Back to US soil!

Good trip!

Food is a little more expensive than what I have expected, because of the heavy tax (~15%) and the weak US dollar. The simple/comfort food is better than the contemporary french food that I have tried.Museums are of high quality, but not great. Fine art museum is in my opinion at the same standard as the Metropolitan in NYC. History museum is well maintain and explained, but Canada has an even shorter history than US...

Nightlife is great and the fashion shopping is very cool.People care about how they are dressed more than people in the Bay area.

Winter is definitely not the best time to go since a lot of attractions are closed or have limited hours. One week is enough time for both Montreal and Quebec City, especially in summer where the museums are open Monday.

Le Plateau, St Helen's Island, Old Montreal, Underground City

Head out at 9am to Fairmount bagels. Supposed to be one of 2 best bagel place in town, the bagel is less chewy than the ones in US. Good, but not great. I have a chocolate chip and a olive bagel.

From Fairmont bagel, I walk along St Denis and St Laurent to do a little shopping. Montreal people do dress very nicely and the stores here are more independent shops. Most clothing here are very fashionable, but being winter, not suitable for California weather:(


From St Denis, I took the metro to Island St Helen.This is the site of the 1967 expo. The highlight is the Biosphere, a Buckminister Fuller designed geoisdic dome.

The exhibits are on protecting the environment, targeted towards young children, but is quite fun even to me. The observation deck has great view of Montreal downtown.

From the Biosphere, I walk over to Steward museum. Again there are old montreal collection which I indifferent to at this point and another collection of old scientific instrument which I enjoyed very much.

I went back to Old Montreal to do a little souvenir shopping. My hunger got the better of me and I stopped at Restaurant S in Hotel Le Saint-Sulpice for dinner.

I started with the Venison tartare. Raw venison topped with microgreen and edible flower. The meat is not too seasoned, a little cold, but not unpleasant. Quite enjoyable when eaten with the balsamic vinegar dotted on the plate. For the main course, I ordered Canadian Lingcod. Quite good, but nothing special. Dessert was a molten chocolate cake. Not too sweet, again good but not special.

After dinner, I went shopping along Rue St Catherine. This is the famous underground city with many malls joint together. Shopping is more high end and less funky than Rue St. Deins and St Laurent, more like Macys/Bloomingdale class.

Had an early night since my flight for CA is at 8:30am the next day.

Old Montreal, Museum of Fine Arts, Au Pied De Cochon

Started at about 9am and went to Old Montreal to have breakfast at the famous Olive and Gourmando cafe.Ordered a small cafe au lait with croissant. The croissant is very fresh, flaky on the outside, soft on the inside, with glazed almond sugar. Not too sweet,very good.

From the cafe, it is off to Pointe-à-Callière. This museum is very cool. It sits on the site of the first house in Montreal. The site has been excavated and the excavation site turned into a museum. One can see how the site has changed during different times in Montreal's history. A beautiful modern clock tower isbuild over the museum with good view of Montreal's skyline.

From Pointe-à-Callière, it is off to Basilique Notre-Dame, the biggest church in Montreal. Celine Dion is married there and the former Prime Minister is buried there. The church is very grand. Took the tour and take some pictures. Then it is off to Chateau Ramezay Museum.

The Museum used to be finest house of Old Montreal,the Governor's Mansion. There are some exhibit on the lifestyle of old Montreal people, but I find the exhibit of crime and punishment in old Montreal more interesting.

From Chateau Ramezay, its off to McCord museum of Canadian history. The museum has a collection showing life of people of Montreal from the 1900's. It shows old winter clothing and toys. There was also a Inuit tapestry exhibit which is quite good.

Final museum stop for the day is the Museum of Fine Arts of Montreal. The museum is open till 9pm from Wednesday to Friday, making this a really good day to visit.

