Reservoir (9, avenue Duluth Est): Reservoir is a thing of beauty: all gorgeous rustic wood and big, sunny windows looking onto Duluth. Most people come here for the microbrewed beer, but Reservoir also serves these amazingly gourmet brunches. For instance, their take on the classic bacon and eggs is sophisticated: perfectly fried eggs with lurid, bright yellow yolks paired with thick slices of smoked lard. Smoked lard has a pillowy fatness to it that can be a bit much for people, so be prepared. I’ve had a nice thick stack of pancakes topped in a banana caramel sauce here once, and freshly baked brioche another time. It’s spendier than most brunch places, so you probably won’t be coming every weekend, but it’s perfect for those mornings where you’re feeling a little indulgent.

A Reservoir meal:



Don’t be fooled by the photos – the portions make look small, but the food rich.

It’s sugaring off season in Quebec and after a scoop of tire à l'érable ice cream from Bilboquet earlier in the week, Andrew and I had maple syrup on the brain. We woke up late on Saturday morning and decided that the best way to kick off the weekend would be a traditional cabane à sucre lunch. We did a little bit of Internet research to avoid a place teeming with bus loads of people, that wasn’t too expensive (because face it, whether the meal is $15 or $25, we knew we were going to feel ill by the end), that wasn’t too close, but wasn’t too far. So, Erablière La Tradition in the Lanaudière region it was.

A traditional cabane à sucre meal is not for the faint of heart. Especially the vegetarian faint of heart. We settled into one of the long benches and started tucking into the food.



Soft rolls spread with cretons (let the pork begin!). Packaged rolls are kind of gross, but occasionally we get cravings for them.


The only flash of colour in the meal came from the pickled stuffs.


The lightest course: pea soup and coleslaw.


Pork rinds, fèves au lard and whole roasted potatoes. Despite my love of fried, horrible foods, pork rinds are just a little too much for me. Andrew happily chowed down, though.



More pork! Oddly mushy and unattractive sausages that I strangely enjoyed, especially drizzled in syrup, ham, and eggs.


Just in case you're still craving pork, a nice porcine stew.

And don't forget desert! Fried dough with maple syrup and maple tarts (the tarts not pictured).


When we left they were just preparing the tire sur la neige, which we ate despite full bellies.


With all that food in our systems we were ready for a day of chopping wood or heavy farm work, but instead we drove back to Montreal and napped until it got dark. Whoops!

Maam Bolduc (4351, avenue de Lorimier): It's nice to have a decent place for brunch down the street the morning after a major snowstorm.

I've been to Maam Bolduc's too many times to count in the past two years, initially lured by the promise of Best Poutine Ever. Unfortunately, I don't think this place holds the title, but for lazy Sunday morning brunches when the last thing you want to do is dig out your car, it's perfect. The food here is basic diner style - not amazing, but cheap and it hits the spot. Plus, the waitresses are always sweet, the decor is that comfy-trippy Plateau style, and in the summer you can sit outside if you're lucky.

Dusty's (4510 Avenue du Parc): It's no secret that I've been spending more time at home cooking, even more now that my kitchen is equipped with a beautiful silvery Kitchen-Aid mixer and a life-saving Cuisinart food processor (/end brand name dropping). As a result, I just don't go out as much to eat, breakfasts included. And recently, when I want breakfast out, I want something I can't make at home. I want grease. Dusty's is a diner at the corner of Mont Royal and Parc, with booths and greasy food galore. The other day someone found my site with the following keywords "Montreal waitresses attractive or sexy or hot". Not sure if they found what they were looking for, but hey, the waitresses at Dusty's are definitely cute and friendly.

La Boîte Gourmande (445, avenue Laurier Est): This new breakfast joint near the Laurier metro was still a bit empty when me and my girlfriends paid it a visit one Saturday morning, but the people working were sweet and let us sit there and chat for a good two hours, long after our food had gone cold and as the place slowly filled up.


The restaurant is bright and sunny, with wooden tables and church pew seating. I had a lovely melty Oka cheese, apple and walnut sandwich, and the regular bacon and eggs were good too. The yogurt came with a pumpkin compote and the coffee was yummy.


