For our first night in Montreal, my friends and I had planned to check out a tapas restaurant that Lisa researched. It is called confusion, which was fitting. Expecting an awkward exchange with the host, ashamed that I had not taken the time to at least learn the basics of French, it actually wasn’t the language barrier that kept us from dining there that night – they ran out of food. As strange as that seems, we would later understand how easy that could happen.
So we moved on and settled into a brewery, Les 3 Brasseurs (The 3 Brewers), where we grabbed a late meal and sampled some locally brewed beers. My favorite of course, was the ale…
Saturday morning we broke an unspoken rule and ate breakfast at a chain restaurant, but it was okay because we had never heard of it and we didn’t find out it was a chain until we saw our menus.
Eggspectation is a self-proclaimed le cirque des oeufs (the egg circus). In addition to Canada, they also have locations in the U.S. and in India. It is cool and hip all strangely wrapped into a medieval theme that works, if you can believe that.
The food was good too. As plain as I can be when ordering meals – I pretty much always get two eggs over easy with the usual sides – I think that if a restaurant can go above and beyond with the most generic dish, then they’re impressive. Those potatoes alone were enough to impress me.
After walking all morning and working up an appetite, we searched for a place where we could eat outside and enjoy the warm weather. We found Vallier Restaurant Licencié.
Here we relaxed, ordered a bunch of appetizers to split and enjoyed some of the best fries I’ve ever had. Yes I did try out the mayonnaise, once.
The ninety degree heat and and all the calorie burning from walking, which was eventually negated by all the fries and beer, gave us a very specific craving for ice cream.
It turns out that one of the things my friends and I have in common is persistence. I don’t want to guess how much time passed as we walked up and down the streets of Montreal to find a good ice cream shop. Let’s just say, we found something even better and it more than hit the spot.
La Crepe 2 Go is a little shop on rue de Bleury that pretty much saved our lives that day because in addition to crepes, they sold gelato.
I got the pistachio and even though I was still full from lunch, I wished I had ordered a large.
After our dessert we walked back to our hotel room, recharged, got ready and before heading out for dinner, we made reservations at confusion, hoping that the food would be there when we arrived.
It was. We ordered a bunch of tapas including these little lamb burgers, which came with another amazing set of fries.
We also ordered calamari, which was lightly breaded and delicious and some shrimp that came with rice.
Our favorite part was that they brought the plates out gradually. This allowed us to really enjoy each dish instead of rushing through to grab a sample of each before it was too late.
Overall, it was definitely worth the wait.
Whoa, this all looks amazing! Those burgers look so tasty. The seafood looks delish as well. Did you actually order that meter of beer?
I was in Montreal a few years ago and only had the chance to try one restaurant for dinner but it looked like there were a lot of great places around.
Food looks goood, so does your story. I’ve never been to Canada, always wanna visit though.
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I am dying to visit Montreal. All that food! (Isn’t it so much more appetizing when fries are in a stainless steel container, wrapped with paper and looking all pretty?)
You have to help me understand the tapas, though. How could they run out of food? Is there a shortage up there or something? So random!