Le Festival G.: Perles & Paddock (Montreal, Canada)

Le Festival G., Griffintown Gourmand Gastronomique, is a new food festival held from March 7 to 17th. As a replacement for this month’s Battle of Ingredients that was cancelled last minute due to all kinds of different things going on, we decided to give this new food festival a go. One of our friends wanted to try out Perles & Paddock after being rather impressed with their menu so after a lot of hard hurdles to get a reservation, we finally managed to get one via their online system. Peculiar, right? Take that as a good or bad thing as you wish, but just our suggestion, try online instead of reserving by phone.

There was an option of 3 menus: Brunch (which we obviously didn’t fit because we went for dinner and was unavailable); 5 a 7 Happy Hour or Table d’hote Menu. I’m not going to go into detail about it all however we all chose the Table d’Hote Menu except for the little one who got the Happy Hour menu.

Table d’Hote Menu includes a choice of two cocktails, 3 oysters, 3 choices of tasting dishes and a dessert. ($42)

Happy Hour Menu includes a choice of two cocktails, 6 oysters or 3 cheese plate, 1 choice of tasting dish ($17)

Cocktails

Left to right: Cirka Gin Cocktail, Prosecco & Mocktail

We had a half and half experience here. A few of us took the festival special cocktail which is made by a Quebec gin (if I remember correctly). I had a sip of it and it tasted a bit like grass but that might be the matcha powder sprinkled on top. The second one and what I took was the Prosecco champagne which is a little on the more acidic dry side of the spectrum. Its not horrible but not my first choice. My fantastic Battle of Ingredients co-host and friend Phoebe had the mocktail due to personal reasons.

Starters

Oysters

3 Cheese Plate

I didn’t have any of these. The little one got the 3 cheese plate. Phoebe, my husband and I all didn’t eat the oysters for our individual reasons and passed it on to our friends.

Tasting Dishes

Arctic Char

I’m going to start with my own choices which are the first three here. I started with the Arctic Char which was really good. It is paired with Enoki and Daikon and kaffir broth. Its all very delicious.

Braised Endives

The second one was the braised endives with a very acidic citrus sort of thing going on. I like the endives and the grapefruit but whatever other citrus was going on here was a bit much for me personally.

Lamb

The lamb was done really nicely. It had a lot of the lamb taste to it. The pickled vegetables were also done really well. There is a nice balance to it and the sauce here is good as well.

Broccoli

My husband choice the Arctic char, braised endives and this broccoli plate. He actually liked this one the best. He liked how the broccoli was prepared and the whole deal with the egg breaking and mixing up with the elements here worked well together (his words paraphrased).

Duck Tataki

I can’t remember what everyone else got but I know that Phoebe chose this as one of hers. Not sure how she feels about it exactly. I was interested to see how this tasted thought because it uses argousier, which is called sea berries or sea buckthorn, something I had never tasted before.

I’m sure that I left out some tasting dishes and then I can’t remember which one this dish was but I still wanted to add it in.

Desserts

Pamplemousse confit

The lactose free dessert option was this Grapefruit confit. I think they deserve kudos for have a lactose free choice and its one that is pretty good as well. With the whole confit thing, it has this little citrus treasure wrapped around the sorbet. Its pretty good. I’m not huge on grapefruit so that was more a personal preference because my husband liked this quite a bit.

Mousse a la Noisette

So, missing one dessert choice in the pictures and didn’t ask how anyone thought about this one. It certainly looks really good.

Overall Dining Experience

Perles and Paddock offered us a pretty nice dining experience. The restaurant decor is beautiful. The ambiance is also quite comfortable. There is a stable theme here from the bathrooms to the logo to the setup of the area and hallways. Its pretty unique. The waitress who served us was very nice and offered us a lot of patience and helped us clear things up. At the same time, there was a lot of people serving up the food that gave us descriptions of what we’re eating. We did have a few little hiccups throughout the meal but they were fixed immediately or compensated for in another format. These things show respect for their customers and their dining experience. The only difficulty and mixed messages we got was the reservation process and trying to get a clear answer on allergen free menu items and such.

Restaurant: L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon Montreal

If you want to see last year’s L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon recap HERE.

Located in the Casino de Montreal, L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon is tucked in a little downstairs corner accessible by elevators at one end of the casino. Different from last year is how it was bustling and full of action this time with tons of customers there. After last year’s experience, I was a little more knowledgeable about how to approach this year’s dinner so was a little less ambitious. If you had seen last year’s dinner, it took well over 3 hours, this wasn’t really that much more different.

In terms of decor, there wasn’t much change. I’m back at the same time after all so I do wonder if the decor changes especially in the display case with the seasons. Maybe one day, I’ll go not in autumn.

Green Tea

Due to the rainy weather outside and a rather under the weather feeling like a cold was creeping in, I ended up vouching to get a green tea. This is a Japanese green tea recommended by the waitress for us. It tasted great. I don’t usually drink Japanese green tea but this one definitely was a treat.

