The Curious Lark: Montreal!

Hello everyone!

This is like... 2 months late, but you know, time is a very rare commodity around here haha
However, when you don't have a violin to practice (left the baby overnight at the violin hospital for a new soundpost!), I'm finding that I have a lot of time! =D

Anyway, a few of our friends are headed off to Montreal soon, and I thought it would be fun to share a few places we loved during our trip there in February. It was our first time in Montreal, and it was really fun to walk around this beautiful city in some really gorgeous weather!

It was a very short trip--only 2 nights and 3 days--but we tried to fit in as many things (into our bellies) as possible ;)

The very first night, we arrived at our cute Airbnb, and went in search of some dinner. It was kind of late, so instead of driving somewhere, we parked our car at our place and decided to walk around our neighborhood without really looking up anything beforehand. Looking back, it might not have been the safest idea, but thankfully our neighborhood was very safe, and we really lucked out and stumbled upon this amazing French restaurant called Bistro Sur La Riviere!

Everyone told us that people would speak French and English in Montreal, but let us tell you, they do not all speak English. The waitress here spoke absolutely no English, but we (including the waitress) were master gesturers, so we were able to figure out what to order haha. It was actually a very charming experience, and I think it was my favorite of the trip! To be completely honest, we didn't quite know what we actually ordered, so it was a happy surprise when our food came and it turned out to be delicious! =D

Looking back, I think we literally only ate in Montreal... haha The only activity we did that didn't involve food (other than walking around the city in search of food) was visiting the Museum of Fine Arts, which is free for people under 30!

Anyway, let's get back to the food... because you know, I want this post to be representative of our time there ;)

We were told that Montreal bagels are a must, so we knew that we had to try them for breakfast. Also, Z is a big lover of anything bread related, so this was definitely on our list of things to try ;) When we were doing our research, we found that there were two different shops both claiming to be the best, so we used our two mornings there to try them both!

First stop, St-Viateur Bagel.

They have a wood burning oven right there in the shop, and you can just pick out your favorite freshly baked and steaming bagels as soon as they dump them out into the crates in front of the oven!

These bagels were amazing. Just the right amount of scorched, with a ton of flavor! I mean, have you seen two people more excited about bagels? haha We would highly recommend the 'everything' bagel!

The next day, we visited the Fairmount Bagel.

This was good too,,, but we liked the taste of the 'everything' bagel at St. Viateur Bagel better =)

For lunch, we visited Rotisserie Romados for some Portuguese rotisserie chicken!

The fries were ok, but the chicken with the spicy sauce was so. delicious! The spicy sauce is very flavorful, and not too spicy, and half of a chicken was more than enough food for the two of us.

Also, you can't miss this place because there is this giant mural right next to it ;)

On our last day in Montreal, we decided that a sandwich to-go would be the easiest form of sustenance for our road trip back, so we stopped by Schwartz's Deli. It's literally just smoked meat on some bread, but it's the best smoked meat on bread that we have ever tried! The plan of taking it to-go for the trip quickly went out the window, and we just gulped it down right then and there haha

Another thing we wanted to take on the road was some coffee and pastries, so we visited Patisserie Au Kouign Amann.

We didn't succeed in getting the food out the door of the establishment yet again, but we enjoyed sitting by the window of this cute little shop and eating these delicious pastries. I forget what I got, but it was amazing (it's the bottom of the two), and Z got some quiche, which he enjoyed as well. =)

While we were walking around, we also hopped in and out of a few coffee shops and dessert places, but the thing about blogging 2 months after the trip is that I don't remember what any of them were called haha.