SuperLuckyCat

My husband and I are having a weekend of decadent eating and drinking in Montreal in July (7th). I have seen references to markets or walking down Rue St. Laurent and eating everywhere. Are there any organized tours or cooking demonstrations with specialties like cheese or something? We're not looking for mass groups but a guide around some part of the city with a food orientation. We're just starting to plan where to eat and will check out that Gourmet and more of this forum. We're from Houston, Texas and love French food (I have been to Calgary a lot and thought the beef up there was awesome but unless it's a definate requirement at some place you guys recommend we probably won't go for steak places). Most of our vacations are centered around dinner reservations and meals that will dazzle us. Also, what about chef tables or other experiences not to be missed? Bonus points for a great hotel with a great bar in a neat neighborhood. Thanks so much.

You would have to take me at gunpoint to any LTs. Places like that make parents think that they can "turn off" and let the kids run wild but also the misspelling of words on the menu to sound like stereotyped Mexican-speak is shockingly offensive. The first time I was ever there I opened a menu and couldn't believe what I was reading!

I've been coming to LA weekly for a couple of months and staying in the 300 block downtown (the most dreadful Westin I have ever been in, but have since moved to the Omni which is super). Noe in the Omni is great (but what's up with all the mini frappes and froths in little shot glasses?) and I do have to say the room service menu here is stunning, not the originality or variety but the execution is delicious. Last night I had the best tortilla soup I have ever had and being from Houston, I eat a lot of it. It didn't have all the gunk that people feel they have to garnish it with, the soup was bright and red and correctly thickened by cooked corn tortilla that had been pureed. They even gave me the recipe. I eat room service more often that I care to admit because of work hours, and the room service here is head and shoulders above any other room service in any hotel I have ever stayed at in the US. Since I hate driving here and don't rent a car, I am only on foot or short cab rides. I have eaten a lot at Cuidad and Zucca. Almost every day I have take out from Organic to Go, specifically their dynamite soup and sandwiches. I crave their soup when I am not on the road. Zucca is good, loved their salute to pumpkin this fall. Cuidad is usually pretty good. I love the non-fried calamari dish sauteed with white beans and olives. We had lunch today at Sai Sai. I had a New Years bento box there that was slighty too authentic for me, but it seemed like it was extremely well-done and the server couldn't have been nicer. I have never eaten so many things that I couldn't identify. I would try something and think, that must be bean curd and the server would say that it was fish paste. I will most certainly go back there and have my normal sashimi approach. I can't wait. I am so happy to find this thread. I have always sensed that there are hole in the wall places that I can't detect and I know I am closer to little pockets of deliciousness but no concierge or clients who live far away could recommend anything.

I have to go with dishes: Favorite dish(es) of the year: white truffle pasta, gnocci with sausage and favas, both at Da Marco. Rafia cocktails at t'Afia. "Tour of Crab," soft shell crabs at Marks. Sausage pizza on multigrain crust at Candelaris. Christian Totem cheeseburger. Chaat at Indika. Ponzo's Original italian sub. Texas Tasting menu at t'Afia. Biggest disappointment of year: whole experience at Vic and Anthony's (I know it's Landrys and big and loud, etc. and normally I would avoid it, but a colleague wanted to go there). Service was pathetic, took forever to get wine, surrounded by large parties of loud men wearing short sleeve dress shirts on expense account. Bar menu at Gravitas. Grossest dishes: overmicrowaved lamb stew at Cafe Montrose that disintegrated under fork (never order anything there but mussels and fries). Most anticipated event of 2006: Dolce Vita on Westheimer. Da Marco's pizza is perfection.

The drinks at t'Afia are worth the inconvenient lounge and lack of bar. Sit outside there, I agree. Zimms (on Montrose) has a good scene, not very creative drinks but it's a nice layout and full huge bar. Hugos has a pretty big area, excellent margritas and some great menu for snacks. The bar in the Sam Houston hotel (which has a new name I don't know) is a great location and great service.

I had a disappointing meal at GD in Sept. I was annoyed that we use one of our well-planned dinner reservations used there. Service was not good, wine served in warm glasses, special request to leave mignonette sauce off oysters was not paid attention to and it took too much time to get the server to come back and see what was wrong. Salmon dish I had was boring. Other patrons there in shorts and flip-flops. I would not splurge there.

