A couple of months ago, I published the Best Pho in Montreal article where I ranked the top 5 places to go for pho. You’d think that after consuming over 50 bowls in the name of research, I’d be done with pho for a while, wrong. I love pho and I can never get enough of it. Each bowl is a calculated equation of beef broth, tender pieces of various beef cuts, fresh herbs, vegetables and your daily allotment of sodium all in one meal. My quest for the city’s finest pho continues and it brings me to a new Vietnamese restaurant that opened up about a month ago next to Côte Vertu metro aptly named Pho Côte Vertu.
I love sandwiches and chances are you do too. If you don’t, then you probably weren’t loved as a child and have now grown up to hate life and sandwiches, because sandwiches are life. I’ll do anything for a really good sandwich and I have. Details of which I will not get into – close friends and family read this blog and will probably never let me around their pets and power tools again. It doesn’t matter what kind it is, I love them all. It’s the perfect food. It’s a complete meal that you can pick up with your hands and eat literally anywhere. One of my favourites is a porchetta sandwich, so you can imagine my delight when I found out a porchetta sangwich shop opened up in Little Italy aptly called, “Porchetta.”
We’ve all done some things in our lives that we’re not proud of right? No, I don’t mean like that; but food related things. Like that time you volunteered for jello wrestling during Frosh week or when you got kicked out of that sushi joint for puking on the table after eating straight wasabi on a dare… yeah, me neither. I like to think that I’ve done some food related things that are questionable through out my life, but nothing I regret. One of these things is probably eating my weight in barbecue. Deliciously cuts of meat nursed over smouldering hot coals, succulent pork ribs and brisket bathed in delicate blue smoke, I love it all. I’ve been fortunate enough to have eaten some of the best barbecue in Canada as well as the United States, I’m a barbecue aficionado and there’s no denying that. So you can imagine my excitement when I found out that there’s a new addition to the Montreal barbecue scene – a new joint opened up in town and I had to check it out, Le Smoking BBQ.
If you don’t like tacos, then you hate life. What’s not to like? Cooked meat and fresh toppings wrapped in a warm tortilla; simple, humble and delicious. Seriously though, even vegetarians and vegans love them. How many can you eat? It’s not considered “eating tacos” unless you’ve eaten about 15 of them. The first few are often inhaled without second thought, usually out of tacolust and yearn. The dozen or so tacos after that only start to count when you slowly begin to enjoy them. I heard about a Mexican spot in the West island, Guaca & Molé which bills themselves as “Mexican cuisine and tequila bar.” I’m not about that tequila life, but I am down with tacos so I decided to check it out.
Montreal’s ramen scene has gone from relatively non-existent to booming. There’s no denying that in recent years we’ve been spoiled at the variety of ramen houses available to us. Not only do we now have places to grub on some awesome Japanese soup noodles, but some of these places specialize in regional specific bowls that originate from different parts of Japan. Downtown is ramen-central with five different spots in a three block radius. I recently checked out one of the news places in town for a hot bowl of delicious noodles, Ichifuku Ramen.
You know what kind of food tastes best? The kind that’s simple and honest, like Italian food. Most people don’t want to eat ferns and foams. We need to be done with stuff like hay-smoked dehydrated essence of late winter snow flakes dusted on top of horsehair lichen gelée foraged by blind nuns. How does one enjoy pretentious deconstructed compositions of market-fresh gluten-free buzzwords? Food needs to taste like food… good food, tasty food. I recently checked out the Plateau’s new Italian spot Bistro Michelangelo that’s serving just that, delicious food.
Food Trucks! It all started as a small pilot-project to reintroduce the concept of food trucks and “street food” back to Montreal several years ago. Since then, the project has blossomed into a successful initiative to promote urban development and a touristic expansion throughout the city of Montreal. From a modest handful of gourmet food trucks and trailers, the fleet has now over 20 mobile food purveyors coming in all shapes and sizes. Here is everything you need to know for the 2016 Montreal food truck season.
The best pho in Montreal. There, I said it. I don’t make proclamations like this lightly. I ate over 50 bowls to bring you the best. When I say something is the best, there is a reason and theory behind it and I take this kind of responsibility seriously. I’ve written about the best pho in Montreal a couple of years ago and decided recently that it deserved an update. Not to say that the previous listing is no longer valid, but because I’ve been to so many more Vietnamese restaurants to have pho since then that I needed to share my discoveries. Pho is one of my favourite dishes. A comforting hearty bowl of rice noodles, beef, veggies swimming in the most flavourful, aromatic broths that soothes the soul and warms the coldest of hearts. With so many options in the city, I made it a personal goal to find the best pho (tonkinese noodle) in Montreal.
Being a home cook, I like to explore the entire culinary landscape whether it be types of cuisine, techniques or using ingredients I may not be familiar with. One of my favourite things to cook is beef. It’s such a versatile ingredient that works well in different recipes from braises and stews, to barbecue to tartare. I like to say that I’m confident in cooking with beef, but what if you’re not? Buying and handling beef may be intimidating to some people but thanks to Canadian Beef’s new “The Round Up” app, incorporating beef into your meals have never been easier.
Montreal’s food scene is vast and it’s undeniable that awesome restaurants fill in all the nook and crannies around the city. Eating out as much as I do, I’m given the opportunity to find and discover some of the unique restaurants that make our city’s restaurant roster so rich. From the Mile-End, to N.D.G, locals have their favourite eateries they like to call their own. These neighbourhood gems are the places I love; casual, non-fussy food, served by honest and humble people. I recently discovered the charming Fiorellino – located in a very unassuming part of town, the Quartier International.