The aftermath

They also sell frozen meals that might come in handy if you live in the area and pass by on your way to the metro. There was something virtuous about this place.

Dame Tartine (1652, rue Ontario Est): I live a short walk away from a long stretch of tattoo parlours, piercing places, a big Portuguese Catholic church, a hydroponics supply store, thrift shops, laundry mats and seedy bars. Oh, Ontario Street! Foodwise there is not much to choose from this side east of Papineau – mostly a disappointing flurry of Lafleur’s or shady looking pizza parlours – but there are options, like the decent Mexican restaurant (La Guadeloupe, 2345, rue Ontario E) and one of my favourite French bistros, especially on snowy Montreal nights when we don’t want to attempt digging the car out of a snowdrift (Au Petit Extra, 1690, rue Ontario Est). One recent Saturday morning, looking for a quick breakfast and wanting to stick close to home, we ended up at the charmingly named Dame Tartine with its cutesy cartoon rendering of the dame herself on the sign and poem on the back of the menu with pertinent details of her life, starting with her home (a castle made of butter). The place was big enough that we got a table right away, but what was supposed to be a quick breakfast ended up an hour and a half affair, waiting endlessly for our meals, and finally just paying up at the counter instead of waiting even longer for the bill. But okay, I generally enjoy drawn out meals, and even though we were on a schedule, we were flexible. If the breakfast tasted good, I wouldn’t mind as much. But… I wasn’t particularly impressed. I was excited by the prospect of my French toast breakfast sandwich (Two pieces of French toast sandwiching a fried egg, tomatoes and ham) – what a high calorie, eggy, but awesome combination! When it came down to it, I would’ve rather just had a regular breakfast sandwich and forsaken the extra eggs and syrup (More on syrup below..). Andrew had the self-titled Dame Tartine eggs benedictish concoction, and it was similarly uninspired. I might give the place another chance on a snowy winter morning but for now I’m neutral on the whole thing.

The Maple Syrup dilemma: Say you order crepes or French toast, you just assume you’re going to get syrup with it, right? Obviously. But what about when you’re asked if you want either the regular (I guess "fake") maple syrup or the fancy REAL maple syrup? Do you spend that extra $1.25 to get a small paper cup of the real stuff? And if you do (because REAL maple syrup just sounds and tastes better), do you feel resentful at having to pay that extra dollar? Even if it’s just $1.25 and you should get over it already? Because admittedly, I am. I don’t expect free, real maple syrup at the diner around the corner, or in Texas, or in London, England, but I don’t think it’s much to ask for from a place that specializes in breakfast, especially in Quebec, where over 75% of the world’s supply of maple syrup is produced and where you can easily buy a $5 can of the good stuff at the grocery store down the street. I wholly support paying premiums for good, hard-to-get food, but sometimes it doesn’t seem reasonable.

La Croissanterie (5200, rue Hutchison): We are hanging onto the last threads of summer and I'm not quite ready to let it go, so when a summerish opportunity presents itself I will take advantage of it, especially when it comes to outdoor dining. A breakfast on a shady terrace, a cup of good coffee (or an allongé, preferably), a good dining mate, and a newspaper = a pretty perfect Indian summer morning.

La Croissanterie is a cute little breakfast place, maybe a little packed with chi-chi Outremont types, but the people who work there are always super friendly and anyway, it's never bothered me because yes, chi-chi Outremont types are people too, and I like all people, etc. I digress. I like the egg and cheese croissant sandwiches, but you can also get croque-monsieurs or other types of sandwiches. For wintertime reference the insides are just as charming, all pressed tin roofs and wrought-iron, but like with most things, I prefer it in the summer.

L’Anecdote (801, rue Rachel Est): It was a weekend of mediocre meals until we took the food situation into our own hands (why didn’t we buy a $25 charcoal grill from Rona earlier in the summer?), and while our breakfast at L’Anecdote was nothing to really complain about, there’s not much to write either. Regular diner fare (perhaps better for burgers later on in the day?), complete with cute red booths, friendly staff. Coke comes in little glass bottles. It gets some bonus points for being a walking distance away from our place, not far from Parc Lafontaine, but I’m on the lookout for more adventurous breakfast places these days.

