Montreal

Don’t ask me what the name of this church is, they have a lot of them in Montreal

I’ve come back from Montreal [the time of writing is Wednesday, I came back Friday], and decided to do a little catcher-upper. It’s like a fixer-upper except there’s less construction workers standing around drinking coffee in front of a dilapidated house.

image courtesy of sodahead.com

I’ve been requested to do a post on poutine–seeing as I was basically in the capital of it–and I will be doing one, but it’ll take a while. The post will contain the history and culture behind it, a lot of which deals with the relations between the Anglophone and Francophone communities of Quebec. This whole English/Francais thing is really controversial, and a lot like the divide between communities [I’ll use a fake name to protect the feelings of the real city I’m using as an example] NotLosAngles. It’s kind of like an Internet forum about religion in that regard.

This is actually a tree that’s been bent. In some park (on an island?) in Montreal

Seeing as this is a food blog, it is hard for me to get into the details of my vacation without boring the appetite out of somebody, but suffice to say I saw a lot of the beautiful city I went to.

Gay Village, Montreal

Editors’ Note: You can give the kid an app for his iphone so that he can add notes to the pics he takes; but that doesn’t mean he’ll use it.  So please excuse the poorly captioned photos.

Old Port, Montreal

Montreal is named after Mont Real [translates to Royal Mountain, correct me if I’m wrong in the comments], a mountain north of the city that is recognized for it’s suspiciously hill-sized stature [Everest it is not] and the various structures on top: namely a Cross to mark a grave site, a tall antenna and what looks like a giant tuning fork.

image courtesy of montreal.metblogs.com

Compared to Toronto, there seemed to be a lot of cafes. My sister, who has lived there upwards of 2.5 years, said Montreal was just starting to get into coffee culture. Naturally, I ran screaming out of the city shouting ‘The British are coming!’ before realizing that Montreal is an island and sinking to the murky depths to confuse future archeologists.

Instead of yelling “the British are coming!!”, I actually just ate there

I could go into the niggles of the various hot chocolates I had, but I won’t for two reasons. The first is that I didn’t give a damn enough to take notes, and the second is that everyone wanted me to have poutine [pron: Poo-Teen, Po-Tin, and Pow-Tin if you’re American].

[Sorry if I’m not as funny as I [help] usually am, it’s hard to write with a gun pointed at your [help] head by okay okay I’ll get back to the post]

from Java Café, Montreal

I was kidding, don’t worry for my health or safety [help]. The first poutine I had that I’ll talk about was a curious one ordered with a sandwich at a cafe called Java [or something like that, again, no notes]. While the sandwich was so average it was most likely aired by the CBC, the poutine was something else. Its fries were well cooked and better than one would think, and added a bit of flavouring spice to the mix. The gravy was always well done in every poutine I had, probably because Montreal messing up the gravy in poutine would be akin to Toronto’s Rob Ford forgetting to bring some  crack cocaine to a party.

image courtesy of alyssamooremru.blogspot.com

Also a staple of Quebec poutine [the one city I visited now arbitrarily represents the entire province of millions of people, just like I’m an American tourist exploring the foreign savage-lands of NotUS.] is that cheese curds shall always be generous, and they shall always be higher quality than anywhere else in the country, or the Quebec Gods will come down from the skies and drag you screaming to the dining tables of Valhalla. That didn’t even make sense.

 

Poutine with fried chicken I ate at my sister’s house

I’ve had plenty of regular poutine to counteract the crazy stuff I had, most notably the one with fried chicken on it. It was basically two meals in one, which made it an average meal for me. The poutine is already confirmed to always be good [a humoungous cheese/fry ration compared to other Pow-Tins if I’m correct], but the fried chicken was actually surprisingly good with it, making me wonder if it was also a standalone option on the restaurant’s menu. The quality of it was preserved in the trip from its kitchen to the house I was staying at, which was basically me saying I had takeout while managing to use one full sentence to even out this paragraph’s space better.

Needless to say, I ate a lot of Poutine

Every poutine I had the pleasure of eating came mandatorily with fresh cut, homemade fries, warm, creamy savoury gravy and big, rich, flavourful cheese curds. I highly recommend eating it there. That said, I’ve had enough for a while, before I really do run screaming into the lake.

Chilling in a beautiful Montreal park with my sister’s most excellent dog, Noodle

Keep your eyes peeled [not really, ew] for my poutine post, which I will make after the necessary researching, cross-checking and blackmailing is completed. I’ve also got a post on the food truck scene in Toronto, which is as well-respected and supported by the city’s government as Capitalism is in China.

Editor’s Note part deux:  unless otherwise noted in the captions, all photography for this post courtesy of Reighan Murphy (aka the Sister) or Callum Denault (himself)

Congrats to Lazy Daisy’s Cafe

This is the logo for BlogTO, one of the biggest food blogs in the GTA.  They even have their own iPhone app.  They’re also the one’s who picked Lazy Daisy’s as #6 in the Top Ten Cafes in 2011.

I think this is truly amazing considering they just opened a few months ago.  It is places like this that will help to revitalize my neighbourhood of Little India.

Lazy Daisy’s

The farm themed Lazy Daisy’s Cafe (more on that later) definitely stands out in our mixed, gritty neighbourhood.  One part of our area is a bit dodgy, the kind with the occasional public arrest (more on that in a later post!);  another part of our neighbourhood is Little India with a lot of stores empty and then a short walk south of us is The Beaches.  So needless to say a fancy family orientated cafe like this is the last thing you would expect.

The Lazy Daisy Cafe at the Coxwell & Gerrard end of Little India

Here is something I just thought of.  The grand and successful (I might add) opening of this cafe is not as strange as it might seem and actually quite logical.  Between the ethnic neighbourhood, the youngsters’ beach neighbourhood and the kind of grungy neighbourhood;  the rest of us needed a nice place to relax and get away from it all.

I felt this would be a good picture to give you an idea of the front part of the store.

The back of the cafe

The back holds a lot of goodies (to the right – off camera) for parents and their toddlers.  One thing that is clever, is a wooden Thomas the Train  table complete with dinosaurs and giant animals.  This may sound weird but so are trains with faces on them.

Some of the delicious treats from Lazy Daisy’s large and ever-changing variety of food.

Salted Caramel Brownie

My favorite regular Lazy Daisy goodie!!  As you might know, I do have a sweet tooth, and this is delicious satisfaction.

Nana's favorite - the Cheesecake Brownie

From what I hear from Nana, this brownie is most excellent and less sweet than the Salted Caramel brownie.  I have not tried this yet but am endeavoring to do so.

Chili with a cornmeal and goat cheese "Whoopie Pie"

For those that have a higher spice tolerance, like me and my mother, this chili actually does have a bit of zest to it.  And their “Whoopie Pie” is a stroke of genius and absolutely delicious.

This sandwich has a cute name but I can't remember what it is

Let’s just suffice it to say that this is a ham sandwich with real swiss cheese and honey mustard on fresh soft whole-grain bread.  The pickled green beans are tasty and tart.

I said I would elaborate more on the Farm Theme. A healthy new trend in the culinary world is called Locavore (getting your food from local sources ie small farms).  I am all about anything that is healthy, natural and environmentally friendly.  Especially when I think about the future.

Where would you rather get your food?

Here?

Or here?

Another thing we like about Lazy Daisy’s is that the  staff is always giving 110%.  One time I heard the owner talking about baking something at home to bring to the cafe for the next day.  The service here is friendly in the way that your neighbour would be friendly.  This is yet another reason to make repeat visits to Lazy Daisy’s Cafe.

Lazy Daisy’s Cafe 1515 Gerrard St E