Montreal Trip - Day 1 (13 July)

Every year, my friends and I plan a trip to get together and eat good food. I met them through the Stanford study abroad program in Kyoto and we've bonded over food ever since. There's so much good food in Japan, but that's another story.

This year, we decided to meet up in Montreal for a little pseudo-European fun. I arrived at the Pierre-Elliot-Trudeau Airport where Kinh greeted me at our rendezvous near the arrival area. We were supposed to wait for Keiko until 6pm but her flight was delayed so we went ahead without her. We thought it would be cheap and easy to take public transportation from the airport but it turns out that you have to take two buses and a train to get downtown. By the time we got to the hotel, Keiko was already making herself at home on the couch.

We wanted to wait for Dominique and Erica to arrive before heading out for dinner but we were starving! We went out for a drink and some snacks nearby. None of us really did any research before coming to Montreal so we basically made our restaurant decisions based on a list of places compiled by Dominique's friend from work. First up, Biere et Compagnie (or Beer and Company)!!

The menu basically has two things: beer and mussels. The mussels come with fries and different flavors of mayonnaise. We ordered two kinds of mussels... one with a tomato sauce and the other with a white wine and cream sauce. The mussels were delicious but the sauces were out of this world. I kept using the shells as spoons to slurp up the brothy goodness.

I guess "moules et frites" is a classic combination but the fries and mayonnaise combination was a bit harder to swallow, especially from an American perspective. We ordered a spicy garlic mayonnaise and a spinach and herb mayonnaise. Both were great and I got over my cultural bias that fries should be eaten with ketchup very quickly.

Not only was the food good, the beer was fantastic as well. I ordered bière de blé à l'abricot (apricot wheat ale) from the McAuslan Brewery based in Montreal. I loved it. I tend to gravitate towards sweet alcoholic drinks, so this was right down my alley. Of course, it's has the right touch of sweetness that doesn't get overbearing as you keep drinking.

Next I ordered Leffe Blonde, a Belgian beer. This was also very tasty and goes so very well with moules et frites.

I think we ended up leaving the place a bit past midight so we had a very late dinner and a very good start to our Montreal trip.