MTL a Table 2017: Bistro Brasserie Les Soeurs Grises

MTL a Table is upon Montreal again!! It runs from November 2 to 16. The amount of restaurants seems to have increased quite a bit and has expanded the geography spread a little more to restaurants located a little further than the downtown, Old Montreal and Plateau Mont-Royal area which is the popular spots for restaurants. The menus however were quite a challenge to figure out with less that works for us. With that said, we ended up deciding on going to check out Bistro Brasserie Les Soeurs Grises for dinner. Last year, we checked it out for their brunch menu and it was incredibly delicious so we have high hopes for this one. You can check out last year’s post HERE.

Let’s see what their dinner menu looks like!

Bistro Brasserie Les Soeurs Grises
MTL a Table Dinner Menu

Bistro Brasserie Les Soeurs Grises has a really nice ambiance and is located a quieter part of Old Montreal.

Cocktails

Bloody Caesar

Sangria Blanche

Being a brasserie definitely gives this place at least some guarantees of making a decent drink and for both of these, they were really good. My husband had the Bloody Caesar which he orders whenever he goes out to a restaurant and my typical is white sangria. What is so great about sangria is the fruity taste of it all and how essentially every restaurant can have their own twist. This one is a little stronger with a more obvious taste of the triple sec however, still a very good one.

First Course

Smoked Duck Carpaccio, candied orange, spicy mesclun

Chickpea and beetroot hummus, basil pesto, roasted pepper, grilled pita bread

Smoked red peppers cream, mini grilled cheese au fromage Louis d’Or de Sainte- Elisabeth de Warwick

I’m fairly certain Phoebe will hop on here at some point to check out the post and she will tell you all about the Duck Carpaccio in the comments (along with her choice of the confit duck leg and waffles in the second course). I had the hummus and OMG, was it scrumptious!! The grilled pita was great and it went well with the hummus which was so unique. My husband had the soup and the grilled cheese. The grilled cheese was kind of a tease being so little but he liked it however, him being not a soup person, he did give higher compliments to the roasted pepper cream.

Second Course 

Smoked salmon filet, smoked potato salad, dried sausages with cheese, maple virgin sauce

Grilled waffle with confit duck leg from Brome Lake, onion jam, salad of the day, maple caramel and homemade beer

Poultry, sweetbread pistachio blood sausage, roasted potatoes, crispy onions, balsamic reduction, sauerkraut with wild boar bacon

I had the sausage dish for the second course. Since these foodie adventures, I’ve gained a liking for sweetbread and in this sausage mixture oddly with pieces of pistachio poking out, it was the absolute highlight of the dish. The roasted potatoes were slightly mushy but it tasted really good. My only issue with this one was the sauerkraut however, it isn’t the fault of it and more mine since I have days that I am more in the mood for it and I just wasn’t feeling like it complimented the dish that much. My husband had the salmon and he gave it all a thumbs up. I remember a praise for the roasted potatoes salad.

Third Course

Beeramisu and milk jam with fleur de sel

Pouding Chomeur with maple syrup from “Les Sucres de Mont-Megantic”

Dates stuffed with goat cheese, cranberries and walnuts

Finally, we are at the third course. Most of you know about my lactose intolerance so many times, my dessert option is limited. The only option here was the dates. I’m not a fan of dates and goat cheese (which is the only cheese I can have barring the lactose-free variety). With that said, this dessert option was over the top sweet and made me feel really bad afterwards and I just ate one of the dates. Normally, I have a sweet tooth but the sweetness of the dates actually overpowered the goat cheese making it decent tasting but adding in some extra syrup and not even cranberries to balance the acidity and then the walnuts was just too much for me. However, being too sweet seems to be a big comment on our table even for my friends who took the Pouding Chomeur. However, it seems the star of the desserts goes to the twist on Tiramisu called Beeramisu which my husband said was quite good except it was leaning on the very sweet side at the end.

Overall..I’d say Bistro Brasserie Les Soeurs Grises was pretty good. Sure, the desserts weren’t to our liking but thats just probably because we’re not all immensely in love with extreme sweetness. However, the food was pretty decent and wins for both me and my husband. Definitely someplace we’d consider going out for a date night if we ever have the urge to go downtown (which is almost never unless its festival season).

YUL EAT Festival 2016

This past weekend in Montreal was not only Labour Day but also YUL EAT Festival. Luckily, I arrived back in Montreal on Saturday so I met up with my girl friends and crew on Labour Day for a nice outing.

Labour Day weekend was fabulous weather. It was sunny and hot. The end result was a huge sunburn since I was ridiculous silly and forgot to put on sunscreen. However, it is the first time I’ve been to the festival and I was really excited to check it out! We did a once over the whole place to get an idea of what food trucks and restaurants were there and their menu.  In the first round, we also had lots of samples from grilled cheese sandwich to sorbet to yogurt to hummus and sparkling water and there was even red wine to taste for free. Some stalls gave our samples and it was really cool.

The menus there were also pretty fantastic. I ended up sharing the food with one of girl friends. It is the way to go in order to try more food.

The first place we tried was Piri Piri. It is a Portuguese restaurant and we got the Grilled Chicken Sandwich.

While we got that, our friends got this Salmon Tartare from another restaurant. I think it was Le Pois Penche which I actually did a restaurant post before for MTL a Table two yeara ago. You can find it HERE.

After that, the heat was murderous and we skipped ahead to dessert with a 100% natural popsicle from a lady on a bicycle pulling her icebox. Her company is called Pops Art. We got the mango-strawberry flavour and it was delicious and refreshing but there are many other flavors as well.

The flavors on the cars read one with another strawberry combo, I think its banana. And theres one with lime and another with honeydew melon.

This was our little refresher while waiting for Taverne Gaspar’s Ribs-Dog to be ready.

Look at that little deliciousness. It was good for sure. I opted out of the cheese on top because of dairy allergies as usual. Its a cool idea. I love ribs so it worked well for my taste.

I feel like the rest of my friends got some food that I didn’t take pictures of. Heat makes me lazy and tired. We eventually sat down by the waterfront near the clock tower and a cute little event called the Waiter Race started.

Three restaurants participated in this relay race of sorts. Each waiter in the team had to run through certain obstacles like up a short flight of stairs and then hopscoth and dig through through a cup of objects and pull out the penny.

After this event, we found a Le Lemon booth which was pretty much pure unsweetened lemonade.

After that, my friend got a dessert after a short walk. Its a lemon coconut tart.

We ended up taking a walk around Old Montreal afterwards: Bonsecours Market, St. Paul Street and eventually ended up at a Starbucks to hydrate and rest before grabbing a dinner beforw heading home.

Before we end this post, here is a lovely shot of Old Montreal and the Clock Tower by the waterfront.

Delicious food, great company, lovely weather and a fantastic sunburn and a lot of quality time with aloe lotion was all worth it and awesome. Next year, I’m going to try to make it to the Rib Fest.

Don’t fret though! I have a few events and festivals I plan on checking out before the end of the year: food and wine!!