Hello Sunshine

Friday was my last day of work for a while, and we ended the day with a fabulous dinner.  We had bacon-wrapped scallops:

Olive bread with oil and vinegar:

And crab legs with golden beets:

On Saturday we had our busy Canada day.  If you missed that post, click here to see how we celebrated the day.

On Sunday morning Christopher made breakfast and then we got to work on some adult responsibilities.

I ironed, and Christopher re-filled a couple little foundation cracks.  Since our house is old, and our city was built on a swamp, a few minor cracks are inevitable.  They needed a refresher, so he chiseled away the old stuff, and re-filled them.  We were done our chores and yard work in no time, and were kicking back with blended bevvies in the yard by the early afternoon.  Nothing but relaxing for the rest of the long weekend ...

For lunch we shared a Montreal smoked meat poutine, with homemade fries, cheese-curds, and buckets of pepper gravy.

Dinner was just smoked salmon with paratha and cream cheese.

Monday was a holiday (in lieu of Canada day), so we were both home, and spent pretty much the entire day in the backyard.  After scrambled eggs, bacon, and duck-fat fried potatoes, we parked ourselves on the patio furniture and turned up the tunes.

Lunch was snacky:

For dinner we had salad, with BBQd honey garlic chicken thighs, and portobello mushrooms.

It was nice to get up this morning and have nowhere to be.  I had a yogurt bowl with watermelon, pineapple, granola, PB, and cacao nibs for breakfast, while watching the first episode of Big Brother, that I had PVRd.

I whipped up a few trays of lime cookies:

And made pita pizzas for when Christopher came home at lunch:

After lunch I hit the spa for a pedicure, and long massage - ahhhhhh.

This evening we had a veggie/noodle curry for dinner, and then went out to the theatre to see Beauty and the Beast.

The forecast says that rest of this week, and the weekend ahead are to be as sunny as the tropical smoothies I was enjoying last week.

I'm looking forward to enjoying every bit of the sunshine.

How was your weekend?  Is the weather gorgeous where you are too?

Eating Across Montreal: Part 6

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Montreal is loaded with rotisserie chicken shops, all that smelled amazing as we walked by.  Because they are so popular, we knew we had to try a couple. 

Imagine perfectly cooked fries, topped with cheese curds, rotisserie chicken, and gravy.

It's as good as it sounds.

Christopher spent some time researching the best rotisserie in Montreal, and he did very well.  We went to Romados, a Portuguese rotisserie chicken house, and were blown away.

We shared a half chicken meal with salad.  It was perfection.

We had veggie sandwiches and some gorgeous lattes at Cafe Imagination.

We tried our first cronut, a beautiful blend of a croissant and a donut.  It was really good.

Breakfast at Prohibition in Monkland was fantastic. 

The service was great, and I loved that coffee was included with every meal (you don't see this very often anymore).  I had the french toast with fried chicken, and Christopher had a salmon bagel.

We lucked out and there was a street festival starting in Monkland, as we were leaving the restaurant. 

 

We wandered for a bit, and then came back the next day to explore some more and check out one of the many food trucks that lined the street.

We had a mini mac and cheese.

We also got to see a couple of snakes!  I love snakes.

There was a Korean restaurant just down the street from our hotel, so we obviously had to eat there.  It's called Kantapia.  We ordered the beebimbap, pageon, ramen, and galbi.  The server told us, "That's too much food."  We lied to him and told him we were planning on taking leftovers back to the room. 

We ate it all (including the two small sides he brought out).

On our last evening in Montreal, we ate at La Cantina, a very highly rated Italian restaurant.  As soon as we sat down, they brought out a small plate of sausage, and some bread.

I absolutely loved the egg drop soup:

And I thought the spaghetti bolognese was really good.

Christopher thought his veal was alright, but the roasted vegetables were the best part of his meal.

