VivreManger

Thanks for the responses. For those who have not yet looked it over, the discussion initiated by identiflier, Market offering and analysis for grower, also addresses the question of food marketing in Quebec and expands and corrects what I said about supermarket networks, http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...=0entry330415 He does confirm that the Metro Plouffe in Magog is particularly good about carrying local suppliers. As for canned salmon, the advantage over the fresh stuff is one that it is convenient and two that unlike most of what we get year-round, ??I THINK??, it is more likely to be wild. On a hot summer day when one wants a quick healthy meal, drop the contents of a chilled can of salmon on a plate -- skin, juice, bones and all -- sprinkle on some lemon juice and pepper, and eat with farmer's market lettuce and tomato and hearty bread, spread or not spread with a bit of butter. I prefer to eat the whole contents neat, unadulterated by mayonaisse. The salmon bones have been softened through the heating and can be crunched down as well, a good source of calcium. I did have a college roommate who spent some time working in an Alaska salmon canning factory, not the best of his memories, though he did make some money, shades of Cannery Row. However his stories were not so Sinclair Updikean as to make me swear off tinned salmon. As for the wild versus farmed question, I leave that to others to sort out, but I suspect that this salmon is caught in the sea, not harvested from a farm.

We just came back from a ten-day family trip to Quebec, a thousand miles from western Massachusetts into the Eastern Townships (due north of US I-91), through the Île d'Orleans, Quebec City, and Montreal. Over the next few days I will be posting brief day by day accounts. Separate detailed excursus will address specific sites of interest. Some of the high points include Auberge Hatley, Les Chevres, au Pied de Cochon, smoked meat tasting in Montreal, wonderful cheeses and breads, ice ciders, and artisanal preserves and syrups acquired during a bit of gastrotourism. By way of thanks to all whose advice made this trip so delightful, I hope these reports will be a small token of useful gratitude. Day one, Thursday: Lunch at Lou's Restaurant, 30 South Main St., Hanover, NH, 03755, 603-643-3321 Good corned beef hash, though home fried potatoes a bit dry. Good muffins. Pies looked good as well, but by then too full to try. A more detailed discussion is best for the New England Forum. Arrival at Lake Massawippi late Thursday afternoon. Quick trip to local metropolis, Magog, to pick up phone card for the official eGullet cell-phone, provided courtesy of FatGuy. Magog has prospered from summer visitors. Many well-appointed and neatly painted wooden signs for shops and restaurants dot its Main St. The particular flavor of the month seems to be sushi which has spread like kudzu all over the small towns of the Eastern Townships. Who goes to the Eastern Townships to eat sushi? Made the required visit to the local supermarket, in this case Metro Plouffe. Decades ago Quebec used to be dominated by two major supermarket chains, but they have disappeared to be replaced by independently owned and operated stores. The two biggest are IGA -- the American based buying cooperative -- and Metro. Each Metro store bears the name of the local owner-operator. Thus here it is Metro Plouffe, no relation to the famous Quebec soap opera. What distinguishes Quebec supermarkets from stores in the US is the abundance of charcuterie and cheeses. Terrines, rilletes, and pates proliferate. The variety of cheeses is also great. Apple ciders -- from sweet to hard -- are much more common. For the kids we found a nectar des pommes from Isle d'Orleans, a sweet sparkling very rich apple-tasting concoction The market for hard cider is much greater and the taxes on this product must be lower than in the States so the sweet stuff is often more expensive or about the same price as the alcoholic. Another feature of Quebec markets is the variety of canned salmons. While US markets typically stock Rubenstein and one or two other brands and types, Canadian markets sell several types under three or four brand names I have never seen in the States. I picked up some fish curiously all canned in the US: one can of Sockeye sold under the Vancouver-based Clover Leaf label, Pacific Keta Salmon, sold under the Red Rose label, a division of Clover Leaf, based in Ontario, Ocean's Wild Pink Salmon packed for Ocean's Fisheries in Richmond BC, and Gold Seal pink sold by Vancouver-based Canadian Fishing Company. The last was the only non-Alaska salmon in the bunch. Clover Leaf Sockeye is the only one I have tasted before. Since I have yet to open any of them, a tasting report will have to wait.