Café Joe (3068 St-Antoine E.): I spent this long weekend morning having breakfast with 3 people who spend a good deal of time thinking about drains, exploring drains, taking pictures of drains (one of them being my boyfreind). And yes, by "drains" I mean those mysterious tubes of piping that criss-cross the underbelly of the city carrying our sewage, our hormone-addled refuse and our storm water out into the great blue yonder. Despite what you may think, there is less stomping through shit than you may imagine. Regardless, it makes for interesting breakfast-time conversation.

I’ve resigned myself to being the screechy-voiced person who constantly stammers, "Isn’t that dangerous?!", but I’m (secretly?) charmed by it. And we had plenty of time to discuss drains, plus a million other topics, as we waited for our breakfast at Café Joe. It’s a cute place, that kind of sunny, Formica, rag-tag melange that is easier to find in Montreal than most Canadian cities. Danielle, a Francophone who knows her breakfast places, calls it "Anglophone hippie" because it’s hard to find a Francophone place like this these days, even though I associate the Montreal hippie aesthetic with Francophones. Anyway. It was one of the topics we discussed. The point being that we. Waited. So. Long. For. Our. Breakfast. Granted, it was a holiday and they had staffed only for a weekday, but seriously? 20 minutes for our coffees? Add another half hour for an allongé plus our breakfasts which came maybe an hour later. Granted, the food was enjoyable (above average diner fare), and I would possibly go again if I knew the wait wouldn’t be so long. When we were finally finished, they dropped me off at the nearby Atwater Market so that they could do their exploring, and I bought fingerling potatoes, fennel, fiddleheads and the fixings for a Cola Cake.

In the time it took for us to wait for our breakfast, I could’ve baked this cake. The recipe is from "Two for the Road" by Jane and Michael Stern, which I read (devoured, actually) on my train trip back to Montreal last night (thank you to Emily for the recommendation!). Should I feel guilty that I’m excited about eating a slice of this for breakfast tomorrow morning while I wait for the bus on my way to work, which will hopefully be running despite the Montreal Metro strike? I’m leaning towards "yes".

Cola Cake with Broiled Peanut Butter Frosting
Jane and Michael Stern

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
16 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa [I only had uh, Quick at home, and it was fine – I just cut down on a little bit of the sugar]
1 cup Cola with fizz [they list Pepsi, but I used Coca-Cola because I am a Coke kind of person]
½ cup buttermilk [I substituted ½ tablespoon of lemon juice + enough milk to make a half cup]
2 large eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup miniature marshmallows
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a baking pan.
Combine the flour and sugar in a bowl.
In another bowl combine the melted butter, Coke and cocoa and pour into the flour and sugar.
Sir until well blended.
Add the buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, vanilla.
Stir in the marshmallows.
Pour into the pan and bake for 40 minutes.

For the peanut butter frosting, cream together 6 tablespoons of butter, 1 cup brown sugar, 2/3 cups of smooth peanut butter and a ¼ cup milk. They also call for 2/3 chopped salted peanuts, but I didn’t have any, so I added a dash of salt. When the cake has cooled a little, slather the icing on top, and then broil for a few seconds until the frosting starts to bubble. Remove and cool completely.
The cake is moist and sweet and the marshmallows melt into a cloud-like consistency, impossible to discern from the cake.

And, if you want to learn about drains, or at least see beautiful pictures of them and other abandoned locations:

Andrew: http://worksongs.com
Danielle: http://www.uer.ca/~nel58/photos/
Michael: http://vanishingpoint.ca/

Bilboquet (1311 rue Bernard ouest): I guess it's a good thing I'm living with someone because otherwise I eat everything at the wrong time. When left to my own devices, I have the automatic impulse to make scrambled eggs for dinner (the perfect oatmeal-textured kind, constantly stirred in a small pot with too much butter) and, then I find myself eating ice cream for breakfast. But when I walked by Bilboquet on a sunny Saturday morning, how could I resist? Lesley has told me many times how delicious it is, and homemade artisanal ice cream can't be that bad for you, can it? A cornet simple of bric a brac (creamy vanilla and chocolate chips) was the perfect way to kick-off a pre-summer weekend.

