Feasting on Montreal's Charms

A couple of storefronts away, a 20-something guy at the Olympico Cafe, a hipster cafe known in a previous life as Open Da Nite, switched from a pitch-perfect "dese, dem, dose" Brooklynese to a flowing French without so much as taking a breath.

From there, we continued on a mile or so north, to the Little Italy neighborhood and -- more to the point -- the Jean-Talon Market, a huge, year-round public market for regionally grown meats, cheeses, fruits and vegetables. Such spots often serve as my museums, telling me more about a place than most collections of art or artifacts ever could.

It was a Saturday, and the joint was jammed with more than 100 stalls and thousands of Montrealers, all pondering the same age-old question: What's for dinner?

Sure, the usual suspects were there: apples, potatoes, fall lettuces. But it was the shock of the new that captivated: cauliflower that looked downright hallucinogenic, with chartreuse or purple florettes and otherworldly mountain- and valley-like fissures. They looked like exotic coral.

Then there were the cerises de terre, ground cherries, which came clad in their own papery jackets -- only appropriate, it seemed, for the climes. But the sweet, yellow, cherry-size fruit isn't a cherry; it's a relative of the similarly dressed tomatillo.

Across the way, I sampled a single strawberry, not believing that the delicate fruits could prosper in Quebec, of all places, in late September, of all times. They do. It was easily the best strawberry I've ever had. The chilly weather only makes them sweeter, the grower boasted.

A Last Meal. Or Two.

On Sunday night, as our time wound down, we followed our trip to its logical conclusion: dinner at Au Pied de Cochon, a boisterous bistro that offers an unabashed homage to all creatures fat and fowl, a cuisine that is profoundly, jubilantly Quebecois. Chef Martin Picard, a darling of the back-to-the-land school of cooking, looks like a lumberjack, and kind of cooks like one, too. On the menu: "The Big Happy Pig's Chop," "the Pig's Foot" and steak that tends to be venison, when it's in season. And being true to his school, he's got poutine, of course.

But here's the difference: Picard's poutine -- that much maligned mess of french fries, gravy and cheese curds that is Quebec's guilty pleasure -- is topped with a hunk of foie gras. That's something along the lines of elevating, say, New Englanders' beloved Marshmallow Fluff.

Perhaps never before has a culinary crime been committed so gleefully. As chef and writer Anthony Bourdain has written, the haute poutine "breaks every known standard of decency and common practice. And I loved it." Picard plays with his food, and if (and only if) you're a devoted carnivore, you'll appreciate his heart and humor.

But if forced to choose, I'd say our favorite meal was at La Montee de Lait, a smallish refuge tucked into a quiet corner of the Plateau that offers a fixed-price parade of exquisite small plates. Of course, it's all about what you're in the mood for: Au Pied's culinary equivalent of a luxury suite at a Canadiens championship game, or La Montee de Lait's night at the symphony.

And then, sadly, the time came to put down our forks and back away slowly. The air had turned seasonably chilly, and we marveled at the Montrealers sitting at sidewalk cafes. For us, it was freezing, and unthinkable. But they were enjoying it while they could, knowing that everything -- even the temperature -- is relative. And the bowls of hot chocolate couldn't have hurt, either.

Erica Johnston last wrote for Travel about Prince Edward Island.