My October Adventures

In a blink of eye between 31 Days of Halloween and festival coverage, October wrapped up. Our partial lockdown has been extended for another potentially 28 days as Montreal hopes for the new cases/deaths number to decrease in the next month instead of the current constant. I’ve reverted in the middle of October to a partial work at home status which is kind of the best scenario that I could hope for. With that said, its been a fairly calm month as we kept to regional protocol and stayed home other than to pick-up the occasional food pick-up or grocery runs and mostly for work purposes. After a little glimpse at what’s going on personally, let’s see what I managed to muster up for this month’s adventures…its mostly recaps at this point. Let’s check it out!

Festival Du Nouveau Cinema 2020

View this post on Instagram

FNC 2020 has wrapped up! This year's roster of films was pretty impressive spanning through different countries and genres. Watched 19 films in total: the first picture is all films where reviews already posted up (link in bio) and the second is upcoming batch to be posted in the next week or so. You can also find the ranking of these films from most liked to least. My fave movie is Topside. #FNC2020 #movies #films #foreign #cinema #newcinema #rankings #besttoworst #reviews #recap

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams) on Nov 1, 2020 at 11:10am PST

Festival du Nouveau Cinema ran for the majority of the month. It was a wild ride as this festival always has deeper movies and takes a little more time to process which makes the writing process in a tad of a delay since I’m not going to lie that the movie choices started a little rocky. Still, I wanted to do a little something for it and here’s the rankings from best to worst (obviously in my opinion) of the 19 films that I watched based on my current feelings and memories of them:

1. Topside
2. My Salinger Year
3. Red Post on Escher Street
4. Caught in the Net
5. Moving On
6. La Hija de un Ladron
7. Violation
8. Undine
9. Poissonsexe
10. Wisdom Tooth
11. Mum, Mum, Mum
12. Cocoon
13. The Book of Vision
14. Drowsy City
15. The Tremor
16. The Cloud In Her Room
17. Sin La Habana
18. Kill It and Leave This Town
19. Siberia

That’s the rankings. Half of the movies have been reviewed at this point and there will be the rest of the reviews going up in the coming week.

Halloween Marathon

This year was a little different as I aimed to do 31 Days of Halloween/Horror which overall worked out as I did mostly double features and then wrapped up the last few days with Blood in the Snow Festival coverage. There were some off days and I had fallen behind by one day with a week left and pulled it together to wrap up on October 31st. I consider that a win even though I didn’t count the TV Binge of The Haunting of Bly Manor as one of the days, which I probably should have. Out of all the movies, here’s the top picks that I saw in no specific order:

• A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
• Raw
• Unfriended: Dark Web
• #Alive
• Trick ‘r Treat
• Happy Death Day
• For The Sake Of Vicious

You can find all the reviews and full list of this year’s and previous year’s Halloween marathon HERE!

Blood in the Snow Festival 2020

Blood in the Snow Festival 2020 started up at the end of October and is going on until November 7th. Different from Fantasia Festival and Festival du Nouveau Cinema, its showing on Super Channel and has a specific schedule for the different features and programs airing. You can find all the info for how to sign up for Super Channel and schedule on the festival’s site.

I’ll be covering everything here: shorts programs, features, pre-feature shorts and perhaps the Web Bites if I figure out a good way to do it.

Trying New Restaurants

1930 Shanghai

1930 Shanghai is a restaurant that specializes in Xiao Long Bao which is the Shanghai soup-filled dumplings. They are one of my favorite foods. This place makes decent ones. While they look the same here, I had one order of the normal pork -filled flavor and then had one where it was chicken and mushroom. Both were really good.

Comon Restaurant

I’m usually not a huge fan of Fried Chicken nor do I tend to eat it a lot but my friend told me about this place and picked up some chicken. . Their take-out boxes for the chicken are in pizza boxes which is pretty creative. I ordered a Bibimbap which was pretty good but felt was a little overpriced for the size and the taste wasn’t anything too different from other places. The fried chicken is also pricier but it does taste really good. I ordered the Fried Chicken with Green Onions (pretty obvious) but unlike some other restaurants in Montreal, their chickens are all bone-in, which isn’t a huge problem since I like bone-in meats but definitely something that others might want to keep in mind if you want to try it out.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this weekly adventures!
What have you been up to? Any Halloween celebrations – simple or not?

MTL a Table: Rose Ross

The Battle of Ingredients is taking a break in November as normal to check out the MTL a Table. We’re definitely back on track as this time, we kick off the eating earlier in this restaurant event. The first we’re hitting up is Rose Ross.

Rose Ross is a cozy little restaurant. Its actually just one strip of restaurant that was easily missed when we were first looking for it until we crossed the street and saw the sign. Its rather nicely ambient and while its fairly close quarters, the decor is very comfortable. Right off the bat, the service here was fantastic. They made an effort to make sure that allergies and intolerances were addressed and confirmed before ordering and was patiently answering all our questions and then when the meal came, they made sure to assure that anything that might look like it could trigger food allergies were confirmed to not be the case.

