Weekend In Montréal

The Shopping District on Rue Ste. Catherine Ouest.

Discover  Montréal, the largest city in the only French speaking Province of Québec in Canada. We were in Montréal last Easter long weekend to visit my brother and his family. We also spent some time to visit our favourite haunts in the city that offers a very French style in Fashion, Food, Architecture and Festivals, including some singing and dancing clowns, in French only, s'il vous plaît. 

 Rue de la Montagne is where all of the luxury shops are located from La Maison Ogilvy which offers Louis Vuitton, Burberry, French brand Gerard Darel, among others. On the same street is Holt Renfrew Canada, Tiffany's and other Luxury Brands. 

The main shopping area is on Rue Ste. Catherine Ouest which offers local Montréal fashion brands and also has Maison De La Presse Internationale, my favourite International magazines shop that sells all French and other languages magazines.  

Montréal has grand Churches like the L'Oratoire St.Joseph located at the top of the Mont-Royal. The Oratory started as a small chapel built by the newly canonised Saint Brother André in 1904. This whole building with the dome was built completely in 1939. The Dome is the third largest in the World after The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in the Ivory Coast and the largest is St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.

Many Catholic pilgrims come here to light a candle and pray to St. Joseph, patron saint of Canada and to Saint Brother André who is buried behind this majestic altar of St. Joseph.

An Exhibition about Peru at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal.

Montréal has gastronomic pleasures to discover. Not to be missed is the smoked meat at Reuben's  located at 1116 Rue Ste. Catherine Ouest  or at Schwartz's located at 3895 Saint Laurent Blvd, Montreal. One of Quebec's famous dish is the Poutine which is french fries topped with gravy and smoked meat. For appetizer we had the Poutine and the liver paté with carmelized onions.

Two things not to miss when in  Montrèal:

1. Smoked Meat sandwiches.
2. They make the best Bagels baked in a wood fire oven.
The best is the Fairmount  Bagel. Their bagels there are not too doughy and very crunchy.

The Reuben's Sandwich with 10 oz. smoked meat, sauerkraut, secret sauce and both melted cheddar and Swiss cheese, both locally made Québec cheese which is the best in Canada with my favourite pumpernickel toasted bread.

I discovered that there are three ways to eat a Reuben's sandwich:

1. Regular 10 oz. Reuben's Smoked meat sandwich (as the picture above)
2. Super size 1 lb of Reuben's Smoked meat sandwich (double the size of the picture above)
3. Make your own open faced Smoked Meat sandwich served in a one plate full of smoked meat, one plate of bread of your choice and one plate for the extras from the picture above, sauerkraut, tomato, peppers and choices of cheese.
Then have some of Reuben's cake desserts. The cheesecake with strawberries is delicious!

Yes, forget French food when in Montréal. My brother treated us to a Brazilian dinner at Le Milsa complete with some Brazilian Carnival dancing.  Le Milsa serves Rôtisserie Brésilienne food commonly called in Brazil as Churrascaria. 10 kinds of meat grilled in skewers and served in the same way by the waiters on your table. There were turkey wrapped in bacon, fillet mignon, grilled chicken, sirloin, rib steak, lamb etc. The Green Card, Oui, is a sign for the waiter to keep serving you the meats. The Red card, Non, is you begging the waiter to stop serving you the meats. For dessert, we had grilled pineapple sprinkled with cinnamon or vanilla ice cream sprinkled with cinnamon. We had a delicious and fully stuffed Easter Weekend in Montréal.

Montréal has singing and dancing clowns known as Les Clowns du Carrousel which I promised my niece to meet and watch during their Charity Event last Saturday afternoon. The four clowns here are the owners of the Flower Shop, Les Clowns du Carrousel Fleuriste.

Please watch the song and dance video of the Les Clowns Du Carrousel  that I recorded in my camera.
Both children and adults here had fun singing along with les clowns. 

Bon Weekend mes amis!