This is the biggest of all the museum I visit. The collect is vast. There are the works of some big name artist like Piccaso, Monet and Miro being exhibited,but overall, I feel that each section is small. While the artist are famous, I think the work did not strike me as much as Museum of Fine Arts in Quebec or the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Dinner is at Au Pied de Cochon. This is the best new restaurant of 2002 according to Air Canada magazine. I have a pickled Venison tongue appetizer.The meat is extremely tender, the flavoring is a little like "white cloud pig hand", but not overpowering. It was best enjoyed with the mustard on the plate. For the main course, I have the Happy Feet Pork Chop. A decent size pork chop is grilled and topped with sauerkraut, sauteed onions and mushroom,served with pan juices. The dish is heated in a wood burning oven to give the onions and mushroom some texture. Simple but good. I enjoyed the meal with a St Ambrose Pale Ale. I tried the maple syrup bread pudding for dessert. The dish is simple but way too sweet.

Old Quebec, Battlefield Park, Musuem of Fine Art

Started the day at Chataeu Frontenac to walk the Terrasse Dufferin, a terrace along the cliff face fora great view of the Saint Lawrence river. Unfortunately, stretches of the terrace is closed in winter.
Took the Funicular(ie cable car) from Chataeu Frontenac down to the Le Petit Champlain, instead of walking the breakneck stairs. Took pictures of a mural showing people important to Quebec's history. Quebec is celebrating its 400 years birthday in 2008 and the city is filled with murals.

Walk quickly through Rue St Paul and up the hill to see Artillery Park (which is close for winter). Then took pictures of the murals outside North America's oldest hospital (Hôtel-Dieu de Québec).

From the hospital, I walked to the Battle Field Park. It is at this spot the British troops surprised the French troops in its successful siege of Quebec city. The British troops had to scale a really steep cliff.

The park's Discovery Pavilion has a cool hologram show and a very nice exhibit of the outfit of the soldiers involved in the battle.

After a quick lunch at Ave Cartier, it was on to the Museum of Fine Art at Quebec. The collection emphasis is on artist of Quebec origin, from neo-classical to impressionist to modern. This collection is very good, even though I am not familiar with most of the artist. There is also a wonderful section in Inuit art.

I return to the hotel to collect my luggage and headed back to Montreal that night.

Old Quebec city

Wake up at 8am, went to Parliament to join the tour. I was the only visitor and have a personal tour at 9am.

From the Parliament, I went to the citadel at 10am but found out there was no changing of the guards in winter:( The only tour is at 1:30pm and otherwise I was not allowed to roam around. I took some pictures and went on the walking tour suggested by my guidebook.

First stop is at the Ursuline convent, but again it has limited hours in Winter. No luck:(

Walk further to city hall and took some pictures. According to the tour guide last night, this is the only building that has both its French and English name written on the main entrance.

This is because the french name is Hotel de Ville and tourist keep going inside to ask for a room:) The mayor got upset and decided to add the English name!

Next stop: the Museum of French America. The museum is free on Tuesday! It features a pretty good collection of early Quebec settlement relics, old scientific instrument used for studying science and a section of prominent french Canadian (besides Celine Dion:).

Stopped for a quick lunch, then it is off to the main attraction: "Chateau Frontenac". This is the beautiful landmark hotel that can be seen around the old city with stone wall and a green copper roof. Built by the Canadian Pacific Railway company, it is now managed by Fairmont.

I went to the wine shop, SAQ Signature in the hotel and bought a bottle of maple syrup wine, the local specialty.

Then it is down the Break Neck stairs to Le Petit Champlain. Break Neck stair is quite steep and so named because sailors would get drunk on shore leaves and break their neck on their way back to their ship.

Le Petit Champlain is the oldest shopping street in North America. In summer, it is supposed to be beautiful, but in winter look rather deserted. There was a place showing live glass blowing which is quite cool. I stayed there for a while, looking at glassblowing.

From Le-Petit Champlain, I took the Ferry across the Saint Lawrence river to Levi and take pictures of the Quebec skyline, then return just in time to visit the Museum of Civilization.

The museum has a good exhibit on the history of Quebec and Canada in general. I went to the Tin-Tin exhibit, but miss the exhibit on First Nation(ie the Native Canadian).

