And then the rains came

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And then the rains came.



What does one do when the skies open up to a steady soaking rain? Why you go on a walking tour of course. We meet our guide Margarite and put up our umbrellas and head out. There are five of us including three Aussies. They have been traveling eastern Canada, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, then on to the M/S Maasdam to the Maritimes and down to Boston. One woman is from Melbourne, one from Townsend and the fellow is from Brisbane. It's always fun to travel with Australians.



We start out a a small hotel, la Cremaillere, for an appetizer of asparagus with melted brie and a tastte of Burgundy. This would be a perfect place for a special romantic dinner. Then on to a Maple Syrup Museum where we learned about the process and tasted three syrups that were each different. The first was made from sap early in the tapping process and it was light and not real sweet. The second was from sap in the middle of the season and it was sweeter and thicker. Finally the last was from sap near the end of the season and it was dark, viscous and very sweet. All the syrups were made with the identical process. It was only the timing of the sap run that made the difference. We had some maple spread. This occurs if you heat the sap hotter than the syrup stage but before sugar. Finally we got some maple candy to go.



There were more stops; one for a tasting of Quebec cider, a sports pub with local beer (the World Cup was playing on all the TVs, there was a pool table and even a small poker room where you could play Texas Hold 'em with 25/50 cent blinds. One restaurant was owned by a wine connoisseur who imported from small organic vineyards in France and Italy. The food followed the wine and the menu changed often as a new shipment arrived. Here we had deep fried catfish bits in a wonderful herb mayonnaise. Then there was the Patriarche where "three" was repeated in the architecture (three arches) between the dining rooms, three beams supporting the building, three selections for each course and each main course selection prepared in three ways.



Here we were showed the wine cellar (or playroom as our guide called it) where there are over a thousand bottles. Two caught my eye, one from Tasmania and one from the Barrosa area of Australia.



Finally there was the chocolate factory. We were offered a white chocolate filled with brie that I really, really liked and a raspberry dark chocolate that was the favorite of the majority. By now it was time to return to the hotel and prepare for dinner.



After a nice hot soak we headed out to Graffiti, a restaurant highly recommended by the hotel staff. It was too bad it was still raining as the street looked interesting and we would have liked to explore the area. The hotel had requested a good table when they made the reservation and we had one overlooking the street. Very Nice. There was a three piece combo playing in the background, pleasant and not intrusive at all. The other diners appeared to be locals. Joe had sweetbreads for an appetizer and veal scallopini in lemon and wine, I skipped the appetizer and went straight to the duck breast in maple glaze. Despite the afternoon of grazing we both managed to finish our meal. It was just that good.



Tomorrow we head home in the rain, stopping in Vermont overnight.



Final thoughts. We came here to feast and that we did. There was only one disappointing meal. We started out with great Italian and ended with fantastic French. We did some sightseeing and walked the city, enjoyed some good wines visited with some nice folks from around the world and experienced perfect touring weather and then not so much. The city is VERY expensive and if the prices were not enough there are two levels of tax and sometimes three added to each bill. GST of 5%, PST of 10%, lodging tax of 3%. Restaurants inside the walls' prices are dearer than those outside and there are entire areas of the city with wonderful restaurants waiting for us to return.



And now for a hot dog.

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