Petit Pear

When in Montreal, there are three inevitables:

1. I will say everything—street names, store names, even your name—in my abysmal french accent.
2. I will jaywalk at most street corners, and insist on walking everywhere.
3. I will eat. A lot. Even when the food isn’t amazing.

I’ve yet to figure out why this is the case. Till now I’d only ever come here to act like a frosh kid.  But I’m happy to report that I’ve nixed the jaywalking, poor talking and most of the bad food for this trip. Maybe it’s because I came here to work. Maybe part of me is actually starting to grow up. Either way, I eat like it’s my job (even though it’s not) and have been, till now, pretty professional about the fact that I’ve made quite a pig of myself over the last three days.

I came here to write about jazz. The major institutions of which aren’t really known for their food, and some are more of a mop-up-your-beer-spills-with-the-toilet-paper kind of haunts. But just like this city rolls solos and and high hats, good god can it cook. Schwartz’s, L’Express and Au Pied de Cochon have been three good reasons for me to live off apples and kale for the rest of the week. Beauty’s, Kaizen and SoupeSoupe, not so much.

But hey, there’s still Marche Jean-Talon. Plenty of veggie opps there for the six-hour drive home, right?

L’Express Bistro

One of the few, if not only thing about L’Express Bistro that’s not French is that there doesn’t seem to be any patio seats at the restaurant. The kind that litters the Paris streets from which this place gets its inspiration. But the black-and-white tile floors, globe light bulbs, tucked-shirt servers and crisp linen tables? Spot on. And especially charming when Robb and I get there at six to an empty restaurant, a couple of rubes off the street looking for a table.

“Sans reservation?” the host smiles. “No problem, but we only ’ave de table till 7:30, yes?”

Forty minutes in, I can see why: Monday night, the place is crammed. (Kind of like their confusing wine list.) But the service here never skipped a beat, the dining room wasn’t too loud and any time between courses we amused ourselves with their mini house pickles and mustard.

The courses themselves have started a kind of game: My Dish Is Better Than Yours. Robb insists he’s won this round.

Me: riesling; magret de canard on wild greens with radish, croutons, liver and the best-balanced oil-and-vinegar dressing I’ve probably ever had; orange creme caramel (which tasted kind of like an orange lollipop, only huge and creamy).

Robb: orange juice; ravioli and mushrooms in a savoury, thick veal gravy; apple-and-pear bread pudding.

Considering how many pieces of pasta I stole off his plate, I’ve got to hand the point to him.

Schwartz’s

I have only ever seen lineups at this place in the past. At 1 p.m. on a Tuesday, it was kind of a miracle we got a seat in less than five minutes.

So is their smoked meat. But you don’t need me to tell you that: Schwartz’s has been doing this for 71 years, and written about so much that chances are you already know about their high-piled sandwiches, stomach-busting platters and pickles the size of my face.

On sandwiches Robb got the lean, I got the medium. There is no way he’s won this round: while the lean tastes great, it doesn’t come apart, flake (yes, this meat does that) or smell anything even close to what I had. And no pickle? Point: me.

Beauty’s

There’s a scene in Mordechai Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz that has arguably lent a hand in making this place as famous as it is. Jimmy Kimmel’s lip service to the diner in this month’s Bon Appetit can’t hurt either, but I don’t think I can recommend this place on their food alone. I mean, it’s a hell of a lot better than Chez Cora (or Cora’s, whatever you will), but for the most part our late-morning breakfast was pretty unremarkable: an undersalted omelette each (one cheddar/backbacon, the other potato/backbacon), a perfunctory bagel and coagulated jam. And crunchy, black potato hash to top it off. Great for a hangover I suppose, but I felt no shame in drowning the whole party-on-a-plate in ketchup, and that says a lot. I’d say we tied on this one.

SoupeSoupe

Don’t know if this really counts as a round. Needed an early breakfast before an interview, Reservoir was closed, and this place was across the street and just starting to write their daily specials on the board.

We shared a brownie and a ham sandwich on the patio, in the middle of a roof repair happening next door. At least a fraction of whatever it was they were ripping out of the building ended up in our food.

Another tie.

