Au Revoir Montreal

The day started well with a last-minute two-hour mini-presentation to a group of 20 key folks over breakfast. I love breakfast meetings, especially when bacon is involved. I have absolutely zero taboos when it comes to eating animals and pigs happen to be high on the list of tastiness. If it moves, eat it. After all, meat is just Nature's way of making sure carnivores get their intake of plants. "What," you say, "are you talking about?" Ask yourself; what does a cow eat? Answer; grass! Therefore when I eat a steak, I'm eating recycled grass. In fact, I am contributing to the whole eco-cycle.


Anyhow, back to the last day in Montreal. Close to the place I was staying, Le Dauphin, is a fountain called "La Joute," an installation designed by the artist, Jean-Paul Riopelle. Here's what the Wikipedia has to say about it:

The fountain operates on a kinetic sequence that takes about 32 minutes to complete. It begins a few minutes before the half hour, every hour from 7 to 11 p.m. during the summer. The sequence starts when the fountain jet expands to form a dome over the sculptures. Then at the back end of the park the grates on the ground start to mist. The 12 grates each mist, one after the other in sequence, taking about 90 seconds to sequence from one to another until they reach the fountain.


After about 18 minutes, machines inside the fountain start to produce a particularly dense cloud. The fountain jet then turns into a dribble. On the hour, nozzles in a ring surrounding the central sculpture within the basin shoot up jets of natural gas through the water; these are lit by flame sources installed in the daises of some of the sculptures, producing a dramatic ring of flame. The flame lasts for about seven minutes. The fountain itself stops. The misting stops, and then the fire is "doused" by the fountain which has restarted. The mist sequence, without the fire in the fountain, occurs every hour throughout the day.

Pretty cool, huh? I managed to take a picture of it but sadly not in flame, so I borrowed one from the internet. Bad Siggy.

Eastbound flights from Aéroport international Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau de Montréal were delayed due to storms. Lucky I was heading south ;) However, just as we were taxiing to the gate, a hail storm rolled in and all ground crew were rushed inside because of the heavy lightning. That meant sitting on the tarmac for 20 minutes watching pea-sized hail hammer the floor and rattle the aircraft. On the up-side, I had 20 minutes of iPod music, which included Steve Vai, Steely Dan, and yes, SpaceJunky.

Welcome home, Siggy.

Canadian night out - at a Polish restaurant

There was a mild drizzle this evening as we made out way downtown on a busy Wednesday night. Apparently there was to be a fireworks contest at 10:00 pm by the docks, but I was more concerned with food than pyrotechnics. At the recommendation of one of our party, we went to the Stash Cafe on Rue de St. Jaques.


The place was busy. It seems it was the owner's birthday and so most of the restaurant staff were out celebrating. So with maybe three wait staff and who knows how few in the kitchen, our party of ten became two parties of five and after a 15-minutes wait we were ready to go.

Fortunately, the menu has some fixed options, and I chose the Primer - a selection of Polish favorites that started with hot borscht and ended with an apple fritter with creme fraise. In between these was a salad with a "secret home-made recipe" that clearly contained mustard, and a plate of bigos, krokiety, placki and mixed pierogis.


As is my custom, I finished off with a cappuccino, sprinkled with both cinnamon AND chocolate. What the hell, it was my last night!

Filet Mignon at La Gargote

For the curious non-French speakers amongst you, a "gargote" is slang for a small, cheap bistro - which is exactly what La Gargote in Montreal is about. Situated in the old part of town at La Place d'Youville, the restaurant offers a selection of French-based dishes and a wonderful atmosphere. I dined on the terrasse across the road from the main building along with some good company.


After having eaten a poor steak au poivre the previous night, in a restaurant whose name I forget and, quite frankly, don't care to remember, I ordered the filet mignon in a black pepper sauce, served with some crisp mixed vegetables. Delish!

The blueberry creme brulee was heavenly and almost too good to share - but share I had to. We also ordered a chocolate profiterole that was also gorgeous, but of the two, I really did prefer the brulee.

A cappuccino helped end the evening and after a 15-minutes stroll I was back at the hotel feeling full and rested.

Bonjour Tout le Monde

I'm not in SL because I'm up north in Montreal, Canada. It's a dirty job but someone has to do it. This means I also have to endure endless dinners with attractive women all in the service of the Company. So far I have managed to have two dinner appointments that have kept me up so late that keeping this blog up-to-date has proved tricky. So in the interest of brevity, all I need tell you is that the restaurant Boris Bistro is excellent, especially is you sit on the terrasse. I had the Lapin aux pruneaux - rabbit with a prune sauce.