Thursday, August 22, 2013

Montreal / Just for Laughs Festival / FOOD! Part one...

I was very excited to do my TV taping on Tuesday July 23rd. I was nervous too obvi. The whole Just for Laughs experience is pretty intense. So, when I was done my important set, and it went well I was in the mood to celebrate! Here's a picture of the theatre I did my show in. If you look closely you can see a camera man on the top left way up high dangling from the ceiling!
I wanted to go back to a restaurant called "L'Anecdote". A friend of mine introduced me to "L'Anecdote" a few years ago and I was blown away at how delicious, homemade, fresh, a cut above it was and on top of that - how unassuming it was. It's actually the restaurant that made me want to start a food blog in the first place. I remember thinking that the only way you will reliably find a restaurant like that would be through word of mouth. I would've literally walked by that place and never have known how awesome it was.
I was so excited to go back! They have amazing burgers. Like, maybe the best I've ever had in a restaurant. And I'm telling you - you'd never know by looking at it. I think most restaurants cut corners and buy sub standard buns, produce, frozen patties... It was a Tuesday night so I checked their hours on line to make sure it was still open. It was only 8:45pm but you never know.The hours online said open until 10:00. Yes!! I didn't want to take a cab all the way out there only to find out it was closed. But, you guessed it... $15.00 later and CLOSED!!! There was a hand written sign on the door - 'closing at 9:00'. You know what? Not cool! So annoying! If you post your hours on line and people are checking them and going out of their way to go to your place and they just did a TV taping...you should stay open as long as your hours are advertised. I had told my friend Erica all about it. So disappointing! I was really pissed off. Besides, I know it's only Tuesday but come on, it's Montreal! One of the largest cities in Canada I think you can handle being open until 10:00. So, I spoke my broken French to this other couple who was trying to go to L'Andecdote and they recommended a place down the street that supposedly had good poutine. We considered it until I saw a restaurant across the street that had fondue and raclette! Cool and different! I love that my friend Erica was game for an adventure. We went for it! It was called "Le Fonderie". We needed a bit of instruction which was a bit challenging with my " barely functional" french ability. But the waitress and I muscled through it and did an alright job. Erica and I split an order of thinly sliced beef that we would cook in broth. We'd each get a ceasar salad, some garlic bread to start with. I had my celebratory glass of delish red wine to go with the meal so I was pumped! We had our special tiny forks and we were ready!
The ceasar salad was very good. Not too creamy and with capers in it. The dressing tasted homemade to me. I sound like such a redneck. It was good cuz it didn't come out of a jar! Yep!
The garlic bread was really good too. Hard to screw up garlic bread. First of all, it's bread = yum. What's that? You put butter and garlic on it? Yeah, ok, I'd love some! Incidentally I love garlic but both Erica and I could've chewed an entire pack of Clorets and not gotten rid of our garlic breath. Maybe not the best move when shmoozing with other festival peeps. Yikes!
Our beef came out...
I liked the beef but didn't love the beef. (That's what she said) I liked it because it was thin. I don't like thick chunks of meat. (That's what she said) It just didn't taste awesome. It was very bland and I know it's supposed to be somewhat bland because you dip it in sauce but maybe it's just that it might not be the best quality or cut of beef. Probably not. Anyway, the sauces were pretty cool! The other thing I noticed that I didn't love was that after you cook the beef in the broth, it's wet. Then you dip it into the sauce, wet so the sauce doesn't stick to it that well. Holy! That might be one of the worst "first world problems" I've ever said!
I don't remember all the different types of sauce but I do remember pesto, garlic, red pepper, ketchup, dijon and one other. It's served with potatoes which was nice. I love sauces!! I think they also serve raclette there but I couldn't understand the menu. haha. I've got to brush up on my french! It was a cool, different, Montreal experience. I'd go back for sure and try to figure out how to order Raclette! Oh, and maybe try to go back to "L'Andecdote", even though I'm still mad at them.

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