Montreal, Day Two

Cross-posted at www.emilyandneil.com for your reading pleasure.


Day 2
The Frommer's guide we bought at BNA told us to head into Vieux-Montreal first, so we could take in Notre Dame Basilica and other cool old buildings. The sun was shining so we were seeking somewhere with an outside terrace. After checking out the offerings, we ended up outside a place called Montreal Poutine, which I suppose is like going to a place called "Chicago Pizza" in the middle of Chi-town, but whatevs. We each had the lunch trio, which included their regular poutine. It was a nice introductory poutine for me, but Neil knew there had to be something better (more on that tomorrow).

After strolling through Old Montreal and stopping into an internet cafe for caffeine and a cookie, we went back to the hotel and found ourselves sucked into American Idol (what the hell was Gokey thinking?) and spent some time researching a great late-dinner spot (thanks, free wi-fi at the hotel!). L'Express was the pick, and it was a great one!

Not to bore you with the non-food related details, but our attempts at taking the metro to dinner were thwarted by confusing signage and a possibly not-running train, so we hopped into a cab outside the Bell Centre and took off to find L'Express with our mostly only French- speaking cab driver. Since we caught up with him just outside the arena, he thought we were coming from the Britney Spears concert (which apparently Neil does not love me enough to buy me tickets to), and wanted to know how it was. My brain immediately turns off when I hear people speak French (it sounds like Charlie Brown's teachers all of a sudden), but Neil did a good job of pretending we were totally at the concert, and it was actually pretty good, but our hunger won out and we decided to leave.

L'Express did not disappoint. It felt very NYC, with old black and white tile floors and dark reddish-brown walls. The only pictures hanging on the walls were old sepia tone group portraits of the restaurant staff back near the bathrooms. Other than that, it was very minimal, but super-classy, and just bustling with happy diners. We got a seat at the bar and perused the beatifully handwritten (or handwritten-esque? Hard to tell) menu. Then the bartender brought us a printed (i.e. not at all handwritten) English version so I could order with confidence. I knew the goat cheese salad was in the cards for me. Neil opted for a green salad and hanger steak, and I followed my dee-lish salad with handmade ravioli. We threw a couple mini-gherkins in the mix (with special mini-gherkin tongs, pictured right) and we had ourselves a very successful meal.

No poutine needed.