I would never go to such a highly acclaimed place where I was going to spend so much money and once I realized I was getting bad service not get up, go subtlely find the manager and say you needed some attention to service pronto. That place is worth another try. If it moves to that Marrakesch location I hope it doesn't lose it's ambiance and small place feeling.

I agree about Katz, so gross. I'm still recovering from the horror of a "beef bacon" sandwich there last year. If I'm going to gorge on deli meat it's always K&Z, but now I will try Khan.

Kenny & Ziggys? Do they have it? That's where I go for corned beef and they have excellent real rye bread and mustard. I have never ordered a hot pastrami there, but it seems to be the sort of place where it would rule.

Are you the group that was asking about how people defined "fine dining" earlier? The menu would definately get me there and the prices seem right. The only menus I have seen that get close to that innovative are T'Afia, Noe and Aries, I would love to try it. What is the range of wine prices and are there lots of interesting choices? If one of my friends went there and told me what they ate and how they paid and said they thought the food was great I would follow up with these questions: Were there families there with little kids or babies? Was it very loud? Did the staff know what it was doing? Was there a huge hoochie scene at the bar? Does the bar make good and interesting drinks? Are there awesome and unusual desserts? If the answers were no, no, yes, no, yes, and yes then it would be first on my list for the next splurge night.

If you are going to be centered around the Medical Center I would definately check out the farmers market on Sat AM at T'Afia and also eat there for upscale, innovative Texas food. You are also close to Hugos which I strongly recommend and my favorite desserts are at Hugos and Marks right nearby. Another good place to eat, not very Mexican but excellent baja style tacos is Berryhill Tamales, go to the one on Revere, not Montrose. Another Mexican place would be Tila on Shepard. I also second 17. Local places for lunch and casual dinners - Barnaby's, Lankford (lunch or weekend breakfast), Niko Niko, and Aladdin. Everywhere I have suggested is in the Loop, which will be somewhat close to the Medical Center and minimizes your time on our horrible highway system.

(Taking a bow..) Yes, when I emailed that in 2 weeks ago the W&D editor emailed me back and said she was just as appalled. Another comment right after mine about Stonegate gets my feminist feathers in a ruffle - when she exclaims how her husband is the one with the budget doncha know??? He's in charge of the $ because goodness knows, I can't be trusted or we'd eat at Bank every night!! BLEH. I love it when people from New Mexico get all in an uproar about hatch chiles.

We honeymooned at the Palmilla and had great meals at C and Agua last Fall. The amuse-bouche at C was the best dish I ate the entire trip (it was a small piece of grilled marlin with yellow pepper coulis). Agua was excellent too. The other most notable meal was lunch at the Cabo del Sol golf course restaurant, I had some sort of lobster salad sandwich that was great, it's really quiet and breezy and not too many people go there. The upscale restaurants at the Sheraton are excellent, too, hard to believe. The steak place on the left side (looking out at water) is so close to the water and so romantic and the beef was really good. The place to the far right of the property (not the Mexican place upstairs), the nicer place was excellent too, I had some sort of fish gyoza there that were very good. It's sort of French-Continental.

Toasted Flax Waffle with Stonyfield plain yogurt on top with a sprinkle of cinnamon, made even more delicious since seconds before the first bite I had chugged my morning glass of Superfood green powder mixed with water. THAT tastes like you are licking the inside of a old lawn mower. I don't breathe through my nose for about 2 minutes until I get a bite of waffle in. So I guess this should have been in the "what's the grossest thing you've eaten today" thread. It's all in the name of anti-oxidant and vitamin consumption and I know it's less ideal way to get that stuff in your body but you should feel how soft my skin is now!

I won't claim to be an expert since I am originally from way western Mass., but I have been around a lot of slef-annoited experts in MA and ME and consensus is that it is only meat and mayo on the NE style hot dog roll buttered and grilled. Anything else, especially something crunchy, would create panic and mayhem. I live in Houston now but last week lobsters were on sale for $9.99 a pound at a local store so I bought 2 1.75 pounders, cooked them, cooled, roughly chopped claw and tail meat, (sucked on the legs while still hot -- ooooo that sounds durty!), and then mixed the chilled meat with mayo, a little fresh tarragon, and some lemon zest. I cut a sliver off both sides of regular hotdog rolls so there would be maximum butter absorbtion. My family would have disapproved of me trying to make it "fancy," but heavens it was good, with a little french white burgundy... There's no such thing as leftover lobster, you have to have a lobster roll main event.

