Articles

Montreal - Sub Categories

  • Québec Cheeses (15)

    Local cheeses, all purchased from Montréal. Related: the [l:albums/travel/montreal/poutine Poutine!] pages contain information about fresh cheese curds. Cheese Shops

    • [l:node/1154 Fromagerie Atwater]
    • [l:node/144 Fromagerie Hamel]
    • [l:node/1162 La Maison du cheddar]
    • In a pinch and after-hours - grocery stores such as IGA, Provigo, Metro, Super C, etc. There is bound to be a good place to buy cheese from where ever you stay in Montreal.
    Note that the US has some very strange, bizarre, and restrictive food import policies - see [l:travel/montreal/schwartzs-jewish-deli#comment-5229 Meat, Cheese and US Border Crossings comment] for details.

  • Jazz Fest (29)

    Summer Jazz Festival. More than just jazz. More details at: [l:travel/montreal/montreal-jazz-festival]

    • 2012 Montreal Jazz Festival (6)

      Writeup, along with some video clips also available: [l:blog/2012-07-06/montreal-jazz-festival-2012]

    • 2013 Montreal Jazz Festival (13)

      Pictures and video clips of some of the final four days at the 34th Edition of the Montreal Jazz Festival which ran from 2013-June 28 through July 7. Also included are some pictures from other events going on at the same time. The best shows for me were as usual at either the Blues stage, or the Tropiques/Groove stages next to it: [l:albums/travel/montreal/jazz-fest/2013-montreal-jazz-festival/fatoumata-diawara] [l:albums/travel/montreal/jazz-fest/2013-montreal-jazz-festival/the-harpoonist-the-axe-murderer] [l:albums/travel/montreal/jazz-fest/2013-montreal-jazz-festival/anthony-joseph-the-spasm-band] The pictures below have more info and some video snippet links too. There is also a [l:http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkd3PNh_1yPTqRqrVEGJaa-9tn8C4xyhN playlist of all snippets on YouTube]. And a few more photos, including full size photos, are at the [l:https://picasaweb.google.com/104075696510996624769/2013MontrealJazzFestival?authuser=0&feat=directlink Google Picasa Album] July 9th saw the start of another festival: [l:albums/travel/montreal/jazz-fest/2013-montreal-jazz-festival/festival-de-percussions-longueuil-2013 Details on Festival de Percussions Longueuil 2013] opening show. [l:http://www.montrealjazzfest.com/default-en.aspx Official Montreal Jazz Festival] site. [l:http://montrealcompletementcirque.com/en/ Montreal Completement Cirque] site. [l:http://internationaldesfeuxloto-quebec.com/en/ International Fireworks Festival] site. [l:http://www.percussions.ca/ Festival de Percussions Longueuil 2013] site.

  • Poutine! (11)

    A dish unique to Quebec. [l:http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20130531-how-the-quebecois-came-to-love-poutine BBC article: How the Quebecois came to love poutine]. Fries, Gravy, and fresh Cheddar Cheese Curds (fromage en grains) make poutine! An exclamation point seems necessary for this dish. The process of making cheese from milk goes through a step that results in curds. These are small chunks of solid cheese that are not yet pressed into molds for the final aging process. Fresh cheese curds only last a day or two, therefore are only available in places where a lot of cheese is manufactured. Cheddar cheese curds are available widely in Montreal, and it is the key ingredient of poutine. Fresh cheese curds are easy to recognize - they will make a squeaking sound when you eat them. From fast food joints to celebrated chefs, there is no shortage of places to get poutine in Montreal. [l:http://www.montrealpoutine.com/ Montreal Poutine] has good information on all poutine places in that city. Poutine fries should at least start crispy, and have sufficient amount of gravy to smother the fries. The run-down looking Poutine Lafleur has pretty good poutine. This is the standalone place on Rue Wellington and not the chain of the same name. Maamm Bolduc was not as good - not enough gravy or cheese - but many consider it one of the best, so worth checking out. Many places that claim to be famous, or are very old diners that should probably have good poutine, do not. French fries may be limp and not crisp, sauce may be tasteless, and they dish may not be warm enough. So for a short visit, just try the known-to-be-good places, do not experiment. La Cantine, closed in 2012. This bistro on Mont Royal had excellent poutine, in very nice surroundings. The fries stay nice and crispy to the last bite. There is a photo provided below, which now serves as a memory only! Surprisingly, some fast food joints have good poutine too - such as La Belle Province. And Frite Alors! has amazing fries, and good poutine too. 2013: Schwartz's has gotten onto the poutine act: [l:albums/travel/montreal/schwartzs-hebrew-delicatessen/schwartzs-poutine]. It is essentially fine as a novelty item, but the basic poutine elsewhere, and the smoked-meat sandwiches at Schwartz's, are both best eaten without anything else added to either dish.

  • STM - Métro and Bus (8)

    Montreal subway and bus system. External link: Photographer [l:https://instagram.com/explore/tags/mtlmetroproject/ Chris Forsyth's #mtlmetroproject]

  • Le Petit Alep (10)

    Great good, awesome ambiance. Near Jean Talon metro station.

  • Marché Adonis (4)

    Excellent middle-eastern grocery store - large selection of fruits, ready-made food, feta cheeses, tzatziki, and sweets. They now have a home page: [l:http://www.adonisproducts.com/pages/accueil_en.asp adonisproducts.com] DISCLAIMER: please note that this web page has no association with the Marché Adonis business. And this site is not in Quebec, so English readers are the majority here, and French may not be understood by most. Thank you!

