Pou­tine au foie gras at Au Pied de Cochon, Mon­tre­al, QC

Just got to Mon­tre­al with my bud­dy BigRich a day in advance of the F1 race fes­tiv­i­ties..   This city is tru­ly incred­i­ble, uber bike friend­ly and full of great restau­rants, pubs, and cof­fee shops, not to men­tion a pletho­ra of beau­ti­ful peo­ple.  Our first meal in town was at Au Pied de Cochon (The Pig’s Foot) and the whole expe­ri­ence was, in a word, stu­pen­dous.

(Veg­e­tar­i­ans beware, what you see next may be dis­turb­ing. But real­ly, this post isn’t for you any­way. For the rest of you, pre­pare to let your mouth water)

We start­ed with the Pou­tine au foie gras served with both white and dark gravy and prop­er Que­bec squeaky cheese curds.  We soaked up the gravy with a loaf of fresh­ly baked french bread and washed it down with a pint of PDC’s own beer.  Spec­tac­u­lar.

The two of us opt­ed for two of the sup­per spe­cials, PDC’s pork ribs and a white fish dish that I’d nev­er heard of but savored every bite of nonethe­less.. Each of the dish­es was por­tioned per­fect­ly, full of fla­vor, clear­ly pre­pared with care, and cooked to per­fec­tion..

The ser­vice, offered in French (and Eng­lish for this mono-lin­guis­tic hea­then) was atten­tive, friend­ly and puts any­thing I’ve encoun­tered in Cal­gary to shame..   When we arrived, the restu­rau­rnt was very warm (due to the 32 degree high tem­per­a­ture in the day­time). Staff were extreme­ly con­cerned with rec­ti­fy­ing this issue by turn­ing on the air con­di­tion­ing and when that failed, open­ing the patio doors to encour­age air­flow from the tree-lined street.

If you hadn’t guessed, I’d high­ly rec­om­mend Au Pied de Cochon if you’re out din­ing in Mon­tre­al!