Bread

The breads here are also quite good. This time, we had the baguette one the left and the bacon and mustard braid on the right. Not shown here but my friend got two other ones which had dairy products in it. One was a flaky cheese one I believe and I can’t remember the other one right now.

Amuse Bouche

A refreshing starter amuse-bouche to kick things off. Tonight’s starter, the dairy free option, I assume since my friend got something different but he also had the 7 or 9 course seasonal discovery tasting menu. This amuse-bouche is a eggplant topped on one side with a red pepper and the other one is topped with a zucchini (or maybe eggplant) chip? I can’t remember anymore. But I can tell you that it tasted really good. I’m not much of an eggplant fan. I really just eat it for its health benefits on a daily basis but this was really lovely.

Tasting Portion Dishes

Like I said in the beginning, last year’s tasting menu traumatized me to my core. Not that the food wasn’t good but the duration and the sheer amount was just way over what I could handle. So this year, I went a different route. I asked the suggestion of the waitress to tell me what would be a good approach and she gave me a very accurate one of taking 3 tasting portion which should be enough and went along with her knowledge and suggested the ones that she knew could be modified to be dairy-free or already was dairy-free. With that I chose three (with her help):

Le Homard

Le Homard – Lobster over mashed avocado tart  and pomegranate arils

My first choice when I first saw my choices was this one. Avocado tart and pomegranate and lobster all sounds so fresh and delicious. From the presentation to the delicious balance of flavors to just the crispy different texture of the pomegranate seeds and little bits and the crunchy fresh vegetables and the lobster was such a delight. Not to mention of course the creamy avocado tart base.

La Morue Noire

La Morue Noire – Stewed Black Cod with “Malabar” peppercorn, baby spinach

The star of the show, my friends. I picked this one because the waitress highly recommended it. Normally, this one would have a frothy creamy coconut foam. Mine is just coconut sans the cream for the obvious lactose intolerance issue. With that said, this dish is absolutely heavenly. I kid you not, the cod is done so perfectly.

L’Agneau

L’Agneau – Quebec lamb ribs with eggplant and lemon pulp confit caviar

Talking about the final dish in my selection is the lamb. I’m starting to realize that I have a tendency to get lamb whenever I go out, mostly because I wouldn’t eat it at home. This was done the perfect doneness. The eggplant caviar as they call it is really delicious along with the eggplant chips which are both very good. Paired up with the lemon pulp, it worked so well together. The only thing I wasn’t a big fan of based on personal preference is the date puree thing. I’m personally not a fan of dates so it didn’t quite appeal to me. Overall, the whole dish worked together really well.

Dessert

La Bulle – Blown sugar ball with coconut cream, fresh coriander sorbet

The original La Bulle is made with yuzu lemon in the menu. However, this version is dairy-free version so its made with coconut cream. I have to say that the coriander sorbet is somewhat of an acquired taste that took a moment to get used to but it cuts through the sweetness from the coconut so it works out well.

Overall, L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon Montreal is a great dining experience. It offers fantastic cuisine, comfortable ambiance, flexible with their dishes to accommodate allergens as well as great service. Its honestly one of the restaurants that I love going to. It is quite pricey but worth every penny.

My Weekly Adventures #54

November is finally upon us! Christmas is a little over a month away. Daylight Saving Time has kicked in but its always nice to get that extra hour. Montreal had their first little snowfall. Our roof is finally done and over with. Eco logs are ordered and shipping to us soon, luckily we have some leftover from last year. Its all shaping up to some fun times. That is a great thing after all the craziness in October. It also seems that not doing NaNoWriMo was a good call although doing it for the last few years now makes this year feel weird and oddly empty from having that creative outlet.

Anyways, I’ve rambled enough. Its felt busy but apparently not really….

MTL a Table 2017 (aka Battle of Ingredients substitute)

 

Battle of Ingredients takes a break in November as we change our gatherings to dinner outings for MTL a Table 2017. The original plan was for one restaurant which I covered HERE. This past weekend, we went to a second one all thanks to incredibly generous friends. Another great night that I will share later this week.

We are now planning our Christmas December gathering for Battle of ingredients. What do you eat as tradition for the holidays?

Haute Cuisine at Casino de Montreal

My friend’s half marathon season ended with his last race in Oka. Like previous years, he treats me to dinner to thank me for helping out. I am incredibly grateful for this running theme of generous friends. I help people because they are good friends of mine but its nice to feel appreciated as well. He took me to a fine dining French cuisine in the Casino of Montreal called L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon. Its so incredible that I have to write a post for it so that is coming up.

Wrapping Up and New Segments

Last time I talked about a surge of things sitting in backlog watched and needing to be reviewed and even talked about the immense about of movie reviews and TV binges. All still remains true. I still have a few screeners both short films and full features to review. One has been needing to get released but I can’t seem to word it correctly that I’m happy with. TV Binges are a little better but still wanting to get the Gilmore Girls seasons done. The goal this month is catch up.

