Blegh…

I know I’ve been MIA but I’ve been feeling like this:

We came back from Montreal almost 2 weeks ago and since then I’ve been feeling really icky.  I was luckier than most though.  Poor CB was puking all the way up to Montreal in the car.  We had to stop 3 times on the highway just to change his clothes because he was literally covered in puke.  😦 Once we got up there, he managed to infect everyone with some form of the stomach flu.  I was lucky though.  I just felt some queasiness and body aches but that’s about it.  No puking, no diarrhea.  That’s ok.  The stomach flu is what I dread most.  I rather have what I have than the stomach flu.

So gory details aside – Christmas was tough this year since everyone was feeling under the weather.  We tried to make the best of it and still got to enjoy ourselves by going out to eat, visiting with friends and going snow tubing. 🙂

And now I have a really bad cough, have body aches and when I cough, I sound like a pig going to slaughter.  I know, not very attractive.  Ah well.  I think I sound a lot worse than I actually feel.  Miraculously, I actually feel better but I know I don’t sound it.

Every time we go back to Montreal, we try to hit one of the nicer restaurants since we have no time to do it back in the States and we have free babysitters.  Hee hee. Over the summer, we went to Joe Beef and that has got to be my most favorite restaurant ever.  I’d like to go back in the near future.  You can see my past review of Joe Beef over HERE.

This time we went to Au Pied De Cochon.  I’ve been wanting to try this place out for the longest time ever since seeing it on the Food Network. I think Anthony Bourdain also went here on one of his shows so I needed to try this!  On top of that, it’s gotten stellar reviews on Yelp.  I was so looking forward to this!  We made our reservation months in advance.  You couldn’t make it online, you had to call it in.  Miraculously, we had a reservation at a decent hour, unlike Joe Beef, where our dinner reservation was at 9:30pm!  Unfortunately, our friends couldn’t make it due to that dratted stomach flu that was spreading like wildfire so it was just Meanie and me.  It’s rare that we can get some time alone at a nice restaurant these days!

On the day of our reservation, there was a huge snowstorm but we managed to get there anyway.  There was still a line of people waiting to get seated despite the snowstorm.  We were seated shortly and I took a look around the restaurant.  It was nothing fancy.  The tables were really close together so you can peer at what the other patrons were eating.  It honestly reminded me of the tables at Katz delicatessen in NYC.  Ok, the tables were of a better quality than Katz’s but it was pretty damn close to the other people!  We were seated at the window so Meanie was looking out towards the street and I was looking into the restaurant. During our dinner, Meanie exclaimed, “OMG!” and I turned around and there were apartments across the street.  Apparently the guy who lived right across from the restaurant and on the top floor decided to parade around in his tidy whiteys and nothing else so everyone in the restaurant could see.  LOL.  I didn’t want to take a picture of that so we didn’t.  Pwahaha.  I wonder how often he does that.

 

We each got the Pied De Cochon beer which was light and tasty.
I stopped drinking this really soon because it was really filling me up.
So Meanie basically chugged down 2 mugs of this.

For appetizer, we ordered the Foie Gras Poutine and a Crispy Salad, hoping to balance out the heaviness and greasiness of the Foie Gras Poutine.  Unfortunately, the Crispy Salad only consisted of some vegetable leaves and the rest was fried pork on top of the salad.  It didn’t do much of to balance the heaviness of the poutine.

 

Foie Gras Poutine – Fries fried in duck fat, smother in gravy with pieces of fried foie gras on top and cheese curds.
The first bites were like bites of heaven and then soon after, it started to get really heavy.

Meanie took a few bites and then stopped because he said it was too heavy for him. Meanie underwent surgery earlier last year to remove his gall bladder so he can’t eat really heavy and greasy foods anymore.  So I had to eat it all or let it all go to waste.  I tried to eat it all but by the end, I wanted to keel over from clogged arteries and a heart attack.  It was delish at first but soon after, it got really gross.  The salad didn’t help much either. 😦  The portion doesn’t look very big but it was way too much for only 2 people. I think it would have been better shared if we had at least 4 people.  There were 4 pieces of foie gras on top of the duck fat-laden smother-with-gravy fries.

Crispy PDC Salad
Some greens covered in fried pieces of pork
Pretty heavy for a salad!

Meanie’s entree – Duck Magret in Mushroom Sauce
I think he really liked it because he snarfed it up in a matter of minutes.
He mentioned he didn’t really like the duck smother in a sauce though.
It took away from the flavor of the duck so it was a little overwhelming.
The potatoes were a bit under cooked so he didn’t finish them.

I really didn’t know what to get so I got the Pied de Cochon, which is basically a pig’s foot.
This is no ordinary pig’s foot though.  This has got to be a ginormous pig! I ate like 2 toes and had to wrap the rest up. It was just too huge.  The meat was very tender and it was very gelatinous from the fatty skin but it was a little too much to eat all at one time.  Plus, I was uberly stuffed from trying to eat the Foie Gras Poutine all by myself!

The menu for the restaurant is pretty limited.  I think the dish to get here is the Beef Ribs.  I saw many people with this. It was basically a large cut of a Rib Eye with bone in it, I think.  But it looked delicious.  I’m not sure if I’ll be here again but if I do, I’d go for that.

We took the Sugar Pie for 2 out for dessert and it literally looked like a Sugar Pie for 10. LOL.  I didn’t take any pictures of this because it was literally just a sugar pie in a tin so nothing special. The taste, however, was excellent.  I think they serve Sugar Pie warm at the restaurant and I’m sure with a pretty presentation.  I think it was probably the best part of the whole meal.

We were a bit disappointed by the meal.  I don’t know if it’s because maybe we ordered the wrong items or what.  We were expecting an excellent meal, like we had at Joe Beef.  We felt pretty disgusting after the meal. It was just too heavy and greasy for our taste.  I read all the excellent reviews online for this place and I’m baffled.  I’d like to chalk this up as to maybe ordering the wrong items but I doubt we’d be back here again.

Here’s the menu for Au Pied De Cochon – CLICK.

Oh well.  So much for that.