DINNER February 28, 2009

Two meals at Europea during the Montreal Highlights Festival? Seems a bit much. But the opportunity to sit at the chef’s table for a ten course meal from one of the city’s finest could not be passed up. The chef’s table in this case is actually three tables set  outside of the pass with varying views of the action in the kitchen. In our case, it might better have been referred to as the staircase table as it offered a fantastic vista of the area under the staircase leading up to the dining room. Still, beggars can’t be choosers and we were glad for the opportunity to sample what was essentially Europea’s everyday tasting menu on steroids. Continue Reading…

DINNER February 27, 2009

The weekend following the release of the Montreal Highlights Festival guide normally sees the local papers parsing the list of invitees and laying praise on the most notorious. I had done some parsing of my own  and, to my surprise, neither of the local papers listed the Inaki Aizpitarte dinner at recently-moved and re-branded Montée as one of the must-eats of this year’s festival. Although La Presse (and to a lesser extent, the Gazette) has gotten into Inaki-mania since then, I had decided from the get-go that this was one meal I wouldn’t be missing. Continue Reading…

DINNER February 21, 2009

François Mitterand’s last meal is a thing of legend. Esquire magazine’s Michael Paterniti famously wrote about the meal the former French president hosted eight days prior to his death at which diners gorged themselves on ortolans, little practically extinct birds that are eaten more or less whole after biting off their heads. While Americans found it fascinating, the French shrugged it off as part and parcel of being a powerbroker in the hexagon: mistresses, no speed limits and the illegal eating of protected species. Continue Reading…

LUNCH February 20, 2009

The Montreal Highlights Festival is upon us again and what better place to kick it all off than Europea, which is again offering one of the steals of the festival in the form of a four-course lunch menu for the moderate sum of $29.50. Jöel Veyssière of  Les Halles-area bistro Le Pied de Cochon was in Jerome Ferrer’s kitchens preparing a few of the classic dishes from the legendary eatery.

Mr. Veyssière, an impressive man the size of a fridge with the sandpaper hands of someone who still manhandles sautée pans for a living, led off with a kir and “confiture de cochon” (literally, pork jam, sounds a lot better in French doesn’t it?). The garlicky confiture looked a lot like a dab of rillettes but had the airy mouthfeel of a mousse. The tough decisions started to come with the appetizers and the thorny decision of choosing between roasted marrow bones and a black pudding and caramelized onion tart topped with roasted apples. Continue Reading…

A review of our New Year’s trip to Miami and the Keys has been posted in the food Travel section. Maybe 2009 will be the year I finally catch up (Singapore and Zurich summaries have been missing in action for a while). This whole site is a Sisyphean endeavour…really…

DINNER February 13, 2009

It was around the turn of the century that Chez Roger became cool again. Oh, it may have been cool before. After all, it’s been around since the 1920s, but when the kids from Outremont started skipping Lower St-Laurent and driving their parent’s Mercedes to slum it at Chez Roger with the denizens of East Montreal  it was like a whole new era of cool. And now that über-chefs Jean-Philippe Saint-Denis and Mathieu Cloutier of Kitchen Galerie fame have taken the reins of the kitchen at Bistro Chez Roger (formerly the not-very-cool Chez Roger BBQ) even foodies are starting to flock around.

The decor is modern alehouse. Wood, leather and stone walls yes, but also stainless steel fixtures, modern lighting and groovy, swiveling chamois bar chairs. And those chairs are the place to sit with an eagle eye view of the kitchen line, including the monster charcoal grill. Continue Reading…