Taking this discussion in a slightly different direction, I suggest that Quebec ice cider can be used like a sauterne. It goes very well with foie gras. Like sauternes, there are many varieties. Of the three I have sampled so far, I prefer the Pinnacle 2001 to the Bilodeau (Isle d'Orleans) and the Pedneault (isle aux Coudres). The Pinnacle is a very full sweet and almost syrupy ice cider, with an intense apple flavor. I think it probably should be served colder than a sauterne would. I found the other two ice ciders, too dry and astringent.

I am curious about Daigneault and Laprise. Could you give a few more details about each of them so that the non-Montrealers could follow the discussion better? Do they have anything to do with Chez Louis at the Jean-Talon Market who specializes in the vegetables of the terroir, purveying to the best restaurants? Related to your question is the Loblaws hypermarkets versus the other supermarket networks in Quebec. I understand that Loblaws is an Ontario chain that has started to expand into Quebec over the past few years. What struck me during this last visit to the Province is the proliferation of what I assume are locally owned and operated supermarkets that seem to be independent parts of larger networks. In Magog, the Metro Supermarket is Metro Pouffle. In Quebec near the Old-Port, it is Metro Gagnon. I assume that these are comparable to the other network, IGA, which initially took over a lot of the old Steinberg sites when that old chain went out of business. I wonder how these markets actually function -- are they in fact independent, but form a cooperative buying unit to reduce their costs? If they are independent, to what degree can they form a market for the kind of artisanal fruits and vegetables you are dreaming of growing in the Eastern Townships? Could you sell directly to Metro Pouffle or to the IGA in Magog, if you wanted to? By the way the President's Brand is also marketed in the States by various supermarket chains. I have always assumed it is a US-based label, rather than distinctly Canadian and that it is independent of the chains that stock it, but rather simply supplies them. The matter came up some months ago in a posting by Jinmyo, if I am correct. The interest in the distinctive regional heirloom products of the land is one of the most remarkable aspects of Quebec gastronomy, as I have observed it over the past nearly thirty years. Of course this phenomenon is not limited to Quebec, but I think for reasons distinctive to the politics and culture of the Province, it has flourished much more successfully here than in any other part of North America.

To escape a downpour we ran into the Ino around the corner from the Film Forum in March. It had an admirable collection of wines by the glass, excellent coffees, and a range of good-looking dishes. Since we were about to go to Jewel Bako for dinner, we ordered no food, but it definitely is worth a return visit. The table next to us ordered some lovely looking and smelling dishes. My only complaint was that at the bar they were grinding something for the evening dinner time and it made a terrible racket. The place is tiny.

Just a quick note. While you have been talking about it, I just back from a short visit to Montreal and Quebec where I have been eating it. I sampled old fashioned smoked meat sandwiches at Snowdon Del, Schwartz's, and also bought some take-out old fashioned smoked meat from Schwartz's and the competition directly across the street for those fed up with the long-lines at lunch, the Main. In brief in Montreal, Schwartz's remains the best, the Main is certainly respectable, though not as good. Snowdon Del, which I have long enjoyed since it is convenient to the family, is, for smoked meat, a distant competitor. Better than Ben's to be sure, which has the oldest smoked meat in Montreal and sure tastes like it. Snowdon Del stopped smoking their own briskets about 10 to 15 years ago so the current manager of this family business, Jon Marantz, told me. They now use Lester's Old Fashioned smoked meat which he claims is made according to their distinct specifications!! He also insisted that their Lester version of the meat differs significantly from what Lester's normally makes. Just reporting what I have been told. I can offer no independent assessment of this at this moment. It will have to wait till my next trip. Snowdon Del does have great smoked eggplant salad and good chopped liver with killer sauted onions. After I recover from all this and other eating, I will post my asssessments of the Mtl old fashioned smoked meat I had. Unfortunately it has been too many years since I ate my last pastrami at Katz's and I have never eaten it regularly enough to form a clear basis for a trusty comparison so I can't join that fray. I do have other classic pastrami sandwiches clearly preserved in my taste buds. The best of these -- unfortunately long-gone -- was the great thick hand-cut Rumanian hot pastrami sandwich made by Elsie Bauman and her husband -- two German Jewish refugees who after the Second World War established Elsie's in Harvard Square. Schwartz's is a spicier, albeit slightly tougher version, of that sandwich. However neither the bread nor the mustard is as good as what Elsie offered. Unfortunately Elsie's has been out of business for close to 20 or 30 years. And even before the deli finally closed, they stopped making my favorite sandwich.