Kaizen Sushi Bar

This place lauds itself as being the best sushi in Montreal. With little experience in that department in this city, I don’t have much to compare. But the take-home ‘kobe’ hot dogs should tell you something, or the fact that their walls are covered in chintzy paintings of samurai warriors and glowing rocks. It kind of feels like stepping into some nu-age California take on Japanese food in the sixties. Not in a good way. Did I mention they deliver?

But being grumpy about atmosphere probably isn’t fair as the food is pretty decent. Or the fish, at least: a few slices of mackerel, freshwater eel and yellowtail tuna will set you back about 25 bucks, and is fresher and so much better-textured than most places I’ve eaten at home. Not so impressed by the blue fin tuna on the menu, but being in a fairly well-to-do area I’m sure this place is definitely the neighbourhood’s idea of a classy night out. In a kobe-burger, kobe steak sandwich and WAY over-juiced kobe tartare kind-of-way. (Robb ordered it: lemon-flavoured meat?)

It’s not a place to head to this city for, but if you find yourself there the chocolate souffle is fantastic.

Point: Me.

Au Pied de Cochon

I read somewhere that Martin Picard says that when you go to a restaurant to eat a salad, you have a problem. While I only half agree (and besides, there’s three of them on his menu!), I’m 100% glad I knew about this beforehand. In some kind of weird preparation, we skipped lunch and furtively sliced an apple at the hotel before heading out to the foie-sodden bulwark for Canadian cuisine. It almost felt like pre-drinking. For what turned out to be one of the best (and kind of conflicted) meals I’ve ever paid for. If you come to Montreal, are NOT a vegetarian, and have a healthy heart, this place is a must. If not for their fried zuccini blossoms alone.

Which were, by the way, one of the closest things I could find to a naked vegetable on Cochon’s menu, aside from greens or a tomato tartlet. I tried to be smart about this. I came to order Cochon’s plogues à champlain, which the Star’s food critic Corey Mintz describes as:

…a dense, buckwheat pancake mounted with potatoes and cheddar cheese. Shreds of thick-cut bacon are strewn across the plate. As a mandatory brick of foie gras crowns the dish, it’s all covered in a reduced maple syrup sauce, plus scrambled eggs that have been cooked in the sauce. This isn’t dinner. It’s a weapon. If United Nations inspectors had found this in Iraq, the whole world would have applauded America’s invasion.

So I had to start with a vegetable you see, which just happened to be fried. Perfectly. Not my fault. Also not my fault that the batter was glass-crisp, salty enough to make the zuccini baubles inside tender and sweet, and smelled curiously of duck fat. Robb, a fan of the Burger King version, got the poutine. (Don’t ask. Once he tried to get this made at a BK in Boston, one of the worst fast food experiences of my life.) But bad BK memories are totally washed out by Cochon’s thick, thick gravy, plump curds (and squeaky too!) and fries. Which too, smelled a little of duck fat.

But maybe that had something to do with the fact that we’d been seated right in front of the kitchen, with all its pressure cookers, fryers, pots of mashed potatoes and skillets of sizzling foie gras to see. I was practically eating the plogues with my eyes as I watched it get assembled. And laughing as I watched bloated goose livers get tossed around like potatoes, or single beef ribs the size of small tennis rackets put on a plate.

Robb had ordered another tartare, but Pied de Cohon’s version did not disappoint. It was creamy (probably why they serve it with toast, a testament to it’s perfect texture) and balanced. As in, enough acids to make it taste delicious, but not turn it into steak ceviche. And enough meat to amount to a 12-oz steak.

And my plogues? In light of what you just read about them, it’s kind of embarrassing to admit that I tore though that dish as though I hadn’t eaten all of what I’ve just written about. But maybe that’s the point behind the kind of comfort food Picard is making here. Aside from the almost-ridiculous lack of restraint element the foie-gras adds, everything about my meal tasted familiar in that kind of feel-better way. That is, until, you finish dessert (a poached pear, what else?), feel like you want to put your head on the table (but don’t, because you’re sitting in front of the kitchen for God’s sake, have some decorum), and head back to the hotel, hair still smelling of duck fat, to lie down in some trans-lipid intoxication.

“You realize you’ve just eaten about 3,000 calories in one meal, right?” Robb asks me.

Point: I don’t know. I’m still full.