Montreal, June 2017 (Part 3 - Foodie's Paradise)
Around the corner from Le Notre-Dame is Tommy, a coffee shop which is, and I mean this as nicely as possible, a hipster’s paradise.
After getting something to drink at Tommy we hopped on the Gray Line to go to the “Gay Village” of Montreal, the largest LGBT-friendly neighborhood in North America.
Running mainly down East St. Catherine Street for several square blocks, the Gay Village is a treasure trove of street art, performance art, and more gay bars and clubs than I have ever seen.
If the myriad of Pride flags lining the streets didn’t set the atmosphere for you, the number of prominently advertised sex shops certainly will.
After wandering around the Village for a while admiring the music and the street art installations, we headed back to the bus stop to wait for the Gray Line. After waiting and waiting for close to an hour the bus never showed up. Growing frustrated, we decided to take a cab back to our AirBNB to rest for a while. Like I said, the Gray Line bus tours are the worst I’ve ever been on.
Even though we had been in Canada for over 24 hours, neither of us had gotten our hands yet on Canada’s national dish: poutine, a delicious and savory combination of french fries and cheese curds smothered in beef gravy.
Nine in the evening rolled around and we decided to look for the best poutine we could find. After a bit of research we discovered Patati Patata. The walk over took us down one of Montreal’s most iconic streets: Saint Laurent Boulevard.
If you visit one part of town in Montreal, it should be Saint Laurent Boulevard. You will very rarely find night life like this in North America. This part of town is home to Montreal’s main bar district, however Saint Laurent is about much more than just booze. It’s a foodie mecca. Street food vendors line the boulevard offering up everything from paella to chicken tikka masala to burritos.
We finally arrived to Patati Patata,
a hip, hole in the wall place where the open kitchen reveals that the staff are both cooks and servers. The poutine was everything I could have dreamed of: salty, meaty, cheesy, and the home cut fries were the icing on the cake.
After filling ourselves on poutine, we strolled back down Saint Laurent and decided to get some dessert. We stumbled upon a dessert shop called Juliette et Chocolat, a small, Montreal-based chain of stores specializing in sweets, ice cream, and other baked goods.
I personally love brownies so I had to get the brownie tasting sampler while Audrey got a banana split. It was a decadent way to end a great night.