Category: uncategorized

We started the day at the McCord museum. We'd noticed the night before that it had a Haida exhibit that tickled my fancy, so we had a gander before going to Eggspectation for breakfast. I think I've found inspiration for my next tattoo.

After eggy goodness, we spent the next 4 hours on St-Laurent (but I'll let Katy say why on her own terms). I almost got mugged by two constuction workers, a stockboy, a pharmacist and a cashier because I was carrying a box of Tim Hortons doughnuts. Hmmmmm, dognuts.

Once that little errand was done, we walked down St-Denis to Camelia Sinensis. I have to say, that place is the tea shop equivalent of C.M.O.T. Dibbler. You know it's bad, but you can't help yourself. No more though. Between the noisy ambiance with coffee-house music, snooty staff, overcrowding and generally holier-than-thou attitude, it's a place that I don't need. The tea salon in the old port is so much nicer, with friendlier staff (that bring you unasked for cashew nuts) and better tea. Cheaper too. So there. Fuck off, pretentious asses.

Teapots are rapidly becoming our latest collector trend. We found a cute one in a little curio shop hole-in-the-wall for next to nothing, so we just had to buy it. We just did.

Katy and I met up with Michel, Sara and Em at Bishoku (for our third sushi meal in 3 days…) which was, as per usual, damn good. Katy made the hostess really happy by asking for deep-fried ice cream and we actually tried new sushi. Hmmm, raw fish. We all went to Hurleys for a few drinks and the usual tales.

Michel dropped a bit of a bombshell when we told us that Isabelle was driving to Quebec and would gladly give us a lift. At 7am. That meant that we had to pack everything and get all the crap we'd bought to fit in two already groaning suitcases. That was fun, but we got it to work with no space left. We went to bed at 1:30 am and woke up at 5:30… fun fun fun, but cheap travel :D

The weather was gray and bleh and it kind of set the mood for today. Katy and I went to the tea shop we'd found on St-Sulpice and relaxed over tea (Oolong, for both of us) and we ended up spending a rather obscene amount of money on tea and tea-making paraphernalia. Still, it was *really* good tea (it should be, it retails for $180/kg)

It seems that we were doomed to be cutting it close, time-wise, all day. We made it to Bishoku with 30 minutes to spare before they closed for lunch. The food was yummay, as per usual. After lunch, we picked up some sweeties at Premiere Moisson and headed back to the flat to chill a bit before heading to the botanical gardens and the Lanterns. I didn't know what to expect with my camera (it can be a pain sometimes because there's no fully-manual setting and sometimes it decides what it think is best for you with disastrous results…) The pictures came out really nice and I'm happy about most of them. I'd upload them to my web server but it's being a serious pain in the ass at the moment and I can't reach tech support. Bunch of nimrods. As soon as my contract expires with them, I'll be looking for another web host. I am not impressed with their service since the last merger/acquisition/whatever.

We wanted to go to Reubens for dinner. I was a bit worried because I thought they'd stop serving food at 9pm (and we got there at 8:35, hence the comment above). Anyway, I shouldn't have worried because it's open until midnight. In a nutshell though, I have to say that this was one of the least enjoyable Reubens experience ever. I'd been hankering for a bacon cheeseburger all day. Waiting for it, thinking of it, drooling over it. So when I ordered it and said my usual spiel about garlic and sesame, the waitress got all ruffled and said that it was on a sesame bun and that it was the only sort of bun they had, but then made a big deal about her favouritest sandwich in the whole wide world that had big chunks of steak, portobello mushrooms, fried onions and lots of cheese on rye bread. Since I couldn't have the burger, I figured I'd have that. It sounded nice.

It was one hell of a letdown. The cheese was a processed kraft single, the onion were onion rings that were ultra greasy, the steak chunks was one slice of fatty sandwich steak. She'd made such a big deal of it, I expected something nice. All I got was meh. And then I saw Katy's grilled chicken hamburger, with swiss cheese and crispy bacon. Served on a cornmeal kaiser bun.

Dumbass waitress couldn't tell the difference between sesame and cornmeal, and because of that I got a mediocre sandwich instead of the burger I'd been awaiting all day. Fucking letdown, let me tell you :(

To make it up to myself tomorrow, I will get myself a mille-feuille from Cafe Lyonais (because the one I had today was average) and I will make myself a huuuuge burger when I'm back at the folks' place. Sounds like a plan.

Day 2 in Montreal. Katy had her haircut, we had sushi (yay!) and then went for a 4-hour walk on Mount Royal (from Beaver Lake all the way to the tam-tam park and back to the hotel). We got glared at at Camelia Simensis by two dyed-in-the-wool french quebecers because we dated to ask the waiter if he spoke english (so I wouldn't have to do on-the-fly translation for Katy). Screw em, they were pretentious anyway. We went to dinner at Michel and Isabelle's apartment and had a really, really good shrimp and scallop pasta with a cream and curry spice sauce. I'll have to do that one again, it was yummy! I'd bought a nice Bordeaux Rose and an Alsacian Riesling which was a good compliment with the mille-feuilles and tiramisu we got from the Cafe Lyonais bakery. Good food, good wine, good friends. You can't have a better recipe for a good night than that :)