I just came back from a weekend in Montreal – and the food there is incredible! I think I gained 10 lbs, because all I did was eat.  It was the first weekend my husband and I left our son, and we really lived it up.

We headed right to Mile End, grabbed a coffee at Cafe Olimpico, then starting drinking sparking wine and eating charcuterie at Buvette Chez Simone. From there we headed to the piece de resistance – JOE BEEF.  This was basically the reason for the trip – to “kill ourselves with food” at this legendary establishment. It nearly worked! We gamed the system and made 2 reservations of 4 so that we and our 6 friends could eat together – they figured out what we were up to and they made an exception and created an 8 top for us.  This is a great trick to get around the difficulty of seating a large party at a popular or small restaurant.  We didn’t even order, we just told them to bring us the best of everything.

After a modest appetizer course of eel fritters and pate, to name a few, fresh wine was poured and it was time for foie gras double downs – this heart attack in a pouch is a sandwich where the “bread” is 2 pieces of deep fried foie gras and the “meat” is bacon. Enough said. The rest of the meal was a blur of wine, lobster pasta, horse fillet and amazing fries.

The next night we gorged ourselves at Au Pied de Cochon on poutine (with foie gras, of course), guinea hen, halibut tail and a half a pig.

We stopped of at Beauty’s for a bagel and blueberry maple syrup milkshake before getting on the plane.

I couldn’t wait to get home and go to bed without dinner!