I should add that the waitress at apdc did recommend their poutine first, but I pressed her to suggest a more traditional version.

This snack-bar is located at the intersection of 245 and Chemin Nicolas Austin (the road to Austin) which at this point changes its name to Baker Pond Mountain as it heads to Bolton Glen and Knowlton. Coming on the Austin Road it is on the left, south-east corner of the intersection. The women who run it have owned for about four or five years and are not sure they want to continue the hard work of keeping the place in business. We had one chef's salad which was excellent, fresh (non-iceberg) lettuces, red and yellow bell peppers. The other orders were a chicken sandwich, made with real shredded chicken that they said they had cooked themselves and a grilled cheese sandwich. The only disappointment was the cesar salad. It was covered with shredded mozarella. I saw the locals ordering the special of the day, roastbeef and various sides -- it looked edible. Identifiler, please do let us know what you find when you get there.

Unfortunately I am still a poutine virgin -- so much food, so little time. Despite ten days in the Province I was unable to fit a poutine into my schedule. There was a point at which I thought I had found the place to lose my poutine virginity, a tiny resto in Bolton Centre (in the Eastern Townships) run by two enthusiastic ladies -- Mimi and Gigi -- who prepared everything fresh and as local as thay could make it, but their fryolator had just gone on the fritz so I had to settle for a cesar salad. Saturday night at the counter of au Pied de Cochon, an off-duty waitress eating a savourous mussle soup followed by a plate of foie gras, told me that the Pool-Room at St. Laurent and St. Catharine's (I think that was the address) has been in business for decades and maintains the proper traditions of poutine making. A few of the other chefs chimed in with other suggestions, but I was too busy chatting her up to pay them much attention. I stipulate that Ashton's and other chains are not to be considered, but I am willing to allow a sub-category for franchise poutine. Of course only genuine curds are accepted here. Those who substitute shredded mozzarella will be tarred and feathered. So now I throw the issue open for general comment, with the caveat that it is restricted to Montreal.

While not in the same league as Les Chevres, Duc de Lorraine (Cote des Neiges and Queen Mary), Gascognie (Laurier near Park), and the Premiere Moisson chain all offer excellent pastries, sorbets, and other sweets, to take-out or eat in. For night-owls the problem is that the first two close relatively early. Depending on the day they shut between 5/6 and 8. I don't know the schedule for PM and they may vary it from branch to branch, but their web-site, www.premieremoission.com (no accent marks). might give those details. By the way, out of dedication to sampling what was on offer, over the last few days I have sampled all four as well as a fifth, Patisserie Belge (the Laurier branch). Belgians should stick to beer, potatoes, and chocolate. PB ranks an F.

Actually I thought my comments represented a mild expression of annoyed bemusement. I don't think the site sucks. I do think that it is an example of technology run amok. I don't know why it did not allow me to cut and paste useful information so I could download it to a more user-friendly document, something I have been able to do with almost anything else I examine. I would prefer to do that than to see pigs fly. (If you check the site, you will understand what I mean). This site is hardly the only example of one that has outdated information. Most other so-called Information Technology sites never keep up either. Since that is almost a given, site managers would be much wiser if they did not fill their pages with datable information. However I would much prefer to hear about the new menu than to comment on the site's techno-foibles. Once again I return to that question. Thanks in advance to anyone out there who wants to respond to that point.

