Welcome to

For our anniverary, my husband and I visited the delightful city of Montreal.  We’d been there before, mainly to spend time at the city’s incomparable international jazz festival, held every summer, usually spanning the last week of June and the first week of July.  The weather is glorious in Montreal at this time of year which means for foodies like us, that the gorgeous produce of Quebec is beginning to flow into the cities, ending up in our grateful mouths.

While I could go on and on about the good time we had (the music, the rockin’ Asian cuisine we scarfed on the fly, the hotel’s rooftop pool), I simply must take this opportunity to endorse one of the best restaurants we’ve ever visited…Au Pied de Cochon.  If you don’t understand French, this literally means “at the foot of the pig,” thus the title of this blog.  We’ve been twice, and each time we enjoyed meals that nearly rendered us comatose with the pleasure of them.  (The first time we dined here I ordered the roasted pig’s foot, the menu’s crown and glory.  It was prepared in a wood-fired oven, tender and deeply flavored, sauced with a gravy of port and wild mushrooms.)

Au Pied de Cochon is not for the faint-hearted.  There are no watercress sandwiches here,  no chicken fingers or peanut butter for children, nothing for the fussy eater of any age.  In order to enjoy this restaurant, you must be prepared to face a menu of offal, game meats, and bizarre sea creatures.  You must be prepared to be served extremely large portions of the aforementioned.  In short, you must be very hungry and open-minded.   And despite the hefty price-tag, this place is casual, noisy, packed every night of the week, and an absolute hill of fun.

The first time we ate here a few summers ago, we, in our ignorance, ordered the cold seafood platter as an appetizer to share.  Our waiter mentioned that it was large, but he neglected to tell us that it involved half a lobster, and at least two dozen other pieces of shellfish, including some delightful sea snails whose shelled were packed with local butter and herbs.  Also included were langoustines, whole crabs, raw oysters…you name it.  But we learned our lesson from that, and on this past visit, we both ordered salads as first courses.  Salad, my foot.  I mean, pig’s foot.

My salad was the highlight of my meal, I think the best thing I’ve eaten all year.  It was a large plate of five or six varieties of wild, edible greenery with the barest hint of mustard-y vinaigrette.  But here’s the kicker…the salad was topped with a seared pigeon liver and a perfectly poached egg.  The mere thought of this dish is making me swoon, because it was SO CLEAR that the ingredients had been expertly, lovingly chosen and prepared.

My second course, was bison steak-frites, which was really super-delicious…the fries were served in a sundae glass lined in a brown paper cone the size of a dunce cap and they had been cooked to golden-brown perfection in DUCK FAT!

My handsome husband Joe’s second course, though, this was a true spectacle of mouth-watering delight, the stuff of culinary legend, a dinner story that we’ll be telling people for years to come…Duck in a Can.  That’s exactly what it says on the menu (well, Conserve de Canard, but you get it), and that’s exactly what you get.  A whole half a duck is wiggled into an aluminum can with foie gras, herbs, demi-glace, salt, garlic, and the barest whiff of balsamic vinegar.  The whole thing is cooked under pressure for who knows how long, and then the can is brought to your table closed, along with a plate of mashed potatoes and thick country bread.  Your server ceremoniously whips out an opener and proceeds to pour the contents of the can over the potatoes and bread, the fragrance of the whole plate rendering you giddy and moaning…like getting slapped in the face with something really good.

Go to Au Pied du Cochon if you are in Montreal.  Save up for two months if you have to.  It’ll cost you about $150 (two courses with wine and dessert) for two.  Just don’t forget to make reservations because it’s packed with locals every night of the week.