A Food Dilettante's Musings: Montreal in May Day 4

Friday, June 3, 2016

Montreal in May Day 4

I love staying at hotels with a full kitchen. Whenever I am vacationing in a city for longer than 2 days, I try my best to stay at these hotels. It saves some money and provides more flexibility in buying and cooking tantalizing food from local markets!

I spent day 4 in Montreal shopping for and cooking local foods.

For breakfast, we toasted bagels that I bought from the famous St. Viateur Bagels. We took bananas and cream cheese from the hotel's free breakfast buffet and heated up some slices of Chinese BBQ pork that we bought from Chinatown as our bacon substitute.

St. Viateur Bagels and Chinese BBQ Pork

After a satisfying breakfast, I went to the largest and one of the oldest public markets in Montreal, Marché Jean Talon.

Marché Jean Talon

Having frequented the Madison farmer's market on the Capitol Square, Jean Talon seems pretty small, but there were definitely some standout meats, cheeses, and produce!

Wonderfully sweet tomatoes!

Floral and sweet strawberries!

The cherry on top at the market was the awesome La Fromangerie Hamel. This is the ideal place for buying picnic supplies so I stocked up on cheese, crackers, and salami for a picnic the next day.

Super stinky cheese!

After a leisurely morning buying yummy groceries, Mike and I met up for a walk around the McGill University campus and coffee at the hipster Café Humble Lion. The campus is beautiful and the eclectic Redpath Natural History Museum was quite a fun place to visit!

McGill University

Redpath Museum

Maple latte, scone, and croissant at Café Humble Lion

Mike showing his love with croissant flakes

Back at the hotel, I inventoried all the market goodies and started to improvise in the kitchen with restaurant salt and pepper packets and a mini bottle of truffle oil.

Strawberries, wild mushrooms, tomatoes, rutabaga, spinach, Persian cucumbers, mangoes, marinated mixed mushrooms, cheeses, and artisan sausages

I boiled the rutabaga with the venison and wild boar sausages before searing the sausages on a pan to give it a crust and flavor the pan before sautéing the spinach and wild mushrooms in the same pan.