The story has not been mentioned in this thread, though I was vaguely aware that there had been a court ruling in the matter. Interestingly BankOne adopted their policy (in December 2002) before the ruling came out (in Feb 2003), perhaps sensing that at some point the issue might go against them. By posting it, as they now do, they may protect themselves from the charge of deception, but on the other hand they raise the possibility that some customers might drop them for other cards that don't surcharge.

Thanks for all the website responses. Perhaps it will do some good. However, I am also interested in the gastronomic questions? Any more menu info?

I checked the aPdC website just now. They have yet to replace their winter with their summer menu. As the French site claims, "Presentement, Marcel Picard vous offre un menu en harmonie avec l'hiver." The English makes the same claim that currently the winter menu is on offer. Admittedly the weather has been reluctant to recognize the date, but next week the thermometer is supposed to hit the high twenties (celsius) eighties (Farenheit). I love lamb shank, cassoulet, and venison, but I can't believe it will dominate the menu when it is so hot. The lack of updating is particularly ironic since the restaurant claims to offer "Gastronomie temporelle" which is rendered in English with literal cluelessness as "Temporal Gastronomy". Perhaps it should be more accurately renamed "Dated Gastronomy" or "Yesterday's Menu"? I suspect the cochonnailes plate will stay the same -- is it basically sliced sausaged and cured ham, or does it have more challenging items like innards and guts spilled across the table, a la St. John's in London? Can anybody update the menu since the website can't? In addition to being out of date, the website is too graphically sophisticated to be useful. Flying pigs and carousel restaurant logos are all well and good, but the website should allow the viewer to down-load useful information, like menu items, coordinates, etc. I can't copy a single word out of that website. It refuses to accept my cut and paste commands. Increasingly website designers are sabotaging their basic purpose, providing easily accessible information, in order to indulge in graphic razz matazz cluttered with bells and whistles. Zaytinya in DC falls victim to this self-indulgence. Too bad the flying pig's foot does the same. I have been trying to post the website in this message, , THIS IS WHERE I ORIGINALLY POSTED THE SITE WITHIN ANGLE BRACKETS, BUT THE EDITOR SIMPLY REMOVED THE DATA AND LEFT THESE HANGING COMMAS INSTEAD www.aupieddecochon.ca, but it seems that when I put it within angle brackets <>, the version that appears on eGullet removes the data. I will try it again with this new version. +++ VivreManger: Is this what you are trying to do? http://www.aupieddecochon.ca It's doen like this [URL=http://www.aupieddecochon.ca/]http://www.aupieddecochon.ca[/URL] http://www.aupieddecochon.ca Or like this [URL]http://www.aupieddecochon.ca[/URL] Bux

The MBNA card claims to have a 25 day grace period. but that remains to be seen. Other cards that have been recommended include the AAA card and the Amtrak Card, but I have yet to investigate them.