MTL a Table menu was rather good with a good few choices for each course and they also offered the Exclusive Aeroplan privileges for Aeroplan members.

Exclusive Aeroplan Privilege: Glass of Suriol Cava

They offered everyone with the Aeroplan card on hand a complimentary glass of sparkling wine, Suriol Cava as a starter. I’ll talk more about it in the wine recap for November. I can say that I’m not usually a huge fan of sparkling wine but this one was pretty good and matched well with the meal.

STARTERS

Honeynut squash, pumpkin seeds and herbs, pesto, mozzarella di bufala Maciocia

Mushroom cream, fried shallots, chive, curry oil and crispy chicken skin

Brussel sprouts a la vietsesame oil and coriander

A big group is always nice as we get to at least see everything on the menu. With the starters, we got the 3 out of 4 choices. My husband having the first one with the honeynut squash where his general comment about his meals throughout the evening was that they had a lot of depth in the food with the different textures combined and the flavors and such.

I had the last one (which was the one that I had my eyes on) with the brussel sprouts. I’m always on the lookout for new ways to cook and eat brussel sprouts. While this one was a tad powerful in the vinaigrette, it was really delicious for the majority of it and we all had a debate on how to fry or roast the brussel sprouts to be like that. Very lovely dish and it says a lot about it as I’m not a huge fan of coriander to begin with but the vietssesame oil and coriander was great with the brussel sprouts.

MAIN COURSES

Gnocchis, pecorino romano, chanterelles, fried cauliflower, chard, tarragon and cream

Blood pudding from Cochonnailles, squash puree, embeurre of cabbage with lovage and bacon, glace de viande moutardee

Coregone, carrot mousseline, beluga lentilles, fennel and basil

Onglet de boeuf IPE, cognac sauce, fries and mayonnaise (+$10)

Kid’s meal: Penne with tomato sauce

The husband’s choice was the Gnocchi, Phoebe’s choice was the Onglet de boeuf and mine was the Coregone fish option with the carrot mousseline. Everyone liked their main course. Mine was very unique as I’m not sure that I’ve ever had this type of fish before. The fish was cooked nicely and then the carrot mousseline was heavenly then it was paired with the sides that gave it a lot of depth and the flavors blended really well together.

Worth noting here is that they gave the option for kids menu where they had various types of pasta and two types of sauce to choose from which is always nice to see it having a certain level of accommodation on that level.

DESSERTS

Hazelnut cream puff with vanilla ice cream, salted caramel and goglu cookie crumble

Carrot cake and miel d’Anicet

In terms of dessert, they also landed quite well. The group enjoyed the hazelnut cream puff while I had the carrot cake which was a change in the original MTL a table menu which was some almond milk rice pudding. This one was also lactose-free option and tasted really  nice. It was very aromatic and not too sweet and the cake texture was moist as well.

Overall, Rose Ross is definitely a restaurant that we’d go back to. For MTL a Table, it was in the 2nd tier pricing at $33 a meal with a lot of options in each course to choose from. The service was impressive and very friendly. The restaurant atmosphere was really efficient and very comfortable. The food also delivered really well especially since it has a mix of French and North American food which sometimes is rather sensitive on the possible allergies but they were all very knowledgeable about their menu so had options for the basic allergies. It was an awesome first impression and first experience that we’d gladly go back a second time, even during a non-MTL a Table event for their regular menu if the opportunity presents itself. If you’re in Montreal, this one is a definitely one to consider.

Dinner: Restaurant Le Fagotin

We’re back to Groupon season! Its been a while since we’ve had a fun little friends gathering with my good friend Starry Traveler and her family.  Luckily, Groupon had a neat little offer for a place we’ve never heard of called Restaurant Le Fagotin, so we both decided to buy, reserve and give it a go this past weekend.  Le Fagotin is a bring your own wine French fusion restaurant.

Restaurant Le Fagotin

Decor

Right when you look at Le Fagotin to the outside to walking into the main dining room, its extremely homey. Its comfortable and ambient with some light-hearted jazzy music playing softly in the background. Its tidy and has a decent amount of natural light from the outside.  My favorite was looking across onto the fireplace in the wall with a mantel with a sign saying “Bon Appetit”. Part of eating is the atmosphere and Le Fagotin does a great job at setting it right.

