“Montreal Week 2”
On Monday, our first day sans KKs, we made our way back down to Old Town. We enjoyed lunch on the Terraces Nelligan – a rooftop restaurant with great views atop the Hotel Nelligan.
I tried to order a medium rare burger and was stymied by a Quebec regulation that says any ground beef not ground on the premises has to be cooked well done. Not fancying that, I opted for a cauliflower steak – yummy.
While I was enjoying that (munched in before realizing I wanted a picture), someone bungee jumped from the crane on the other side of the river – 100% hard No on that activity.
I’ll have a sip of a refreshing beer and try to wash away the memory of the person bouncing around like a rag doll on the end of that elastic band.
Diana enjoyed a very colourful Niçoise salad.
After lunch, we walked around Old Town and took a spin through Notre Dame cathedral. Not the very famous one, but still quite impressive – particularly the blue lighting.
I always enjoy checking out church organs and this one seemed serious:
This bronze sculpture caught my attention. It’s called “The English Pug” and is part of a diptych called “The Two Snobs”, created in 2013 by Canadian artist Marc Andre J. Fortier.
Tommy’s Cafe was close by for our after cathedral coffee stop. And the chair available for “Miss Champagne” seemed appropriate.
Tuesday began with a repeat visit to Chez Greenberg, down the street from the Airbnb. This time I had a poutine stuffed knish with my macchiato – I recommend this as a good way to try poutine. Jake Greenberg, presumably the owner, came by to check on the food and we had a good chat. We told him we were planning on trying Milos for lunch and got positive feedback. He also recommended Faros – the place we ate at last week with the KKs. “Best two Greek restaurants in the city.”
We had chatted with two ladies leaving Milos one evening and they raved about the place. It’s been in operation for many years and has since expanded globally. We checked with Nick about the one in Miami Beach and he described it as “an institution.” Okay – let’s see if we can get a seat at the bar and give it a try for lunch. I started with the house special martini, which came in a fish container.
Our waiter/bartender had been to Miami Beach and to Carbone – still one of our most amazing dining experiences.
Here’s the prix fixe lunch menu:
I started with the tomato (Greek) salad and then had the Dorade Royal (sea bream.)
Diana had the phenomenal octopus, followed by lamb.
Fortunately the desserts were small.
Don’t miss the baklava ice cream. Here’s a silly picture on the way out.
What a wonderful lunch all around. We decided to try and make a reservation for dinner later in the week. I think I heard something like “It’ll be our way to celebrate our last night in Montreal.”
After lunch, we watched the Spain vs France World Cup game. I had high hopes for an exciting game but France seemed flat and tired, ultimately losing to Spain.
In the evening, we made a pilgrimage to find Leonard Cohen’s grave. It was quite an uphill trek at the end of the walk to the entrance of the Mont Royal cemetery. We came across this church on the walk, not Notre Dame but the location of that picture of the girls with the young men in tuxedos. Or at least that’s the latest cover story – something about they were putting on their ties and getting all ready for a wedding, and offered to take the picture. Hmm.
Here I am checking out the family plot. Leonard is buried in a pine box next to his parents, Nathan and Marsha, as well as his grandparents and great grandparents.
Diana captured some pictures showing how beautifully the cemetery plots are kept.
We heard thunder rolling on our walk back but did not get any heavy rain or “squall” – there were a few “squall warnings” during our stay that seemed to amount to nothing much.
Wednesday took us over to the Botanical Gardens – some of the largest in the world. Research showed that we should visit the Japanese garden, the Chinese garden, and the Alpine area – we set off in search of those.
The Japanese area sported some very old bonsais:
The Chinese garden had interesting buildings and water features:
We came across oodles of lovely flowers on our meander through the gardens. Hydrangeas:
Balloon flowers (platycodon grandiflorus), native to East Asia:
Pom pom or ball dahlias:
We both agreed that our favourite section, not mentioned in my research, was the Lilly and brook garden. Amazing colours and very extensive.