Dinner is at a contemporary french place call Le Paris Brest. I have the table d horte (ie Pri-fix menu). Ordered the leek tarlet with brie, beef consumme soup,braised bison with pasta and a chocolate mousse cake. Quite good, but not outstanding. Service is not consistent.

Arrive at Quebec City

Most museums in Quebec are close on Monday during the winter months. I have a simple breakfast in the hotel cafe and took the bus to Quebec city. Again,most museums there are closed. I walked along Grand Allee to a shopping part of town call Ave Cartier.This is slightly out of the tourist region and the shopping is more for local and day to day use. More Target than Macy's. Grab a quick dinner of poutine(french fries with gravy and cheese curd, taste pretty good, but bad for your arteries) at Chez Ashton and then went back to the hotel.


The hotel was offering a free evening tour of old Quebec. After the tour, I went to a local bar and tried the ice cider. The cider is alcoholic, a little tart with a hint of sweetness. I enjoyed it very much.

Went to sleep early because of the long day ahead.

Olympic Stadium, Museum of Contemporary Art

Woke up late at 10am. Walked to the Peel metro station and took the train to the Olympic Stadium.This is the site of the Olympic in 1976. The main feature is the leaning Montreal tower. The entire stadium/tower looked a little run down, but futuristic even after all these years.

My first stop is the Biodome, which is essentially an indoor zoo. Being indoors, the size is quite smaller compare to some of the other zoo. The highlight is the penguin display. With "Happy Feet" and "March of the Penguins", it is hard not to enjoy that exhibit.

From the Biodome, I took a 10 mins walk to the Insectarium. After finding out there is no insect tasting this year, I decided not to visit the exhibit. Instead, I decided to tour the Jardin Bontanical Garden. However, given it is winter, there was not much to see. I return to take the cable car up to Montreal tower. The day was fairly clear, so the view is quite good.

I left the Olympic stadium area and went to L'express for lunch. Highly recommended old style french bistro.

I ordered a blood sausage lunch special with piped mash potatoes and apple gravy. The mash potatoes and gravy is simple and delicious, but the sausage taste too"gamey" for me. There is another dish which I want to try--bone marrow with coarse salt. Oh well...another trip.

From L'express, it was a quick metro ride to the Museum of Contemporary Art. This museum is quite small, but I did enjoy the collection. Most of the artist are from Quebec, so I am not familiar with the artists, but the photos and paintings are interesting.

The museum closed at 5pm and I walked along Rue St Catherine a little more, this time on the French side of town. This stretch of Rue St Catherine is a little more run down.

Dinner was at Schwartz's deli, a Montreal institution. The place looks like a page out of the 60's. The wait staff wore white t-shirt and apron. The specialty is the smoke meat sandwich with mustard, washed down with cherry soda. The meat is rubbed with pepper and smoked, then slice thinly and piled high between bread.The meat is quite tender, though not melt in your mouth soft and still has some texture. For smoked food,it was not too salty. I have a side order of cole slaw and it was just pickled cabbage and carrot without mayo. I think the cole slaw is quite special (I have not seen too many cole slaw without mayo). The smoke meat sandwich was good, but I in my opinion, not enough to make this place an institution.

I went to Up-stairs, a fairly famous jazz pub to round out the night. Frankly, the band is not very good and I was quite disappointed.

Arrive at Montreal

Arrive at Montreal at 7:40pm. From the airport, I took the airport shuttle to my hotel, located in the English part of town. From chowhound, I had seen recommendation for Le Commensal, a vegetarian buffet place about 6 blocks from my hotel, and decided to have dinner there.

I reached the restaurant at about 9:40pm and they close at 10pm, so I have to load up on the plates. The salads are very fresh, the vinegratte tard and not too oily,the soup taste earthy. Overall I really enjoy the meal!

From the restaurant, I walked along Rue St Catherine for a little window shopping (most shops are close at this time), then saw that they are showing the USC/Cal game in Sir Winston Churchill pub.

I went in for a beer to watch the game and check for Ohio State-Michigan scores. The pub turned into a dance club at night. I hang around dancing with cute French Canadian co-ed until 2am before going back to the hotel to sleep.