Since we last addressed this issue, I have learned new details about credit card foreign exchange charges and I am about to conduct an experiment to confirm or deny the information I have been given. The news is that over the past few months some credit card companies are starting to reveal their hidden charges. First - to explain the terms and review the main points (with apologies for the repetition of what has appeared earlier in this thread): Credit card foreign currency transactions use as their base, the best exchange rate practically possible for small retail customers, the banker's wholesale rate. That is why generally speaking, it is better to pay by credit card, than by cash abroad. The purchase of foreign currency, be it through traveler's checks, with US currency, particularly in small amounts, usually carries service and other fees that can easily add on at least 2 to 3% to the cost. Often times these fees include not only simple percentages but also minimum service charges per exchange so that multiple small transactions are more expensive than a single large one. While credit card foreign currency exchanges use the favorable wholesale rate as the base, that is not the end of the cost. For some time -- I do not know when it began -- both Mastercard and Visa add a flat 1% exchange fee to every transaction. If you scrutinize your bill and note the rate, you should realize that the rate represents the wholesale exchange for the date of the actual posting plus a fee of 1%. Incidentally the date of the actual posting by the merchant to the local bank of the transaction may not be the same as day on which you made your purchase. Depending on the course of the dollar, that may or may not be to your advantage. More recently -- and here again I do not know when this began -- a number of banks have started to add an additional charge to foreign transactions. BankOne which administers many credit cards adds 2%. Chase adds 2%. Airline travel mileage cards almost all add such a fee as well. Typically, the charge is incorporated into the exchange rate itself so you are not even aware of this additional cost. The new information follows: To its credit as of 18 December 2002, Bank One has started to acknowledge this practice by listing the 2% charge as a separate exchange rate adjustment for each transaction. It should be noted that the percentage itself does not appear, but the resulting US dollar amount does. Thus in early June I purchased by phone tickets for the Montreal Jazz Festival using a BankOne United Mileage Plus Visa card. The charge appears as 297.63 Canadian dollars exchanged at the rate of .74001276 plus an exchange rate adjustment of 4.41 US dollars. The calculated charge appeared on my bill as 224.66 US dollars. If someone has easy access to the wholesale bank rate for 3 June, you can confirm that it was .732612632 US dollar for 1.00 Canadian dollar, a rate I calculated by multiplying the exchange rate stated on the bill by .99, to establish the rate without the 1% Visa exchange fee. Second, the experiment. After a bit of research, I now believe that the best credit card package is the MBNA World Points Visa card. It claims that it adds no charge to the base 1% charged by Visa itself. It also offers points that can be redeemed for cash, hotels, air tickets, or merchandise. While the air ticket redemption is not quite as generous as the airline mileage cards, the redemption options are far more flexible than the airline cards. The bottom line is that for foreign currency purchases it claims not to impose the 2% surcharge that many other cards do. Of course all of that remains to be confirmed in practice. When we are in Quebec next month, I intend to use the MBNA card, but I will also conduct some controlled experiments with our other cards to see who in fact offers the best deal, whatever their customer service representatives claim. A note on debit cards. As far as I have been able to tell, the additional foreign exchange charges apply equally to credit and debit cards, but I have not investigated that detail.

Many thanks for the reply and explanation. For the record, my connection is DSL, probably as high speed as yours, if not more so. On the other hand my computer is PC, not Mac and that might be the cause for the lesser ease of access to the site. I would be curious if others are aware of the same difference.

I stand corrected. You are correct that it is possible to see the menu (or more precisely the many separate menus), but... I don't think the problem lies in my browser or my connection, but rather in the convoluted way in which the Zaytinya website is organized. It is possible to access the menus, but each category within category within category requires separate access. There is no single file that lists the entire menu. Instead one has to click on the many separate entries, ten by my quick counting, and then down-load Adobe to access the ten or so separate related PDF files. One can't move quickly from file to file, but instead exiting the file requires reloading the homepage initial site connection, which offers a choice of connection speed, all over again. Furthermore unless one realizes that the summary under each category is not the full menu, one would not think it necessary to take the added step and download the PDF file. The button for the PDF file should state, for a fuller or complete menu, hit this point, or words to that effect. In general I dislike websites that send the visitor from pillar to post like a mouse in a maze. The site is cool with lots of bells and whistles (literally listening), but it fails the basic requirement, to convey information clearly, quickly, directly, and thoroughly. That said, what cheese is added to the eggplant puree in the hunkar begendi? I am sorry that you don't order the eggplant dishes. The preparation of eggplant is one of the most imaginative arenas for Mediterranean cooking. One could do an entire menu -- almost -- of eggplant, though I have yet to try an eggplant dessert! Also within the orange blossom sorbet, what is the waxy bits I tasted? Is the flan portion of the dessert the gooey bit within the cake or is it separate and outside of it? Thanks in advance for taking the trouble to answer these questions.

