St Paul Dishcrawl ▪ Montréal

It's hard to know where to begin when I haven't posted in a while so I've decided to post the most recent restaurant outing and I'll try to work my way back. This was a fun one as it was my first Dischcrawl with Elle and our friend E, on one of our coldest days this year.

The concept for Dishcrawl is similar to university days' pub crawls and apartment crawls (good times!). There is a Dishcrawl ambassador who picks 4 restaurants and a large group (I think we were close to 25) crawl through the restaurants trying out different foods - all for $60. Only the first restaurant where we meet is revealed and the rest are a surprise.

Chez L'Épicier
311 St Paul Est
Montréal, Québec
website

Our gathering place was Chez L'Épicier. Elle and E were excited about our first stop as it has a good reputation for refined French food. The restaurant served a trio of appetizers: a play on grilled cheese, a beef tartare slider and a shot of Jerusalem artichoke soup, which was our favourite. Since E does not eat meat, she had an intriguing savoury macaron, flavoured with olive and goat cheese. We were all intrigued and jealous!

 

*****

Brasero Hardi
139 St Paul Ouest
Montréal, Québec
website

Making our way west on St Paul, our next stop on the crawl was Brasero Hardi. A new restaurant that opened last September, it was one of our favourite stops, and not just because drinks were waiting for us at the tables. The drink, named "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", consisted of Midori melon liqueur, green tea, lime, cardamom and weirdly seaweed.

Brasero Hardi served a main of braised short ribs on mashed potatoes dotted with bacon and smoked salmon. The short ribs that were cooked for 6 hours completely stole the show; they were melt in your mouth tender and the potatoes were just as good. I'm not one to order short ribs at a restaurant as I usually go for seafood, but I would definitely order this dish again.

Our friend E didn't do so bad herself. I didn't take a picture but she had gnocchi with a truffle sauce. The truffle scent was so strong and fragrant, it left us omnivores wondering what we were missing. I think Brasero Hardi is worth another visit, especially after hearing about the terrasse they have in the summer.

*****

Dolcetto
151 St Paul Ouest
Montréal, Québec
website

While I worried after our first stop that we wouldn't have enough food, after our second stop I was worried I'd be too full. Dolcetto, which the owner described as serving Italian style tapas, had a marine/Breton vibe. We were served a trio of pizzette: Margherita with burrata, pear and Gorgonzola and their best seller fig and foie gras. I loved the burrata but thought there was too much Gorgonzola and it took over the pizzette. I surprisingly liked the foie gras against the sweet figs, as I'm not the biggest fan of foie gras.

*****

Santos
151 St Paul Ouest
Montréal, Québec
website

Santos also specializes in tapas and Spanish food. I wasn't feeling the vibe at Santos with its strong red colour, its loud music and large TV's. It seemed to not know if it was a restaurant, a club or a sports bar.

We were first served salmon tartare with a slice of avocado on top of a toast that we all enjoyed. When the paella came out, we were a bit overwhelmed as we were pretty full. I'm not a big paella person, so it was ok to me. We were all very excited to end our night on a sweet with a churros, although I was hoping it was going to be hot instead of cold. It was still good nonetheless.

We all had a great time at our first Dishcrawl. The ambassador Jenny King was very friendly and picked some good restaurants. It's nice to not only discover new restaurants, but discover them all in one night. While $60 is not cheap, I think it was a good price, considering the amount of food, and that it included taxes and tip. I would definitely sign up again, maybe once it gets warmer.

For better pictures, check out Dischcrawl's blog post on the event.

NYC Food: Day 2

 

We decided to start the day with a bagel off.  Hubby had done his research and wanted to try Murray's Bagels and I just wanted to head to Russ and Daughters for something stuffed with smoked fish after having read about it from a fellow Gastronomer here.

 

I have to say the bagels from Murray's were superior; however, the smoked fish at Russ's was worth having the sub-par bagels.  Anyway, to me if it's not a Montreal (Saint-Viateur) bagel, it's all the same.  The Russ bagel had a healthy portion of the best smoked salmon I've ever had with a shmear of horseradish cream cheese, tomatoes and capers (I passed on the onions).  It really hit the spot and fueled me for the walk across Brooklyn Bridge.

We were planning to spend some time in DUMBO and grab a slice at Grimaldi's but the line was so long we opted out and grabbed a bus to two8two burger.  I had been recommended this burger joint during this Shut up and eat  event by the owner of Diablo's in Montreal and it did not disappoint.

I went with the two8two burger with roasted poblanos and cheddar but added bacon.  This was the best bacon in a burger I've ever had.  The bacon was thick cut and (deep?) fried to a tooth aching crunch which was perfect in the sloppy burger.  It was out of this world.  The sweet potato fries were oddly bland, nothing to write home about but I still dream about that bacon.

Having missed out on Grimaldi's we hit up Lombardi's, the so-called first pizzeria in NYC.  The pizza was ok, but lacked cheese for me.  The ceasar salad was really stellar though.  After this quick meal we were looking for something sweet and we headed to Chikalicious, a dessert bar (not to be confused with Chikalicious the Dessert Club literally across the street).

 

At this tiny eatery, dessert is the order of the evening and it is served in 3 courses like a meal: a starter dessert, a main dessert and a dessert dessert.  I was really looking forward to coming here after having read about it here.

We sat at the bar and following our order were immediately served a wonderfully light yogurt in a citrus 'soup' with tiny wafer rounds.  Milk cultures never tasted so good.

 

We had a choice of desserts, I went with the fromage blanc island 'cheese cake' and hubby went with the seasonal butternut squash ice cream brulée .  We watched as the pastry chef and her sous-chef prepared every thing to order right under our noses.

           

The 'cheese cake' is really in quotation marks because it has none of the dense, richness of traditional cheesecake.  It is all light and airy while tasting unmistakably like cheese cake.  While it was clearly sitting in a pool of heavy cream I felt like I was eating something very light.  Hubby was also very happy with his dessert, all I can say was the candied pecans that surrounded his dessert were laced with addictive substances.

The final course of mignardises were a perfect ending to a perfect dessert meal.