  • Marché Jean-Talon (8)

    The Jean-Talon market is a couple of blocks east of the intersection of Jean-Talon and St-Laurent, near the the Jean-Talon metro station. Newly refurbished in 2005, visit this place for fresh fruit, groceries, cheeses, bread, fish, desserts. Great food available in the market itself, additionally, surrounding area is Little Italy, which has many good restaurants.

  • Schwartz's - Hebrew Delicatessen (12)

    Absolutely the most addictive food in the world, the best smoked-meat in the world.

Live aerosol painting

Live aerosol painting

Multiple canvasses were painted, one per day of the festival.

2012 Montreal Jazz Festival

Writeup, along with some video clips also available: Montreal Jazz Festival 2012

2012 Poster

2012 Poster

The 2012 Montreal Jazz Festival poster, projected on the UQAM building.

Kynégraf at Complexe Desjardins

Kynégraf at Complexe Desjardins

Kynégraf at Complexe Desjardins in the Montreal Jazz Festival 2012 area.

The rain drops move up and down, and there is a fountain on the floor (not visible in this picture) which spurts water that touches the raindrops as they reach the bottom!

2012 Main Stage Fountains

2012 Main Stage Fountains

These are only turned on during hot afternoons, and when they do come on, really cools things.

A monopod in use

A monopod in use

This is a great way to get good photos and videos at the festival. Of course, it is one more thing to carry and will restrict your movements - so no crazy dancing to the music! Picture is from 2012 Montreal Jazz Festival, at the Les Tropiques stage.

À propos de Stern - Montreal High Lights 2012

À propos de Stern - Montreal High Lights 2012

The 2012 Montréal en Lumière (Montreal High Lights) Festival - visited it the weekend of Feb 18.

It is cold, yet Montrealers find no problem enjoying live shows and music and food out on the streets!
Here's one of the cool shows: A Propos De Stern
It takes something I noticed just this year to a new level. This year I noticed a some buildings in Montreal showing animated pictures projected on the side of buildings.
This specific show is really engrossing. And the props and movement in the images fit very well with the windows on the wall of this building!

In addition to that they had a number of other activities. The program was dedicated to Wallonia-Brussels regions, so they were selling Belgian (French? No!) Fries, with Mayo of course.
Their blurb states: "Among the multitude of attractions, get ready for a mind-blowing new-generation interactive slide, projections and lighting displays redesigning the facades of the surrounding architecture, spectacular video mapping displays on the Maison du Festival Rio Tinto Alcan (3 displays nightly), illuminated musical spectacles, characters in illuminated costumes created especially for the MEL…"

I could not stay for the full festival - on Feb 25, they have a whole night of festival activities! Nuit blanche à Montréal: "Calling all nighthawks and nocturnal friends—Saturday, February 25, 2012 is the date set for the wildest night of the year!"... Maybe next year a US holiday will fall around Nuit blanche so I can make it up here then ... :-)

Some video snippets:
À propos de Stern - Snippet 1
À propos de Stern - Snippet 2

Just in case some links above stop working, here's the writeup from the High Lights web site:

KanBai - Fish in Fiery Hot Sauce

KanBai - Fish in Fiery Hot Sauce

Small Restaurant KanBai, at 1813 Ste. Catherine St. W. (near St. Mathieu St., Guy Metro). Phone: 514-933-6699

This is an amazing fish dish. Poached fish filet in hot chili soup is what it is called in the menu, basically fish in fiery hot sauce with lots of Sichuan peppercorns, and buried in the bottom layer and not visible in the picture is a layer of sprouts.
Healthy, and hot!

The portion as shown is huge - more than enough for two people. To be eaten with rice. (If one person eats all that, bound to make you feel sick! Starts off great, then the tongue numbs and eating this loses all pleasure.)

As mentioned in the Restaurants & Food Markets - Montréal page, this is a somewhat strange place with Japanese-sounding name and decor, but totally authentic Chinese food. The menu is also not explicit about Sichuan - many dishes are the real thing, not the fake Szechuan Chicken found in North American restaurants. Dishes here contain real hot red and green pepper, with generous amounts of the Sichuan peppercorn. So you have read the descriptions to recognize dishes - for example there is nothing called Dan-Dan noodles, but it is present - just named something like "Noodles with minced pork and hot chilli sauce"!

2011 Systema Solara (video)

2011 Systema Solara (video)

Video snippets from the 2011-July-03 10PM show:
Systema Solar (1)
Systema Solar (2)
Systema Solar (3)

From the Jazz Fest site:
"Systema Solar is a musical and visual collective from Colombia that was created in 2006. Made up of rappers, techno DJs, percussionists and a video artist, they call their shows "Berbenautika", inspired by the "pikos" - large mobile sound systems - and "la verbena" or traditional fiesta popular in Colombia. They aim to project joy and freedom in a time of injustice and political corruption, and to revitalize Afro-Colombian roots music, such as cumbia, champeta, and bellerengue, by mixing in elements of hip hop, house, break beats, scratching and live video. In 2010 they played festivals in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Belgium, Germany and France, which led to a second European tour in 2011. They released a self-titled debut disc in 2010."

La Cantine - Poutine - Closed

La Cantine - Poutine - Closed

Unfortunately, this place closed in 2012.

La Cantine - Bistro Boutique - 212 Mont-Royal Est +1.514.750.9800.
Even at the last bite , the fries stayed crispy.
Small "jar" is for $7.50, with an extra $10 for foie gras (shown in the picture). For me, the foie gras was a bit too much, does not add anything to already excellent poutine. They use sichuan pepper, which adds a nice zing.
[2010 prices]