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!!

Pinterest Spring/Summer Inspirations!

Its been forever since I’ve shared some fantastic Pinterest stuff! Mostly because while pinning is super fun and therapeutical, putting together the posts can be tiring.  Just deciding what to do takes so much time that it becomes less therapeutical than it actually is even if I love putting those posts up.  However, maybe this is what Pinterest is going to be: Therapy or Inspirations! Spring is pretty much almost over and hints of Summer is landing in Montreal.  The last few days have been hot and humid and I love it! 🙂

This also means spring cleaning and garden/outdoors stuff needs to be taken care of! I have some rhubarb to harvest and maybe make some nice drinks.  The heat also means that I kick in a much healthier lifestyle.  Lots of things that I seek out Pinterest for! Lets look at some of my faves and ones I hope to pursue if not now, eventually!

The Anatomy of Sangria

Hot summer days calls out to me in the form of Sangria. I don’t drink a lot in general but a great sangria is so hard to resist. This infographic breaks it down in an interesting way and peaks some new ways to use different ingredients next time.  For the record, I’ve recently realized that I’m intolerant or maybe allergic to red wine so any sangria’s now have to be with white or rose wine. I have also done a autumn sangria with brandy and that turned out pretty good.

Popsicles

I’ve tried out a few popsicle recipes before and I’m not really good at it but its something I’m trying to learn to do better. This one looks delicious.  They are called Fruit Salad Ice Pops.  I love fruits and especially fruit salads and wrapped up in a popsicle. Yummy!  I’m already thinking of what fruits to get to make it and wondering where those popsicle molds are.

Infused Water Combinations

Last year I started getting into infused water. I like cold drinks and water is super healthy so I’ve tried something with blueberry and basil before if I remember correctly.  This summer, I want to keep with the healthy stuff and try some other ones.  These ones are pretty neat especially detox and weight/sugar control and metabolism booster. I guess everything but the lower blood pressure one looks like choices I want to try out.

Watermelon Strawberry Sorbet

For those of you who are new here, I’m lactose intolerant or at least it seems to be in an extreme phase again.  Its really built a love and appreciation for Sorbets in my life. I’ve been wanting to try to make sorbet for a while and if these recipes say its easy, I’ll believe it! Its one of my goals this summer to give it a try.  This combination particularly looks great. I love strawberries and watermelons and yet, no one really pairs these two together. I wonder what it’ll taste like.

Liquid Sunshine

I know, its a lot of alcoholic beverages here! In general, there’s a lot of drinks. Thing is, I was going to do a cruise dedicated post after my cruise recap last year and I forgot about it. I flat out forgot. That’s just how I am. A year after, I remembered and was thinking maybe this year, I’ll start a little drinks segment to experiment different recipes.  I don’t mean alcoholic cocktails, even if they are resistible, I don’t usually drink that much but even for like lemonades or infused waters and other healthy stuff. I think its well worth a shot! 🙂

That’s it for this Pinterest Inspirations!
Originally, it had a ton of other stuff for the garden and whatnot, but I just wanted to keep this fun and short! 🙂 

Let me leave you with this lovely quote!

Happy Friday! 🙂