If you want the poker version of the trip report, click this link: Courtney Gee Poker Blog. Part 1 of my WPT Montreal trip report is posted, and the part 2 should go up soon.
The trip report here is mostly going to be pictures of food because that’s what I love doing most while on vacation! I’m not much for museums and churches, I’m more an eating and shopping kinda girl.
The biggest challenge of my trip was ensuring that I ate dairy-free. My skin gets bad inflammation that requires corticosteroid creams when I eat dairy, so I’ve been trying to cut it out of my diet.
We went to La Prunelle, a French restaurant in downtown Montreal, and they did a really nice job of dairy-free food. I had the most AMAZING salmon tartare with capers and sweet potato chips. The mayo was made in-house and contained milk, but they were nice enough to provide me a version without dairy:
My main meal at La Prunelle was their sweetbreads. I’d never tried sweetbreads before and wanted to give it a shot:
The sweetbreads were okay, but I probably wouldn’t order them ever again. If you’re not familiar with what they are, here’s a wiki link.
While in Montreal, I got to eat one of the most fancy hot dogs ever:
I got this hot dog dish at a random little coffee shop we happened to stumble upon. They had a house hot dog on the menu, but I couldn’t have it because the bread had dairy. The chef of the joint offered to make me a dairy-free version, and this is what he came up with! It was delicious.
The best restaurant we tried during our week downtown was Kazu, a small Japanese place. There’s always a line to get into the place for dinner, no matter what time or what day it is. This is what I ordered the first time I went there:
I took at a look at their menu just now and can’t seem to find it, so I have no idea what it’s called. They had a bunch of menu items on the wall of the restaurant, too, so there’s a lot missing from the online menu. It was grilled BBQ chicken with egg, salad, and pickled vegetables, and it was quite delicious.
I don’t usually eat at the same restaurant twice while on vacation because I love sampling new places, but this particular restaurant was too good to just have once. I wanted to try everything!
In total over the two visits, I also tried the beef carpaccio, gyoza, crispy BBQ chicken tortilla salad, Buta-Don (stewed pork), and beef kalbi (BBQ short ribs). They were all very good, but the best of the bunch was definitely the chicken tortilla salad. I highly recommend it if you ever go there! My other favorites were the beef carpaccio and short ribs.
One of my favorite meals was from the last restaurant we went to before leaving Montreal: Stash Cafe. It’s a Polish restaurant in Old Montreal and they have all the Polish favorites like perogies, Kielbasa, and cabbage rolls. I really wanted perogies but I didn’t think there was any point in getting them if I couldn’t have cheese and sour cream, so I went for cabbage rolls:
It was a great choice because they were AMAZING. It might have been my favorite meal of the trip, and that’s saying a lot because I really loved Kazu. These cabbage rolls were just incredible, though. The tomato sauce was the perfect combination of sweet and tangy, and the cabbage rolls themselves were so good they didn’t even need the sauce. Man, I really wish I could eat these right now!
That’s all the food photos I have. This last pic is of me in Old Montreal close to Stash Cafe:
I didn’t really take many photos other than of food! I thought Downtown Montreal was quite nice overall, though. I can’t wait to go again and eat at some of these restaurants again. I probably won’t go to WPT Montreal in November, but I would consider going again in May next year.
No Comments