The Olympic stadium was next to the Botanical gardens – here’s a picture of the tower attached to it.
Some facts about the tower:
In the evening we tried another of our Uber driver recommendations – the Atwater cocktail club. This was a speakeasy style place in the downtown area known as Atwater. I had read that entry was by an alley behind the Foiegwa restaurant. The one alley that I found looked a bit dodgy but closer inspection of the graffitied door revealed the “ACC” sign – must be the place.
We risked it, opened the door and headed inside to the fancy club.
We perused the detailed cocktail menu – most were less than $20 Canadian and made our choices.
The food menu seemed to have all of our favourites at once:
We started with chicken liver mousse, then beef tartare, and finally black truffle spaghetti. So rich and decadent and all wonderful.
Our waitress, Ashely, gave us a post card with some of her recommendations on places to try. We did try at least one of them.
What a nice touch from Ashley.
Diana decided to summit Mont Royal by the stairs on Thursday morning. This took her a little bit higher than the terrace we reached on our first day in Montreal.
Some details on the stairs. Good job Diana!
I think all that stairclimbing work was worth it:
We wandered the neighbourhood in search of a lunch spot, and ultimately ended up back at Bishop and Bagg for a burger at the bar. It was interesting to observe their display of over 100 gins.
The evening brought a highlight of the trip for me – a visit to the Upstairs jazz club. Their logo is upside down because the club is actually downstairs from the street level.
There were only a few tickets left when I bought ours and so I opted for bar seating. That turned out to be a great option – high stools so that Diana could see well and an amazing view of the stage.
We had wonderful service at the bar with great drinks and food. I had a drink called Le Vieux something (don’t remember the word). It was Canadian Club whiskey, Drambuie and ginger beer. Like a slightly modified Rusty Nail and delicious. We split a salad and a seafood pasta that was excellent.
And then the band! A very good tribute to the Buena Vista Social Club. This was an album from 1997 by Cuban legends with Ry Cooder.
Here’s the Upstairs version:
Friday was a busy day. We visited the Terrasse William Gray, an Ashley recommendation, for brunch. This was quite similar to the Nelligan terrace with excellent river front views of the Ferris wheel and Cirque du Soleil.
We shared a salad and you’ll be surprised…another tartare. Both delicious. Montreal really is an amazing food town.
The boeuf in the description reminded me of the boys in Paris as youngsters and the kick they got out of the McDonalds ads in the Metro – “100% pur boeuf.”
We wandered through Old Town after lunch, making a stop at Wolf and Workman before heading back to the Airbnb.
We had reservations for dinner at Milos in the evening. Everything was fine, but not up to the amazing experience that we had at lunch. Diana had a lobster and I enjoyed halibut. Both were good but not at the outstanding level we had anticipated.
After dinner, another musical treat awaited. The “Candlelight” performance of Abba and Queen songs.
This is a concert (apparently they have them in New Orleans sometimes) where a string quartet performs the music of Abba and Queen. Here’s the order of performance:
I thoroughly enjoyed the arrangements:
A very busy and enjoyable day all around.
We were due to pack up and leave on Saturday. Around 2pm, just before we ordered an Uber to the airport, we received notice that our flight was canceled. Oops!
Not able to extend the Airbnb or find a room at any others close by, McD came up with a great idea – let’s stay at that really nice Nelligan hotel where we had lunch. Booking was easy and we were checking in less than an hour later. This was an old school luxury hotel – they had thought only I was staying and so stalled a bit at check in to make a “profile” for Diana. I suspect what they were really doing was updating the welcome card on the petit fours. We were escorted up to the room so that we could be shown the amenities – I don’t think I’ve had that since the Park Hyatt in Sydney many, many years ago.
We had dinner at Mignon across from the hotel and it was another delicious meal, including oysters of course.
Diana was out early on Sunday morning to explore the Old Town area some more.
We took advantage of brunch on the lovely Nelligan terrace. The bacon Benny was just what I needed before setting of to try and make it home a day late.
