Bon Appetit

As promised, here’s a recap of our food tour and dinner.  We basically spent our whole day on Saturday eating!  I love learning things about cities I’m visiting and I also love food, so I signed up for a 2.5 hour walking food tour.

The tour began with a sample of a simple (but slightly sweet) bread that comes from Quebec city.  Our tour guide was very informative and spent a good ten minutes at the beginning of the tour telling us how Quebec city came to be.

Our first stop was an SAQ, or the Quebec city version of an ABC/package/liquor + wine store.

We tasted a traditional ice wine made from frozen grapes. This was sooo awesome and very sweet (similar to a dessert white wine). I’m now obsessed!

We also tasted a whiskey made with maple syrup.  The syrup made the whiskey just sweet enough for me to be able to sip it without making a gross face. Matt loved it!

Stop number two was at a nice restaurant that’s been around for years.

We tried a crispy, croissant-like cheese bite that was packed with flavor.

We moved on to a shop specializing in maple syrup.  We learned a bit about the process of making different maple products and then tasted a few different things.

We had light, medium, and dark maple syrup.  I liked the medium the best.

We also tasted maple cream (aka maple heaven)…

along with a maple waffle cookie that tasted strangely like the pop tarts I loved as a kid.

Then we stopped at a cute European grocery store and sampled cheese with a wine jelly.

Cheese never disappoints.

My favorite stop was a little crepe shop that makes Breton style crepes.

We tasted a traditional hard apple cider…

and a Breton style wheat crepe with ham and cheese.  It was totally different from any other crepe I’ve had and I loved that the exterior was crispy rather than chewy.

Our last stop was a chocolate factory!!

How cute are these little chocolate ice cream cones? I tried one with black currant ice cream.

Overall, our tour guide and the food stops were awesome.  We learned a lot about the Canadian culture and I’m so happy we found such a fun tour.

After the food tour we went back to our hotel to rest before changing and heading out for a pre-dinner cocktail.  Matt and I kind of have a tradition of going to have a drink at the top of tall buildings, so we headed to the revolving restaurant on the 27th floor of the Loews Concorde.

While taking in the view, I sipped on white wine with local black currant liqueur.

Day turned to night…

After drinks, we headed to our dinner spot, a restaurant called L’ Echaude.  Restaurants in Quebec City are very expensive, and most of them serve and a 3 or 4 course meal for $80 to $100, so I did some research to find a place that had quality food, but offered affordable a la carte entrees.  I ultimately picked L’ Echaude because they offer a bistro menu with traditional French food (for Matt) and a market menu that offers more modern and eclectic dishes.

I enjoyed a full-bodied spicy syrah.

The menu was awesome and I had a really hard time deciding, but I ended up ordering the fish of the day — pan seared Atlantic char with couscous and a red pepper sauce.

Overall, this meal was delicious and well-rounded, but the fish was just a little plain for such a unique dish.

Matt had the seafood bouillabaisse which was awesome.

I’ve always seen dessert tasting platters on menus, but this is the first time I’ve ever ordered one.  It was so exciting when all these treats arrived. The platter included house-made strawberry ice cream, traditional sugar pie, chocolate ganache, and creme brulee. The sugar pie was my favorite as it tasted like pecan pie without the pecans.  Coming in second, the creme brulee was perfect and one of the best I’ve ever had.  The ganache was decadent and rich and the strawberry ice cream just tasted like ice cream (which is a good thing).  And, all the fruit sauces on the plate were fun too!

After an amazing dinner, we strolled back to our hotel and went to bed.  What  a delicious day!