Did anyone read today's Whine and Dine? I am so glad to be reminded that as a woman when I go to a steak restaurant I should only be on the lookout for candlelight and crisp linens as my point of interest and let my husband judge the quality of the steak!! Keep that woman away from me!

There is also a place on Richmond between Dunlavy and Shepard to the left if you are going West. It used to be all wholesale but now has retail. I don't know the name but it says "Fresh Fish" and the outside is sort of green. I haven't been there but my husband has and we had deliciousy fresh gulf shrimp and excellent snapper and salmon. He said that there were no prices posted but there was a pretty big variety and they knew the orgin of everything and most was local. I keep meaning to go there myself but it closes at 6 and I don't usually get off work that early.

I've done the Tasting Room (11 courses) at Lola and it was exceptional both food and service. I think that restaurant is true fine dining, great service, intimate atmosphere. I remember thinking we were getting a lot of food for each course for a tasting menu and got uncomfortably full. It was super imaginative and I ate about 5 things I had never had before (it was over a year ago so I don't remember exactly what). As far as I know, there is nothing like it in Houston but I have enjoyed the Tasting menu at T'Afia. I don't agree that there isn't anywhere special in Houston. I am a staunch supported of Da Marco and when people from out of town ask where to go I always have no problem recommending Marks. I do think that very unspecial places attract crowds and expense accounts (like almost every steak house, Pesce and Cafe Annie) but to dismiss the whole town is not fair. I travel weekly for my job and have eaten at a ton of great restaurants all over the country. I don't think Houston can compete with San Fran or New Orleans, but certainly with Chicago and Boston. And I also think Trotter is becoming overexposed like Todd English. I love embracing the smaller, independent restaurants. Houston (and Texas) will always suffer from people not recognizing the importance of supporting non-chain, independent, challenging restaurants that aren't positioning themselves for another location in Vegas or Plano or Sugar Land or waiting to be gobbled up by Landry.

Restaurants thinking that the only thing to make a steak fancier/tastier is to add a lobster tail on top. It's surprising how many non-steak restaurants have this on the menu. Maybe I am a freak, but I never eat a piece of fine piece of beef and think, you know this is good, but what if there was a lobster tail on top?? Or vice versa. Isn't the concept of surf n turf a 70s era "this is a super fancy meal" menu? We were at a higher-end Italian restaurant in Houston last Saturday (Sorrento) and the 3 people at the table next to us all had filets (don't get me started on having that unimaginative cut of beef at an Italian restaurant) that were sitting on a bed of gorgonzola gnocci and had lobster tails on top. Doesn't that seem to be a bit much? Doesn't gorgonzola and lobster not really seem to go? Or am I not thinking creatively? Also add to that list caprese salad, and my husband is reason #1 why restaurants sell them all year round. There could be 15 incredible sounding appetizers on the menu and he will order the caprese salad which always pisses me off since it's understood we own 1/2 of each other's selections and I don't want that!!

I just want to report that I got in for Sept 1, through speed dialing! Thanks for the support.

We've been trying the dialing starting at 9:58, and we are flexible with which day (2 months from this week starting yesterday) and we have 5 nights and 2 lunch days available, but after tons of busy signals, 23 minutes after 10, I get through and it's booked. My husband and I are going to be out in Napa/Sonoma for a week 2 months from this week and we are starting to think we are fools for thinking someone without connections can get through. We are cutting corners in flight $ and using hotel points for free room so that we can eat and drink amazing meals and buy some good wine, do we have any chance of getting into French Laundry? I need some advice because we were considering this the first step in planning what days we would be in Sonoma vs Napa and what other must-have reservations. I know there has got to be dozens of other restaurants in the area that would be as high (if not higher) quality that we should focus on (and probably not as crazy expensive). I read eGullet a lot and winecountry.com sort of helps too. I hate to pose the same question you guys get a lot which is, what restaurants are worth the effort to make sure we don't miss? We'll also be in San Fran for 3 nights after the week in Napa/Sonoma and in Big Sur the night prior to that week, so recs in those areas are fair game.

