Wrapping Up Montreal

My trip to Montreal this year was a lot different from my trip to Madrid (and Valencia and Bologna) last summer. It was a lot shorter and I only saw one concert. There were likely others on, but the major orchestras were not playing at all in the eleven days I was there. Instead I spent time simply relaxing, enjoying the food and visiting with old friends. Montreal is a city for lovers of food, wine and culture. I mentioned Schwartz's Hebrew Delicatessen before and it remains one of my favorite places to eat. St. Viateur Bagel is another one. Both of these are not high-falutin places, but where people in general go. The Greek restaurant Jardin de Panos is another popular place where the food is quite good, not expensive and where you can bring your own wine. That is one way Montreal foodies keep costs low.

The Quebec government liquor stores, the Société des alcools du Québec, does not have a monopoly on liquor sales as you can also purchase wine, beer and so on in grocery and corner stores, but they are where you go for the widest selection and the best wines. The staff were very knowledgeable and helpful even though I spoke in English. (I used to be pretty fluent in French, but not using if for twenty years means that now it is pretty bad.)

My last couple of days I headed out to Chinatown for dim sum on Sunday morning, a traditional Montreal activity. I didn't get any pictures of the food, unfortunately, but a friend snapped this one of me trying to explain something or other:

My last day I had won ton soup in a Chinese restaurant for lunch as I really miss good Chinese food as there is none to be had where I live in Mexico. Then, in the evening I did visit a palace of cuisine, Moishes Steakhouse, an old-fashioned and long-standing place to dine well. It is just a couple of doors from Schwartz's, but rather a different experience. Where in Schwartz's you are going to be sharing a long table with eight or ten other people, or be at the counter, at Moishes the surroundings are a bit more elegant. It was early in the evening, as time went on most of these tables were occupied:

And here is what a serving looks like:

Click to enlarge

They bring you water, of course, and while you are waiting for your order they bring, from left to right and back to front, cole slaw (really good cole slaw), a little bowl of butter, a bowl of bread and a bowl of pickles. I ordered a half bottle of Brunello de Montalchino as well. Here is what the main course looked like:

That is their aged ribeye steak and some french fries. That was probably the best steak I have ever had in my life. I'll bet you are wondering why there is no apostrophe in "Moishes." This is a casualty of the 70s language wars on Quebec. When the Parti Québécois won election in 1976 they put in regulations controlling the appearance of English in signs in Quebec. As the possessive apostrophe is English and not used in French, any establishment who used it had to get rid of the apostrophe. The mystery is why Schwartz's was allowed to retain its apostrophe?

So there you have it. My next trip will be in the first week in December to Toronto for two recording sessions of two pieces of mine with violin. So that will be quite a different experience entirely.

For an envoi, let's listen to a previous piece I wrote. This is "Nuits de Juin," a setting of a poem by Victor Hugo for voice with guitar. The singer is Cherie Hughes and Roberto Limón is playing the guitar part.