We had Saturday in Montreal, before flying home that evening.  We spent a good part of the afternoon just sitting on a bench in a park, visiting, laughing, and watching the birds and squirrels around us.  It was nice.

On our flight home we were upgraded to WestJet PLUS seats again (and this time it wasn't even because we knew someone)!  Suweeeeeeeet!



We felt pretty lucky.  Our first flight was over four hours, as we actually flew over our province, and into Calgary, before backtracking to come home.  The extra legroom was much appreciated.  We couldn't even reach the wall with our feet!

Overall it was probably the easiest traveling experience we've ever had.  We didn't even have to walk through the airports (our next flights were always at the same gate as the one we came off of).  We had a wonderful time in Montreal, and plan to return some day.  Christopher has really taken an interest in learning French, and has been practicing a lot.  So far, this is our favourite city we've visited in Canada.

See you tomorrow for one last post about Montreal; our fanciest dining experience from this vacation.

How was your weekend?  What did you do?  Anything exciting?

Montreal Part 2

Our first full day (Sunday) in Montreal was exactly that - full.  We walked over 20,000 steps over the course of the day, covering an insane amount of ground and numerous areas in Montreal. 

Things we noticed right away about Montreal:

- There is a lot of really nice graffiti art on buildings all over the city; it's everywhere

- We have heard a lot about Montreal smoked meat and poutine, but we never expected to see so many rotisserie chicken places.  People here must realllllly love their chicken.  Seriously, it seems like there is a rotisserie chicken shop on every street, and they all look sooo good, and smell amazing.  It's on our list!
- There are a lot of pretty spaces in between buildings

- There are very few chain restaurants (Old Montreal had the most of any area we've seen here yet)
- We have not yet encountered someone who could not speak English; if we say "hello" they instantly start to speak English to us
- Poutine is everywhere, and none of the poutine places skimp on gravy; there is usually a pool of gravy left in the dish; no need for ketchup for those leftover dry fries!
- There are beautiful cathedrals all over the city

 

We started our day on Sunday by walking to St. Viateur Bagel.

We enjoyed our bagels with some iced teas from David's Tea.

These bagels are widely recognized as the best in Montreal.  They were good, but I don't think they compare to NY bagels.

Later, we wandered to Schwartz's for a smoked meat sandwich. 

This place is very famous, and the line up is always insane.  We went through the take-out side, which is much quicker, and got one hot smoked meat sandwich to share.

I was surprised that the sandwich was on very small, thin pieces of regular bread.  There wasn't enough bread for the amount of meat.  The meat was very flavourful, and extremely tender and moist.  We both agreed that the sandwich needed more mustard, and a pickle or something for a bit more flavour and crunch.  I'm having trouble understanding why people would wait in an insane line for these; although, to be honest, I kind of want to go have another one, just to be sure I'm not missing something, or perhaps to try something else on the menu.

While walking along, we came across Park La Fontaine, which is absolutely beautiful!

In The Village (also called The Gay Village), we had fun people-watching, as it was the last day of Pride Week, and a lot was going on.  The street was packed, and a lot of fun. 

Later in the afternoon we shared a classic poutine at La Banquise, a restaurant famous for having the best poutine in Montreal, and our third dish recommended by a food TV show of the day (the bagels and smoked meat sandwich were also from food TV recommendations). 

This poutine was really good, but we still liked the one from Nyk's the most.

We continued walking, admiring the sites along the way.

After resting our feet in the room for a while, we had a very full and fun evening.  We started with a vegan dinner at Aux Vivres.

I got a beet, carrot, apple juice, and Christopher's was made with ginger, apple and lemon.

We shared a soup to start.

And then I had the dragon bowl, and Christopher had a veggie burger.

After dinner we went to a cool cigar and martini lounge called Stogie. 

After the cigar lounge, we went to a rooftop terrace for a beverage, before heading back to the hotel.

* I'm currently listening to Christopher repeat words after his phone as he completes Lesson 1 of Rosetta Stone: French.  He's so cute.