Montreal Funday

I've often stated that I'm frustrated with my failure to make it up to Montreal more than I do. Yes, I do dragoon my friends into heading up to CFL games, but I don't make it into the city as much as I should. It's rare that one is fortunate enough to have a city so diverse and fascinating and, well, international, so close to you. Last year I actually bought the Lonely Planet Guide to Montreal as step one to getting up there more. Like many folks, I guess, I'm a little put off by the general confusion of driving in Montreal, especially since they're under road repair (to be fair, they're always under road repair). However, we all have smart phones with GPS and the nice phone lady will actually lead you around Montreal as well as Indianapolis, and she's proven to be spot on the last couple of trips up there. So, I'm going to get over my trepidation of heading into Montreal. Yesterday I headed up there with my most excellent friend Cyndi for a day of goofing. Our initial goal was to make it back to the Kouign Amann bakery to get their famous pastry specialty of the same name (which was apparently born in the French town of the same name). Our friend John Stroup had directed us there on our Alouettes game trip a few weeks ago (which I've still somehow not blogged about) and it did not disappoint. Yes, the thought of driving five hours round to another country for pastry might seem foolish to some people, but they are not people I'd want to hang with anyway. From this simple goal the trip began to take on a life of its own and further evolved (or devolved). Cyndi and I had actually called the bakery on Thursday to tell them that we were heading up on Saturday to buy three kouign amman butter cakes (why three? because we couldn't quite pull the trigger on four). After the bakery and carrying the thirty pounds of butter cake through the streets of Montreal (it was probably less, but it might have actually been heavier) we decided to grab some lunch. Through sheer happenstance we ended up at the Cafe ze Yeti, which turned out to be a treat. It's this lovely kid-friendly care down a side street (I think Saint Andre) off of Mount Royal (where the bakery is located). And then we headed off into the wilds of southern Quebec to find the Fromagerie Kaiser, a great cheese shop located in the middle of cornfield. It's right off of route 202, which runs parallel to the border. If you take the Augsburg-Noyen border crossing (which gets about thirty cars a day, so they appreciate the business) it can't be more than a couple miles from Noyen. You take a right into the cornfield, which means you're getting even closer to the border. It was so good, and a reminder of what cultural rubes we Americans are (we claim sophistication simply because we choose cheddar over American cheese). Crossing the border back into the US the border guard asked why we had gone to Canada and we told him about our adventures. He asked: "You didn't bring back fifty pounds of cheese, did you?" CB's response: "I think we tried' fifty pounds of cheese at the fromagerie." He laughed and sent us on our way. I think this is now going to be an annual fall event.

The inside of the Kouign Amann bakery on Mount Royal. It was packed, with a short queue snaking through the tiny bakery, but they were on top of things and it only took a couple minutes.

Sure, it looks like Cyndi is carrying three pizzas, but those are the three kouign amman butter cakes.

A slice of the legendary kouign amman. They had me at the descriptor "sugar laminate."

The Cafe ze Yeti, which we stumbled into because the place CB found on her phone was packed. It's a lovely, bright cafe with a children's play area in the back.

The brunch special, very European.

And, come on, any cafe with a cryptozoological theme is appreciated.

The Children of the Cheese. Seriously, it's in the middle of a huge cornfield, but it's famous and was packed.

After the crowd began to thin out. You had to take your ticket right inside the front door, in what's essentially a mud room, before you entered the main area. If you had to make you way up to the front counter to get a ticket you'd never make it.