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MONTREAL TRIP DAY 5: FIRST (OF SEVERAL) POUTINES

Kaitlyn
Sep 18, 2016
3 min read

The final stretch, Montreal was within our reach! I felt surprisingly good today, considering how much cycling we had done over the past four days. It was not long into our ride when we reached the Quebec border (which was only a small sign, not great for a photo). Once we crossed the border, the ride got even smoother as Quebec's bike paths plentiful! Almost the entire duration of our ride there was either on a path or a designated bike lane.

Arriving in Montreal was both a relief and sense of accomplishment. The journey was challenging, no doubt, but it was not as tough as I had thought. This was our first multi day bike tour and it was so much fun! That said, I was definately looking forward to a couple days of relaxing in Montreal.

After 137km, we did not feel like biking to dinner. We decided on Restaurant Mâche, which one of my Instagram followers, @louiseoverseas, had recommended, and was walking distance. The menu featured soups, sandwiches, and most importantly, poutine.

The restaurant was not very busy when we arrived, which made us a bit worried as the streets were packed outside. There were a couple people seated outside, and we were the only ones inside. Turns out the small crowd was no indication of how the food was.

Max is from Australia and I have been telling him the poutine is 100 times better in Quebec. We decided to split "au 'Smoked Meat' Maison", a poutine with house roasted corned beef, caramelized onions, cheese and house gravy. Man oh man, was this a good choice to prove my point.

The bowl was huge! Considering it was only $10 and this would be more than enough to feed us, we were impressed. Now onto the food: the fries were crispy, the smoked meat was sweet and the gravy and cheese pulled it all together. I have not had a good poutine in a long time and this was just incredible.

Maybe we just went on an odd night that it was not busy, but with poutine this good I would expect a bigger crowd. Either way, we were both blown away with our dinner, and now ready to try some dessert.

A couple doors down was a dessert restaurant, "Juliette et Chocolate". The smell of chocolate and other goodies outside the restaurant was enough to convince ourselves we had room for dessert. We went inside and took a look at the menu.

They had everything from waffles and crepes, to chocolate fondue, to ice cream sundaes. The menu was overwhelming, but in a good way. Everything sounded mouthwatering, it was so hard to decide!

After serious deliberation, I went with the "Banana Boat Waffle":

Delicious liegese waffles topped with grilled bananas and crunchy caramelized hazelnuts and served with our homemade caramel fleur de sel sauce and a scoop of vanilla ice cream!

And Max went with "Chocolate Fondant":

Our classic molten chocolate lava cake, served with a scoop of ice cream of your choice of warm melted chocolate or our homemade caramel fleur de sel sauce.

Our dessert came out quickly, and we were both beyond satisfied with our choices. Both desserts came with the homemade caramel sauce which was warm and sweet, with the right amount of saltiness. The crunchiness of the hazelnuts with the soft bananas was a great combination on my waffles.

Max is not normally a big dessert person, but this one was making him reconsider. He claims it was the best dessert he has ever had, and insisted on coming back again before we leave Montreal.

Overall, a great dinner and dessert. Service was great at both places, with food coming out quickly and very friendly staff. I received a lot of recommendations to go to La banquise for poutine, and I feel like Restaurant Mâche is overlooked. I will be trying out La Banquise later in the trip, but topping my poutine from today will be hard!