. The sauce was made from seafood stock and tasted like like a very rich bisque. My only qualm was that I didn't get enough sauce so I asked the waitress for more which they gave me with not qualms. I like my poutine practically drowning in sauce. The portions of lobster were very generous, in fact the portions were generous for everything. I didn't even end up finishing this course because it was rather big. I picked off all of the lobster and most of the cheese but left a lot of fries because I was so full.

This was Roxy's meal. Doesn't it look absolutely gorgeous? It was a duck magret (duck breast) in a port reduction with foie gras and fresh figs. There were also roasted potatoes lurking in there somewhere. She gave me some to try and it gave me a serious case of dish envy! Although I loved my poutine I was muttering "I should have ordered the duck" for the rest of the night. The magret was perfectly cooked. Roxy is as picky as I am about food and even she couldn't find anything bad to say about it. As she said the only improvement that could have been made would have been providing better knives to cut the meat.

By this point we were both stuffed with excellent food and alcohol. However, since we are dedicated foodies we decided we would make room for dessert and coffee. I ordered a latte which was good but could have been a trifle hotter. I liked the funky touch of serving it in a glass instead of a regulation ceramic mug. The temperature of some dishes was a problem though. When we first got to the restaurant we were the only ones there but by this time the place was packed and it seemed like the waitresses were having a hard time getting to everyone and serving tables as soon as their meals were ready.

 

 

 

Roxy and I decided to share two desserts. On top was a brownie with chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream and on the bottom was a fried mars bar with vanilla ice cream. Seriously, dessert was the only let down of the meal. The vanilla ice cream was not very good quality and the mars bar and the brownie were barely warm. It kills the hot and cold combo when your dessert is room temperature. The brownie was ok. Not bad but not spectacular. Same thing with the mars bar. The breading was very thick, instead of being light like tempura batter which is what I was expecting. It wasn't bad. I just wasn't blown away. Well, I suppose all restaurants have to have their achilles heels. The reviews for the desserts that I had read were pretty good so I was a bit disappointed but maybe the guy in charge of desserts was having an off night.

Dinner set me back 82 bucks with tax and tip and considering how much food I had it wasn't bad at all. I would definitely go back eventually. The owner doesn't work Fridays and weekends so I suspect that the food and the service might be even better when he is around on weeknights. I am not sure if I would try dessert there again but the rest of the food was excellent and worth the price.

18th Century Market, Cupcakes and Paninis

This past weekend a friend I work with, Alexandra, and I went to Old Montreal to the 18th Century Market. No, I have not mastered the science of time travel (yet), but rather it's an event that the museum down there does every year. They try to recreate the feel of a public market as it would have been in the 1750s. There are people walking along in costume: soldiers, priests, townspeople etc and even the merchants at the stalls are dressed up. The "merchants" are actually food producers from the Montreal region who sell artisanal cheese, bread, chocolate, jams etc.. The whole event is really well planned and there is a lot of attention to detail. As Old Montreal still retains most of its originals buildings and cobble stoned street it almost feels as though you have been transported back in time.


This stall was selling products made with garlic flowers. It could also keep vampires away if one is so inclined.

A shot of the general area.


This stall was selling earthenware pottery.

These are fresh picked wild raspberries, strawberries and blueberries. They were also selling chocolate covered blueberries which I ate before I took a picture. Oops! They were nice and juicy though.

A stall selling handmade truffles. I think we made a beeline for them once we saw them.

Here are some shots of the general area and the actors walking around. There were also musicians performing folk songs.


While we were there they did a little military parade and fired their guns which was pretty neat.

I ended up buying rhubarb-strawberry jam, honey-caramel spread, honey-chocolate spread, maple sugar and maple butter. Yum.

After we had finished with the fair we went Olive and Gourmando which is a very cute bakery/cafe. It was absolutely packed and we had to wait for a bit but it was totally worth it.


They have several hot plates and hot and cold sandwiches. Alexandra advised me to get the hot Cuban sandwich, as she said it was amazing.


She was so right. It was hot and cheesy and so good. Their version is made with ham, braised pork, home-made mayonaisse (chipotle, pickles, lime and coriander) and gruyere cheese. I enjoyed every bite.

I also had a glass of their home made lemon and honey iced black tea.


Here are two shots of the tiers and tiers of pastries that they have:



The only thing I don't love about this place is the opening hours. They're only opened 8am to 6pm Tuesdays to Saturdays so it will be a while until I go back since they're far away from work.

Although the pastries looked great we decided to hit a nearby cupcake shop called Les Glaceurs for dessert.


The cupcakes looked almost too pretty to eat. In the end Alexandra chose a vanilla cupcakes and I took a red velvet one.


The flower decoration on the vanilla cupcakes was just too cute.



The Red Velvet didn't look too shabby either.

Unfortunately they looked better than they tasted. They weren't bad but the cupcake part was a little dry and dense; I like them fluffier. There was also very little chocolate flavour in mine. But given that I have a hard time saying no to sugar I still finished the whole thing. I've read reviews on the internet and they are generally positive so I think we might have just caught them on a bad day.

This was only the first part of my fun but long and tiring Saturday. After that I went on a sugar crawl of Montreal along with a meetup group. Part II will be on my next post.