I had checked transit time from the Nelligan to Montreal airport (YUL) in the morning – 20 minutes or so. Our flight was at 5pm and so we ordered an Uber around 2:30pm. As we departed the hotel, it showed the better part of an hour to the airport – hopefully we had enough wiggle room. We did – the traffic entering the airport was ludicrous – 2o minutes to go less than a mile, but they had Global Entry and TSA pre at the airport and you actually cleared US customs in Montreal – who knew?
We did have a tiny snafu at airport security. The bagel spreader souvenirs were not permitted as carry on items – such dangerous weapons. Diana decided to go back out and check her back – no problem, she made it to the gate in time for boarding.
Our flights to Chicago and then New Orleans were fine – the usual sitting on the tarmac waiting on a gate routines. We were home a little after midnight – tired and happily reflecting on a great trip.
My book this week was “Who is Maud Dixon” by Alexandra Andrews. You may remember that I read her “The Fine Art of Lying” a few weeks ago. All the reviews said that this was a much better read. I agree with the reviews for once – much deeper characters and better humour. Here’s an online summary:
“Florence Darrow has always felt she was destined for greatness, but after a disastrous affair with her married boss, she starts to doubt herself. All that changes when she sets off for Morocco with her new boss, the celebrated but reclusive author Maud Dixon. Amidst the colorful streets of Marrakesh and the wind-swept beaches of the coast, Florence begins to feel she’s leading the sort of interesting, cosmopolitan life she deserves.
But when she wakes up in the hospital after a terrible car accident, with no memory of the previous night—and no sign of Maud—a dangerous idea begins to take form. . .”
I enjoyed this article about attempts to create a Scottish Music Hall of Fame. I’m all for it.
Scottish Music Hall of Fame article
Something Moroccan related for Maud Dixon:
It was quite a trek from the arrival gate, through immigration and out to the Uber pickup area in Montreal. Our Lyft (much shorter wait time than Uber) driver dropped us off in the alley behind our building rather at the front door. That was pretty disconcerting but he was sure it was the right place and we figured it out after he left, dragging our luggage down the alley, past the famous bagel place, and around to the front door, where we were able to easily gain entrance to the lovely Airbnb.
Later in the morning we headed out on an expedition to summit Mont Royal, the mountain/hill that Montreal is named for. My research showed that Chemin Olmsted was a pleasant and meandering trail with a light gradient, passing Beaver Lake before arriving at the Mount Royal chalet and terrace. That was all true, however, the weather was not what my research had indicated – hot and humid, and not the cold, crisp respite from the New Orleans swamp that I had hoped for. Oh well, I took a few breaks to cool off and ultimately summited.
The KKs were at it early on Thursday. They got some bagels from Saint Viateur and then navigated their way down to Old Town and the Riverfront district on foot. We arranged to meet them at Maison des Eclusiers by the riverfront and enjoyed our first taste of poutine.
After that sustenance, we hiked onwards to the Avenue Mont Royal, a pedestrian street (mostly.) Kara browsed a used record store and we ordered up macchiatos from a coffee window. We stopped into a little Chilean place to try and watch the World Cup game. They had it on but didn’t serve any wine or beer. I ordered an empanada – very good with a delicious sauce. When I complimented the sauce, the owners told me they brought the recipe from Chile and gave me a little sample to take home.
I finished up John of John by Douglas Stuart this week. Not one of my top reads of the year, but as I said last week, some interesting things about life on the islands.
Thom was home alone and so we invited him to join us for our second annual 4th of July visit to Toups’ Meatery.
My first book this week was Mendell Station by J B Hwang. I didn’t love this book. The story about training as a postal delivery person was interesting and I enjoyed reading about San Francisco neighborhoods that I know a little bit. The story was too choppy along the timeline and a bit convoluted overall. Here’s an online summary:
We made the chickpea wraps for a late lunch/early dinner on Sunday. They were tasty and the recipe created way more filling than could fit in four large tortillas – we easily filled six. After eating, we drove over to the Constantinople porch stage to see Dave Jordan and Rurik Nunan perform. We’ve heard them both separately at the Broadside and enjoyed their individual sounds. Together they blended very pleasantly.
