One of my bucket list items is to travel to Paris and eat all the baguettes, croissants, and pastries in sight. But until then, a kouign amann in Montreal will have to suffice.
Pâtisserie au Kouign Amann is a humble bakery located in the Plateau neighbourhood of Montreal. (I hope they know their sign has a typo; that's why spell-check is important kids). Their namesake pastry, the kouign amann (pronounced queen ah-mahn), is a French pastry that translates to "butter cake." It's sometimes described as a caramelized croissant, as there are layers of dough folded with copious amounts of butter and sugar.
I often see kouign amann shaped into muffins or pinwheels but this patisserie does it the authentic way, large cakes, not unlike pizza, served sliced in individual wedges.
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One thing I noticed right away in my first bite was the crispy caramelized crust. It was almost like a candy shell with bits and pieces getting stuck in our teeth. Thankfully it's not all sweet, as there's a hit of salt to the chewy layers.
It didn't take too long to finish up before we were off to our next destination.
Vacation diet in Montreal could only mean one thing -- it's finally time for some good old Canadian salad!
But where does one go for poutine in the province that it was invented? It's too bad I missed out on Bon Appetit's poutine video (which sadly came out after my trip), but many other blogs and reading material steered me in the direction of La Banquise.
Established in 1968, La Banquise is a Montreal institution. It's been recommended by Anthony Bourdain and awarded the title of "best poutine" in reader polls. Although it's open 24 hours, there's almost always a lineup during peak times. We came around 11:00am on a Tuesday and it was fine.
With over 30 different types of poutine, it can be hard to narrow it down. I decided to go for the classique poutine -- just straight up fries, cheese curds, and gravy. The regular portion ($7.75) is huge, so it's probably a smart idea just to share an order. The cheese curds are melty and most importantly, squeaky! I wouldn't say it's the best poutine I've ever had, but hey, when is poutine ever bad?
LT had the dan dan (regular $9.60) with pepperoni, bacon, and onions. If you can believe it, this is one of their tamer poutine creations. The pepperoni and bacon certainly upped the sodium content of the plate.
With bellies full of potatoes, we walked off the calories -- only to find ourselves in a macaron shop (although if you know me, it wasn't a coincidence).
Point G opened in 2008 by pastry chef Julien Reignier. It was Montreal's very first bakery dedicated to just macarons. A half dozen was only $10.00 so of course we had to fill a box! The flavours I chose were the exotic (mango and passion fruit), crème brûlée, lime, red velvet, raspberry litchi, and lemon. The texture of the shells were textbook but I thought the fruit flavours tasted a bit artificial. My favourite was probably the red velvet which had a cream cheese filling.
Next on our food-filled agenda was a trip to Jean Talon Market located in the heart of Little Italy. Similar to Atwater Market, Jean Talon is open year-round 7-days a week. We bought a handful of souvenirs from here, including chocolate from Chocolats Geneviève Grandbois. Aside from cool packaging and amazing chocolate, the staffer at the stall was also really nice. We probably gave off tourist vibes and we ended up in a conversation about her brother who also lives in Edmonton -- small world indeed.
We headed back to the Airbnb to drop off our haul and then spent the next couple of hours exploring the neighbourhood. Our apartment was right across the street from the Montreal Convention Centre so we popped in to take a couple of pictures. The rainbow glass windows brought back memories of being a student at ECHA.
The World Trade Centre was also closeby. You wouldn't expect a place of business to be a worthwhile tourist destination, but the fountain and architecture is office goals.
It was really difficult to navigate Old Montreal because of the cold and the icy narrow sidewalks. Our last stop before we headed back home was Le Petit Dep.
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Afterwards, it was back to the Airbnb to defrost and rest up before dinnertime, which happened to be at ...
Otto Bistro, brought to you by the same team behind the popular Otto Yakitori Izakaya. They describe themselves as a Japanese restaurant with French bistro sensibilities. It's a departure from the traditional tapas and charcoal skewers served at their izakaya, instead focusing on Japanese homestyle cooking with French techniques.
Located in Le Plateau, it's a small, cozy restaurant with friendly, personable service.
We started the meal off with an order of croquettes ($9.00). Made with burdock root, potatoes, and a bocconcini centre. The sauce underneath was a thick tomato miso paste.
These were really tasty, almost like a Japanese mozzarella stick complete with a marinara-like flavour.
We also got the entree-sized karaage ($12.00), which comes with five pieces of fried chicken, kale, yuzu mayo, and pickled watermelon radish. The chicken is coated in potato starch to give it a thin, crispy exterior. We got the chicken "truffled" (+$2.00) which means a quick toss in a sweet truffle soy sauce. I didn't get much truffle flavour out of it but it was still delicious! The meat was super juicy and succulent.
MH got one of the feature specials, the grilled salmon collar ($24.00) with salad, marinated vegetables, ponzu, and grated daikon radish. Fish collars are not the prettiest cuts, nor are they the easiest to eat, but it's one of my favourites for the rich, fatty meat.
Our final dish was a plate of mazemen. Mazemen comes from maze, which means "to mix," and men, which refers to noodles. It's essentially a brothless ramen, served with an assortment of toppings that you mix together.
I had my eye on their uni mazemen for the longest time, but because of a snowstorm in Vancouver, they were unable to get a fresh shipment in. So we made do with the ikura hotate mazemen ($26.00). Scallop, salmon roe, chili oil, cucumber, cilantro, chives, and shallots. It's also served with a whole roasted bone marrow! The noodles were slightly spicy, punctuated with the briny, salty pops of the salmon roe. There was so much going on, but it was a great adventure going from each bite to the next.
Since we were in the area, we decided to walk back to Fairmount Bagel after dinner. After we decided they were our favourite in the great bagel debate, we wanted to pick up a couple dozen more to bring back home to Edmonton. We saw some cool murals along the way and risked hypothermia, but in the end, carbs will always be worth it.
Fin!
- CT
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