A Travel Journal: Montreal

This is our second time visiting the beautiful city of Montreal. Our first trip was nearly two years ago and this time around, we scheduled our visits around food. Here are some of the places we visited and we would recommend you to go! We are missing a couple places as I accidentally deleted my notes on the last day 🙁 Anyways, if you

1.  La Salle A Manger. A beautiful restaurant indeed! We decided to be a little adventurous and tried their venison carpaccio (which texture is like chicken but tasted like… We can’t quite describe it but yummy!), their duck and special seafood salad of the day. Oh and there is a person in charge who will suggest you which wine to pair with your food, whatever you order: TRUST HIM/HER! Worth it!

2. La Famille. We found this place through Yelp and was intrigued that they change their menu daily! Breakfast was just so-so, pastries were on display. Lunch, however, was glorious! We had soup champi- lait de coco et satay and toast agneau braise confit mais. We wished we had stayed longer to have another lunch on that location! Seatings can be tricky. They asked us to sit outside although it was raining. Some customers actually ate in the rain (no patio umbrella!)

3. Triple Crown Dinette. This was two blocks away from where we lived. We were suggested to go here on the first night we arrived but missed it by half an hour (they closed at 9pm, not as late as other places). We then headover to their Yelp review and by the time we got there, we ordered 80% of the menu and there were only the two of us. When you travel with us, be ready to eat A LOT. Most waitresses could not see it coming and had to check multiple times if we had more people coming. But we almost always went to great places so it wasn’t hard to finish the food. This place is not an exception. Their fried chicken was rated very highly by some people and poorly by some other. To us, it was cooked perfectly! Hushpuppies, cornbread, buttermilk biscuits, black eyed peas, gravies, just order all the sides you think you’ll be able to consume  ;). Also, their mac and cheese has a cheese that I have never had on any mac and cheese which I think could catch you off guard. So tasty! And the pulled pork… so moist and crispy at the same time! I am running out of words describing it! Oh and  their Ginger beer was delicious! On the day we visited, it was raining hard so we didn’t get to pack our lunch in a picnic basket (they offered!) but we’d be coming back for sure!

4. Pikolo Cafe. Wonderful espresso. Enough said.

5 & 6. St Viaeteur Bagel & Fairmount Bagel. St Viateur has a cafe in Mont Royal area which we briefly visited but found nothing in particular. We found these two places from a travel blog and it suggested us to try both and make a comparison. Honestly, I (Jenn) can’t differentiate them. Kevin, on the other hand, preferred St. Viateur for the freshness and texture of it.

7. Cafe Italia. This about six doors down from the apartment we lived in. We learned about this coffee shop from our landlord and just fell in love with it! Cash only and no website (so here’s a Yelp review to help you find this gem!). A googlemap link of the shop. Apparently their panini is famous and we just realized it while writing this post! A reason to come back one day 😉

8. Fous Desserts. Croissants (I believe) are freshly baked every 2-3 hours. Tasted heavenly! Coffee was better than other places. They also sell homemade jams from different kinds of fruits. We thought about getting their fig raspberry jam, not sure why we didn’t end up getting it.

A few places that ranked quite high for Montreal but we didn’t get the time to visit:

Olive et Gourmando 

Schwartz (we did come here two years ago but we found it so-so. However, we had some orders to fulfill from our Toronto friends this time. So maybe it’s worth the try since a number of people needed to import their stuff! :))

Bouillon Bilk

If you are from the are or have been to Montreal and saw that we are missing some great places, please leave us a comment below so we can make sure it got on the list! 😀 And now, some behind the scene photos of our trip. No, we didn’t go to tourist places. And yes, we still worked during this trip 😉 Here is a link to our Ottawa trip which is more touristy than this.