I finished “Contrapposto” by Dave Eggers this week. I always enjoy Eggers writing and was not disappointed. The detail of the art world was a whole new thing for me – at a much deeper level than that from “The Fine Art of Lying” from a few weeks ago. I’m not sure this is for everyone but I enjoyed it quite a bit. Here’s an online summary of the story:
My next book was “The Man Who Came Uptown” by George Pelecanos. I don’t think I’ve read any of his books before and picked it up online while waiting in the queue for several other books. It was a quick, easy and relatively entertaining read. Nothing special.
We met Kenny to watch the USMNT World Cup game at the Tchoup Yard – one of the collection of breweries that are situated along Tchoupatoulis Street, an industrial area by the river that provides large spaces at much lower cost than other areas. We were looking forward to lunch – they advertised a crunch wrap take off on my Taco Bell favourite, and Kenny wanted to try the chicken sandwich that Pepperoni raved about on a prior visit. We didn’t love the food – decent but way too salty, I suppose that’s supposed to make you drink more beer?
This was my first visit to the brewery and I was impressed with the variety of seating areas – inside with A/C, outside in the humidity, and with various different seating options. It got very busy and loud inside as the match proceeded. As is typical with events like this in New Orleans, everyone says they’re “going to watch the game” and then nobody does – they form in circles and chat and catch up. The same thing happens at music festivals and concerts.
My first book this week was “The Midnight Train” by Matt Haig. I have read a few of his books and was looking forward to this one. I had a bit of a hard time not feeling that the premise was a bit trite and formulaic. The story was great and engaging once I decided to put that aside. It was just a little too close to “The Midnight Library” for me not to feel like Haig is riding too much of a good thing. Here’s an online summary of the plot:
We took our sandwiches to Bishop Estate winery for lunch on Thursday. We each tried a flight of wines and then voted on which bottle to get for lunch – the Chardonnay won.
My book this week was “The Fine Art of Lying” by Alexandra Andrews. Denny would probably say that I’m not in the target demographic for this book, and I don’t care as I enjoyed the read.
I suggested John Fohl at Dos Jefes to Diana and she jumped on it. John has been playing Monday nights at Dos Jefes cigar bar for around 30 years and always puts on an excellent show. There were very few people there, around ten, with Fohl commenting about how much things slow down after the Memorial Day weekend. As is typical, he started with some finger picked instrumentals before diving into his song repertoire. I heard all my favourites, particularly this one with the lyric “Left hand of Toussaint, right hand of God.”
And the final pickle session for the week was the Thursday morning clinic. In the evening we attended a fun event – an outdoor movie at the wonderful Broadside theater. The offering this time was Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior from 1981, the second in George Miller’s popular series. An online summary of the plot:
Anne’s sister, Mary Francis, passed through town on her way to Navarre and the continued condo clean out. We met the girls at Charmant for a delicious brunch. Diana did not enjoy the bacon infused Bloody Mary, so I had to help finish it.
I needed something lighter and quicker after the trudge through “Doxology.” Claire Keegan’s “So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men” was a perfect antidote. Three short stories that were easy and thought provoking reads.
My next book was “Ghost Town” by Tom Perrotta. I read this in just over a day – it was another quick and enjoyable read. I enjoyed “The Leftovers” and was interested to read another of Perrotta’s novels. Here’s an online summary:
Later in the afternoon we migrated to the Bon Temps to play some pool. Diana was delighted to find that her experience on Christmas day was not a fluke – they regularly carry Veuve Clicquot at a very inexpensive price.
We decided to be early birds on Thursday afternoon and try to beat the inevitable crowds for a free event. I parked at the Jazz Museum with the understanding that the ships would be lined up from the Bywater to downtown. Oops – they were all clustered downtown around the aquarium area – so we had a nice mile plus walk down the riverfront – would be fine if it wasn’t so humid.