In the spectrum of what I’ve done this past two weeks, I have decided the general rundown for the holidays marathon with a featured franchise, alt christmas movies and probably holiday movies (Hallmark and others depending on Netflix availability). Also, I have started a new segment for Sundays called Sunday Lists which are essentially lists of faves or best to worst. If theres something you would like me to rank, just comment below or shoot me an email. These lists will be updated whenever there is something to new to add.

Cute Kitty Pic

Upcoming:

• Restaurant recaps
• Movies and shorts reviews
• Book reviews

That’s it for this Weekly Adventures! 🙂
What have you been up to? 

MTL a Table: Le Petit Opus Café at Omni Hotel

We’re in MTL a Table now! Can you believe it? Events and events, right? 😉

This MTL a Table event, we have 4 restaurants, which I think is one more than last year.  I’m not sure but I think so. We also have a little six month baby in tow as well so our restaurant choice had to be very careful.  It took us a while to plan it all out but these 4 had very interesting menus, fit my allergy restrictions and also was a tad more baby friendly. We’re in business.

First up was on Halloween night.  We made our choices carefully because we feared for parking, which ended up not being too much of an issue as we found a spot in a side street across from the hotel where this restaurant was at.  Our restaurant of choice is Le Petit Opus Cafe in the Omni Hotel on Sherbrooke West with North American cuisine.

Hotel Lobby decorations

Halloween decorations in restaurant

What we usually try to do is order everything on the menu so that we can get a good look at what it is. Its better with more people but we were four for this one and we managed to see everything. There was one item on the menu that was removed in the 2nd service but its all good.

MTL a Table/Taste MTL: Le Petit Opus Cafe

Wine

Dreaming Tree, USA

Our meal was paired with certain sorts of wines to match it but this one intrigued me the most and everyone thought it looked interesting so we had a bottle. I’m sure you can get why I like it 😉 It had a very smooth texture: a little sweet and not dry at all.  Which is exactly how I like my Riesling 😉

1st service

Pan-seared scallops with *green pea and butter puree, apple chutney, bacon and maple vinaigrette

Chicory and endive salad with blue cheese, walnuts, poached pear and white balsamic vinaigrette

*my entree was without green pea and butter puree as I’m lactose intolerant

The scallop was super delicious.  The mix of the apple chutney was great.  Only one of us took the salad and he seemed to be okay with it.  I think its very strongly based on how much you like blue cheese.

2nd service

Deer osso buco, pimbina and Labrador tea risotto with hazelnut and orange zest gremolata

Beef bavette with vegetables

Nagano pork chop with *garlic mashed potatoes, Brussel sprouts with bacon and pecans, sauteed apples and apple cider sauce

*Garlic mashed potatoes were removed due to lactose intolerance and in its place, I had more vegetables.

Nagano pork chops are awesome.  This one was done perfectly and it was super tender and tasty. It was too fat either but it just melted in my mouth.  The vegetables were perfect as well full of variety with some green beans, asparagus, Nantes carrots and baby turnips.  The bacon was so delicious and added a nice extra taste.

My husband had the beef bavette with vegetables.  This choice is not on the menu but we had remarked that one of the choices, specifically the mixed grilled plate which looked fantastic,was removed and the waiter was no aware so he asked and they accommodated with this one.  He liked it except he didn’t ask for it to be cooked well enough but it was tender.

I had a taste of the osso buco which I considered getting also but the risotto would have had quite a bit of change with the milk removed and whatnot so my friend’s husband took this one.  The piece I tasted of the venison was very good. It had a nice braised meat sort of texture and quite flavorful.

3rd service

Warm apple tarte tatin served with *french vanilla ice cream and local carminée apple reduction

Paris-Brest

*French vanilla ice cream was changed to raspberry sorbet

I had the apple tarte tatine and it was really good.  I’m a huge fan of apple flavored desserts.  Its sad that I couldn’t try the french vanilla ice cream. That is quite original but I do like raspberry sorbet.  This one was perfectly sweet but leaving a bit of sour/tart taste.  It worked really well with the apple reduction on the side.

My husband had the Paris-brest.  In case you don’t know, Paris-Brest is a French pastry made with choux pastry and praline flavored cream (Wikipedia).  He thought that it was rather maple flavored and thought it was okay.  I wonder if it was too much for him.  He wasn’t very specific.  He enjoyed it okay.

Overall…

My meal for all three services were pretty great.  I liked all of it really well and the taste was rather spot-on.  I think what I love even more than the food and would make me come back is the service.  Its hard for restaurants, especially during the MTL a Table set menu to make changes on the spot but they were fantastic and knowing my allergies, adding in the lactose intolerance and modified every service so that I could eat almost all the choices without an issue.  That sort of service is actually quite rare so I appreciated it a lot. Part of a great eating experience is the service and this place is really  awesome.

A great way to start this food festival!
Look out for the next restaurant visit on Sunday! 🙂