Bagel Etc (4320, boulevard Saint-Laurent): One of my more charming breakfast experiences from the past winter was this one snowy Sunday morning - Andrew and I had decided to have breakfast together before heading in separate directions. The snow was really starting to stick and most people were smart and stayed at home, but we braved the outdoors anyway (i.e. the only way to survive the winter in Montreal). Once at the restaurant we were told that while Bagel Etc was still serving breakfast, their electricity was cut for some maintenance work on the street and the menu would be limited to whatever they could cook on their gas stove. The restaurant was dim, but remarkably busy for a place that greeted its customers with the fact that they had zero electricity and that there would be no coffee refills because it took too long to brew without regular power, so we just stomped the snow off our boots and sat down. I could still order what I wanted (some kind of poached egg-y kind of thing, or maybe it was the omelette that comes with bananas and raisins) and I still got a good toasted bagel and that one cup of coffee was just what I needed.

Nouveau Canada Chien Chaud (2200, rue Beaubien E.): I've been living in Montreal for a few months now, and Nouveau Canada is the kind diner you can find in any neighbourhood - the one with an ugly sign and the ubiquitous "chien chauds...spaghetti...sous marins" tagline that makes you wonder who are all these people that actually order spaghetti at a diner. I've been to a few of these already (off the top of my head, Bonne Bouffe Souvlaki at 2301 Rue Ontario E, which is technically a Greek place, but they also sell a $4.25 breakfast and plates of spaghetti). This type of diner makes for an okay/mediocre breakfast. There's always a table available, the food comes quick, and it's cheap. But not very fulfilling.

I had higher expectations for Nouveau Canada based on a blurb I read in this month's issue of En Route Magazine, the Air Canada monthly. There was a feature on "Canada's Next Great Neighbourhoods", and for Montreal they focused on Beaubien street. These articles need to be taken with a big chunk of salt, but I'm always up for a new diner recommendation, so on Saturday morning (or, early afternoon since we slept in) we went up to Beaubien to check it out. There were at least 2 old ladies in fancy hats, a group of men that ordered 3 steamies each, and an older couple beside us who got an order of fries and 2 coffees. I like that kind of thing. Ate 2 eggs over-easy (requested over-medium, but they were pretty yolky), greasy sausages and home fries. Andrew got his with bacon and regular fries, which was better. There were some actual orange and banana slices on the plate, which I don't expect from a diner like this.

Overall, not great, not bad, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you were in the neighbourhood.

La Belle Province: No, this entry is not about the chain restaurant of the same name, which I have surprisingly (?) not yet visited, but more of a hello again! I think it's time to revive the breakfast blog. I've been to a handful of places since moving to Montreal in September, and I need to start taking notes again. Stay tuned.

I also eat elsewhere: In Niagara Falls it's practically impossible to avoid chain eateries. The night before, for dinner, we walked all over the city trying to find something independent, but found only tattoo parlours and seedy bars. Fun, yes, but not what we were after. We fared a little better at breakfast, and decided to eat at Niagara Falls' famous German restaurant, The Happy Wanderer (6405 Stanley Ave). The restaurant is small, and packed with German folkart, including incredible wooden chandaliers dangling from the ceilings. Jungle-like growth creeps across the walls at the entrance. The waitresses all wear traditional German dress. Awesome. So far it seemed promising. I ordered apple cinnamon pancakes, and they were ok, just a little blah, with big slices of apples cooked in. The biggest disapointment were the potato pancakes which, in print, seemed heavenly. In practice they were greasy and had the oddest consistency: they looked crispy, but were chewy, gelatinous - as if the potatoes had been soaked in water too long before frying. We should've just ordered the $3.99 breakfast special.

This past weekend, I was in Montreal where I had two satisfying egg breakfasts, first at The Toasteur (1310, avenue Laurier Est) and then at Shed Cafe (3515 St Laurent). Shed Cafe has a bit of an edge because I got poached eggs with ham and this interesting maple sauce instead of hollandaise, and I ordered a special blueberry/rasberry juice to wash it down. While I stuck to eggs, Caro had pancakes. At Le Toasteur, nutella and bananas, and at Shed Cafe they came with a generous portion of pecans. And the portion was huge. I am getting excited at the thought of trying out more Montreal breakfast places.