Appetizers

Bread

Spring Salad (with the Table d’Hote menu)

Soup of the day: Potage au Broccoli (with Table d’Hote)

To start our meals, we got a delicious baguette.  It was warm and soft.  We loved it.  Everyone took the Table d’Hote Menu at our table except me.  The main reason being my health restrictions.  Potage au Broccoli usually isn’t a problem but at Le Fagotin, they told me that they add a bit of cream in there so it was off the table for me. Another issue I have is with eating raw vegetables so I couldn’t eat the salad also. With that said, I ended up getting a main dish in the menu.  However, without knowing my inability to eat raw vegetables, they were really generous and gave me a spring salad.  I think its a nice gesture which my husband benefited from. The general liking was towards the spring salad which I could agree with since I dipped my baguette in some of the vinaigrette and it was tasty.

Main Course

The Chef’s Platter: Pork Chops with Homemade BBQ sauce ($28)

My dish was the Chef’s Platter.  This evening, it was pork chops with homemade BBQ sauce. It had some (what I presume is) scalloped potatoes because it was made with some cream.  The waitress forgot about my lactose-intolerance along with a few veggies. This plate smells delicious.  I don’t know what they used in the sauce or cooking it but it smelled wonderful. It was a little on the salty side and maybe the pork chop had some dry bits but it was overall acceptable.

Table d’Hote: Pork Fillet with Apple and Brandy Sauce

Next up was my husband’s plate, the pork fillet with Apple and Brandy Sauce. I had a little taste of it also. So, my main issue with this dish is that the sauce is like eating applesauce and the brandy is not really apparent so doesn’t elevate the taste buds. The pork itself was done well. I just wish the sauce could’ve been done a little bit more flavorful.

Grilled Chicken with Apricot Glaze

My friend’s husband took this Grilled Chicken and Apricot Glaze which would have been my choice if the appetizers worked out. I didn’t get a taste of this one but he didn’t say much other than the glaze didn’t really taste of apricot much. However, the presentation does look nice.

Rainbow Trout Fillet with Tarragon Aioli

Last dish is my friend’s.  Hers is the Rainbow Trout Fillet with Tarragon Aioli. So, she’s not a fan of aioli so she had asked for it to be put on the side which probably forgotten. I’m not opposed to aioli but since it seemed that Le Fagotin added cream to a lot of dishes that doesn’t normally have, I just tasted the fish.  It had a rather fishy taste.  I can imagine that the tarragon aioli would have masked it and elevated the whole dish but, just the fish was a little lacking.  My friend didn’t like the aioli much so she put it aside and just ate the fish.

Dessert

Lime & Coconut Sorbet

My only choice is their sorbet which had various flavors. The choices given was a citrus and pomegrenate or blueberry & basil.  I love sorbets with blueberry and basil however it was sold out right when I ordered so they offered me this choice here: lime and coconut sorbet. Let me tell you, I had doubts about this working but they were able to balance the sour/tart flavor of the lime and combine it with the coconut except they also included coconut shreds which is a pretty nice touch since it added texture to it.

Chocolate Pot with Homemade Crumble

My friend had originally the panna cotta (that is coming up) but proceeded to swap with her husband who had the chocolate pot with homemade crumble. This looks delicious and I think for the most part, they enjoyed this one quite a bit. I think the crumble is made out of shortbread but I think the men were arguing that it was graham crackers.  I still disagree with it even if I didn’t taste it.

Creme Brulee

My husband had the Creme Brulee, which probably is the show stopper here.  The nice crack of the sugar glaze and the texture looked good. He thought it was the best part of the entire meal.

Lemon Panna Cotta

Last up is the lemon panna cotta that I mentioned before. It seems that this might be the lackluster choice of the four. There wasn’t much talk or discussion and it was bounced around. Not a lot of comments on it.

Overall…

While it seems like I was picky about Le Fagotin, it has its pros, plus my meal was pretty good.  I really love the atmosphere they set and the plating looks great. The desserts are for the most part outstanding and there’s still a lot on the menu to explore that peaks my interest. If I were to go back a second time, it’d be for the Honey and Five Spices Duck Breast and Flank Steak with french shallots and cognac sauce. The concept of Le Fagotin for putting together different flavors is a good one, it just needs to be executed a little better. Obviously, tastes are subjective and you can’t please everyone but there lacks a bit of complexity that I would’ve hoped for.

Putting that point aside, if anyone at Le Fagotin was to read this: an even bigger point would be to find a way to make sure that there are always alternatives for sides or appetizers that can accommodate a rather decent amount of people like myself with food intolerance/allergies. I always feel that service is elevated at any restaurant when I know some restaurants have put that extra thought in making sure their food can appeal to a wide variety of public, something I’ve learned even more after I’ve had to deal with all these allergies and can rarely find restaurants that have selections I can eat. That isn’t to say that the service at Le Fagotin in bad because our waitress was very pleasant, maybe a little forgetful in our little details like food allergies or putting our requests of sauces aside, but she was still very nice to talk to.

Point is, I want to go back to Le Fagotin.  There are aspects of it that truly appealed to me.  Just you know, little tweaks, right? Or else I wouldn’t have bothered to write all of this.