Sorry I could not join the lamb-bash on Sunday, but we were on our way back to Massachusetts. Earlier I promised a review of Zaytinya. I would have liked to give a fuller description of the menu, but they didn't provide one for the taking -- though I asked. The proffered alternative, their website, www.zaytinya.com, is cool and long on razz matazz and bells and whistles, but skimps on content. The actual menu is about ten times as long as what is offered on the electronic site. We got there for lunch at 12:30. Since I thought there were no reservations at all, I had not bothered to book them. Now I realize lunch is reservable. Dinner is not. (By the way a number of DC friends have been similarly misinformed and had given up trying to do lunch.) The cool steel and blue soaring decor creates a dramatic entrance. My 12-year old thought it was the biggest restaurant she had ever visited. She was very excited by the ambiance. Without reservations we were still able to get into the bar which on a Thursday prime lunching time was practically empty so reservations or not, we were seated immediately. It took a bit longer to get our orders taken, but soon everything was on its way. The bread service is, as Steve Klc, described it, very good. Fresh warm pita bread is regularly replenished in its own stand, created to hold the breads upright to avoid the stacking flattened quality which typically afflicts them. They are brought still puffy with their baked heat inside them. Bread -- carbophobes beware -- is as essential to Middle Eastern food as rice and chopsticks are to Chinese. The bread is both a complementary filler and the preferred eating utensil. All one needs to eat Middle Eastern food is warm bread and fingers -- preferably of the right hand. Thus a well-structured bread service makes the food even better. Accompanying the bread was a dish of olive oil, with a few swirls of pomegranate juice. I liked the combination. My daughter is a purist so she avoided the swirls. I think it was the sweeter version of pomegranate juice, rather than the Lebanese (e.g. Cortas brand) that is more sour than grenadine. I prefer the sourer taste. While the bar is not as dramatic a space, it does have one advantage. Being almost empty and with a lower ceiling, it is not as noisy as the rest of the dining space. The one disadvantage is the tolerance for smoke, but the lone smoker rapidly drifted away in the puffs of his cigarette so the problem did not persist. The mezze menu is long and daunting and it took awhile to decide with all the tempting choices. The hunkar begendi is one of my favorites. Havuc koftesi, I had never tried, so I ordered it. The first dish is chunks of baked lamb in a sea of pureed eggplant. The second is a carrot-apricot croquette in a pistachio sauce. My daughter had imam bayildi (vegetable stuffed eggplant) and spanokopita. The waiter-bar tender -- I couldn't tell if he was Greek or Slav by the way -- had suggested the hummos, but that is something we rarely order out since it is so commonly available. Incidentally a friend we spoke to later had tried the hummos and pronounced it mediocre, so our instincts were right Earlier posts on the hunkar begendi had suggested the eggplant was better than the lamb. My take is the opposite. The lamb was tender, in a rich brown sauce, a very pleasant morsel. On the other hand, the eggplant was disconcertingly bland, almost as dull as cream cheese, not a favored taste. The problem is the cheese mixed into the eggplant, which dulls the tart acedic smoky garlicy oniony taste that the dish, when well-made, possesses. I am not aware that hunkar begendi is normally made with cheese. In this case the cheesy imagination and creativity did not improve the result. The havuc koftesi is a dish I had never tasted before and I am not certain I would want to try again. It is an interesting combination of tastes, a bit like fried tsimmes. (For those unfamiliar with it, tsimmes recipes can combine carrots and apricots, along with the more familiar prunces and pineapple.) The problem I sensed was that the oil in which it was fried was not quite hot enough and so it was a bit greasy. At some point it is worth another try to figure out what I think of it and to establish whether the problem is the recipe or the execution. The pistachio flavor did work well. Despite my misgivings, I had no problem finishing the two dished. My daughter quickly scarfed down her spanokopita, pronouncing it among the best she ever had. I was surprised by its appearance since it looked more like an egg roll than the familiar phylo, cheese, and spinach napoleon. I only got a small taste, too insigificant to form a judgment of my own. It seems that this method does avoid the problem of dry browned flaky crumby bits of phylo dough that go jumping through the air onto one's tie with each forkful of the common preparation. Whatever manages to stay on the fork usually gets stuck in one's gullet on the way down. By compacting and forming the ingredients into a solid unit, free-floating phyllo is grounded. The imam bayildi was a bit bland, similar to the other eggplant dish, the hunkar begendi. It needed lemon juice, salt, and pepper. We were able to get the first two, but the last never arrived. Perhaps because we finished the dish before we could wait for the pepper mill. I had wanted to try both the Turkish Coffee Chocolate Cake as well as the Ravani (semolina) cake. But my daughter was in an ice mood and she opted for the orange blossom sorbet instead. Since chocolate trumps cream of wheat, the Ravani cake must wait another visit. The dessert I had is a very imaginative take on a cup of sugary cardomon- flavored Turkish coffee, a favorite combination of tastes. I am not sure if the chocolate flan came through. The dessert was more cakey than flanny. I don't know if the cake was cooked too long or if the liquid chocolate is only a few thimbles full to begin with, but I would have liked a bit more flan. It is certainly worth ordering again. The orange-blossom sorbet was very subtle and tasty. There was a distinctive waxy element within the sorbet that I could not identify, but it was still worth finishing. I enjoyed the meal and hope to explore the menu again.