I would say that high end steak chains are usually not fine dining. That's a fine line, though, since they are expensive (therefore a little more exclusive), usually have excellent service (with career servers who bring pride to their job and seem to make a lot of money doing it), and don't last long if they don't have great food. Usually they are loud and always predictable, but sometimes this is what you want. When my husband and I want steak, a guaranteed excellent martini, excellent wine list, and something with a lot of blue cheese, we'll go to one, but really the only one in Houston I have been to that I think is fine dining is Brenners and I have to ignore the location (highway hell) and the owner (Landrys). They have a very knowledgeable sommelier who has steered us to some unusual wines we have started pursuing elsewhere. I have never been to Texas de Brasil. Doesn't it have a salad bar? Or am I thinking of Fogo de Chao? I think a salad bar, no matter how extravagant, eliminates the fine dining categorization. The tastiest piece of beef I have had in Houston is a ribeye at Smith & Wollensky's but we haven't been back and I wouldn't consider it fine dining. It was so loud and such a scene and the salad I ordered was enough for 10 people and I was annoyed the server didn't warn me about that. Also, I think that if there is a large hoochie contingency at the bar, the fine dining category is forfeited. There goes Flemings! Ooo, another thing, the routine at Mortons when they bring out the meat cuts and the poor half-dead lobster and the godzilla baked potato to use as visual tools.... is not fine dining. I wish we could go on a field trip/focus group and you bring me into the steak restaurant, we check out the bar, the wine list and order a steak and say "fine dining, oui ou non?" And just so you know, I am not some old geezer who gets upset about any noise, I just hate it when you can't have a normal conversation with your dining companion.

We feel like it is fine dining if the setting is elegant, not filled with loud families or parties (esp. if the place makes one think twice before bringing children). I can't feel like I am in a restaurant that is being tested for a chain or about to be bought by Landrys (with a couple of exceptions). The service has to be unobtrusive, not folksy, but can read the customers to vary level of interaction. The menu has to have some dishes that I can't make at home. Uncreative cliched dishes like creme brulee or fried calamari makes me feel like it is not a treat. Picky stuff: The menu can't be laminated. No containers of sweetners on the table. The wine list has to have many options that make me feel like I am trying something new for me. Sommelier that makes me comfortable to ask lots of questions (like Da Marco). Custom (not neon-colored) cocktails (like T'Afia). Good wine glasses. No glassware can ever be hot. I love the food at Hugos and it is very different from a lot of places in Houston. Once they started having larger parties there, lots of kids, and now a buffet on Sundays, I don't consider it fine dining. I go there for the food, no longer the experience. No tables full of loud consultants or business people in town who are drunk off Opus One or Jordan and being allowed to be disturbing because they are spending a lot of money (and I say this as a consultant who is guilty of this on numerous ocassions). (So not Cafe Annie, not Flemings or most chain high-end steak restaurants). In the last 12 months I have felt like we are experiencing truly fine dining at Charivari, Da Marco, Chez Nous, Brenners, and Marks (although Marks sometimes gets away with it being loud and feeling like a machine if you are there at a prime time but the menu makes it all OK). Excellent and (sometimes) expensive food that I crave and we go eat but I do not consider fine dining because of elements I wrote above: Pesce (too many expense account people being rude and wine list not as interesting as could be), Hugos, and Churrascos. I lived in Dallas for a few years and felt like the fine dining was more flashy (crowd, hostesses, valet keeping Ferraris in front, etc). The finest dining I remember was Lola. How's that for a ramble? (I am killing time before a meeting.....)

(Hopefully) unintended hilarity in today's Whine and Dine. Some guy writes in about a Korean restaurant and it says he "found the restaurant packed with Koreans 'which is a good thing,' says Rice." He then goes on to complain that he got a relatively (to other patrons and prior visit) small serving of meat, etc. Thank goodness he clarified that people shouldn't be upset if there are a lot of Korean people in a Korean restaurant. And how strange that the Chronicle had to put that specific part of the comment in quotes, as if to say "he said it, not us!"

I second Indika, it is excellent food with innovative and fresh thinking all over the menu. I think the atmosphere is very relaxing. If they have the chaat appetizer, definately get that. There are rumors that this restaurant is moving to Montrose sometime in the future which would be good for me. But seriously, Indika is one of the few I venture outside of the Loop for.