A classic soul-food diner and breakfast establishment is the Florida Ave. Grill, 1100 Florida Ave. NW, on 11th St near Howard University. We just got back from our trip to DC. I will post the rest of it later, but in response to this thread I can certainly recommend the restaurant for all the hearty breakfast food you can imagine, if their lunch menu is any indication. Rumor has it that Janet Reno used to breakfast there regularly , for what that recommendation is worth. The prices are also low. The parking lot, though is unpaved.

Thanks for the helpful practical advice. On a Saturday night we have a concert at 6:00 in the Spectrum. I presume it will let out at about 8:00 -- 8:30 so we should plan for a lateish dinner. I was thinking of au Pied de Cochon. Maybe reservations for about 9:00? It looks like it would be a 20 minute walk up Berri to 536 Duluth. Is there any convenient bus? The trouble with aPdC is that it is not at all veggie-friendly or suitable for grazers. Chez Leveque much further up on Laurier with their half portions may be more suited for the two diet conscious teen-age girls I will have in tow. The atmosphere is convivial and the food isn't bad. Any other suggestions on non-smoky places closer to the Spectrum that could have a varied menu for a post-concert dinner? By the way is parking around van Horne and Parc on a late Friday afternoon reasonable?

Abdullah Ibrahim is solo.

Obviously, Lesley, you have the right to interpret the rules of this forum as you like. With respect may I suggest the following? Different moderators follow different interpretations of the rules, as has been noted in the past. But this forum is officially entitled, "Restaurants, Cuisine, and Travel". The Montreal Jazz Festival certainly should qualify as a fit subject for a discussion of travel to Montreal. Food should be the dominant, but not the exclusive subject of the forum as a whole. Be that as it may, I did have some food related Jazz Festival questions. We are trying to set dinner reservations to mesh with the concert schedule. For a 9:30 concert -- open seating -- at the Spectrum, how much time should one allow to get from Outremont to the downtown area by car? Is car parking in the St. Catharine area practical on a Saturday night pre-concert. If the dinner is at Les Chevres, what is a realistic time to allow for dining? I would imagine that dinner would have to be early, around 6, allowing two hours or a bit more to eat, about 30 minutes to get there and find parking, and some time to get there early enough to get a good seat. Such a schedule would allow some glitches and delays along the way so that at no point one would feel rushed. Is two hours enough time for Les Chevres? Or should we make the reservation even earlier.

Don't know who is backing up Bia.

Thanks for all the suggestions. We have gotten tickets for Abdullah Ibrahim and Bia. The former is a jazz pianist from South Africa in the style of Thelonious Monk. The latter, a singer from Brazil who has worked with a favorite of ours Chico Buarque. We will also explore the free concerts.