Montreal!

any advice on places to eat, things to do, ppl to see &c??? will be there for a ~5 days for work starting friday so i wont have a lot of time. on my list which is basically a cop from nyt btw:

toqué
au pied du cochon
liverpool house

do u like beer?

toqué is really expensive, esp compared to APDC - latter is dfeinitely a better bet.

liverpool house yes, or joe beef. either one.

ummm, so much though that im not really sure where to start in terms of recs. tell me what you like!

i like beer but i do not LOVE beer toqué is paid for by work so $$$$ not an issue + it seems like a place to at least try - or is it really not worth it?

also any word on garde manager? mostly looking for places that serve something i cant eat in nyc which is why im into places that focus on locally-sourced stuff which is why my big must is apcd so... maybe more stuff like that? also breakfast places would be good

DIEU DU CIEL for beer. The name is no exaggeration.

i like beer but i do not LOVE beer toqué is paid for by work so $$$$ not an issue + it seems like a place to at least try - or is it really not worth it?

also any word on garde manager? mostly looking for places that serve something i cant eat in nyc which is why im into places that focus on locally-sourced stuff which is why my big must is apcd so... maybe more stuff like that? also breakfast places would be good

― Lamp, Wednesday, March 25, 2009 7:36 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ok def check toqué if you can afford it! def.

garde-manger i wouldn't recommend, more of a scene place than a food place imo. but APDC = def. joe beef/liverpool = def. hmm what else... maybe salle à manger?

club de chasse et peche def worth checking out.

for brunch try my friends' new place, sparrow, or have the brunch at lemeac which is fantastic. dinner there is great too.

Oh man I cannot wait to go to The Sparrow. I know I'm going to love it because it fills a big Sparrow-shaped gap in Montreal's food scene. A big, depressing gap. Next step: maybe some enterprising or foolish soul will make the connection between batter, fish, and hot oil and then, you know, try selling it to people. Sigh.

Do they have a liquor license? I'm actually so excited that I'm thinking of printing out their menus from the Facebook group so I can carry them around with me and glance at them longingly.

Hello good peoples. Will be in your city June 19th to 21st, eating your bagels.

heh.

And I'll be in Toronto a couple of days before that but that's another thread to revive.

cool!!

and in also cool news:

http://www.montrealgazette.com/Plateau+close+streets/2982434/story.html#ixzz0n3oNVWbp

(that first one is a few blocks from my house)

I live on that first one, albeit several blocks south, where people basically barrel down it at 100km/h because they're just looking for parking on St-Laurent or whatever. Pedestrianize our street too!

That's damn cool news indeed!

I miss you deeply, my beloved Sin City.

my girlfriend lives on st dominique woohoo!

So anyway, FAP etc.? Maybe some relaxed Sunday afternoon thing?

Show some love. I've got new shoes.

At Footlocker.

Thirty minutes and counting down.

welcome to my city ned raggett.

just went to TO and I am so fucking glad to be back in MTL.

biked 35 miles around the East Island today. The Quebecoise are indeed a 'distinct society'. Love my city.

Xpost: rather than give you a snark filled piece of mind, I'll just link to this

I dunno, me and TO just do not jibe, mostly seems to be a people issue. but then again I might feel the same way as you had I spent the last six+ years in TO instead.

> biked 35 miles around the East Island today. The Quebecoise are indeed a 'distinct society'. Love my city.

would you mind telling me where this East Island is, cause I've never heard of it in my 30-someodd years here. "The Quebecoise?"

East Montreal... semantics. Sorry for the typo.

http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/magnificent-montreal/1

good article that sort of sums up nicely what i <3 about this town

my friend is the guy leading the writer around

haha. yeah it's a great piece. but i want to know more about adam sachs, not adam gollner! :)

what do you want to know

(i dont know anything)

Can I move there? Do they like foreign people?

yes and yes

Spent a week in Montreal (and three days in Quebec City) for our honeymoon. Such a great place.

nice, what did u do?

I dunno, Canadian immigration people have always been the biggest hardasses to me. Sometimes I fly home with Air Canada and have a layover in Toronto and always get GRILLED. Why am I here? Well, I have a flight to catch and will be leaving in 45 minutes, so I don't really think I'm a danger to your country.

It is a VERY great place, and I only really spent something like a day and a half there. Everyone should visit.

well maybe I think you're a danger to my country adam

Well I am a bit messy sometimes.

Still, I like the idea of living in Canada. You never know.

You have to watch out for him, he likes to film things. (Wait, who am I warning against who?)

Stayed at one of those boutique hotels by the water (one with awesome fucking room service), went to a ton of restaurants, bought a ton of records, hit that Miles Davis exhibit at the art museum, saw some sights and witnessed some of the glory that was Canada Day and the boiling heat wave that followed (if it had been any other type of vacation I would have dropped you a line, Slock). Don't recognize most of the places in that article but oddly enough I ordered all three things (foie gras poutine, duck-in-a-can, and seafood platters) mentioned being at Restaurant au Pied de Cochon. Even splitting the poutine and the seafood, this was in hindsight a bit too ambitious.

My only complaint was that I couldn't seem to get the right kind of iced latte and wound up hitting starbucks more than I wanted to.

oh i coulda helped you with that

glad u had a good time and of course i understand you wouldnt exactly want to be like hey new bride, can we take some time on our honeymoon to meet some random bon vivant from the internet

but if u ever come back, lemme know!!

hey new bride, can we take some time on our honeymoon to meet some random bon vivant from the internet

Le Proposal Indecent

How big is Montreal? DO many people live in quaint Olde Worlde apartments with high ceilings above patisseries and such? And ride bicycles in elegantly faded clothes?

They definitely ride bicycles.

but if u ever come back, lemme know!!

definitely!

actually yes

Is Montreal on a river? What is the countryside like outside of Montreal?

it's IN a river

(it's an island)

Wow!

I just don't know much about Montreal. All I know is through s1ocki and rrrobyn and I think there were once some olympics there or something. It sounds nice.

there's some really nice countryside not too far away. the laurentian mountains. the eastern townships (really old settlements). vermont is like 45 minute drive.

The mix of stations in French and English was pretty awesome. Loved little details like Two And A Half Men being called "Mon Oncle Charlie." Also appreciated the French pronunciation of "Jack Donaghy"

hahaha

i love the movie titles too

for some reason the one that always stood out was BOOTY CALL which was called ALLO BABA! (exclamation mark included)

Montreal film title translations vs. Helsinki film title translations.

I love the alt. Twilight titles. So much more appropriate.

i used to enter the movie listings for my paper (worst job ever btw) and so i read all of them

o ya simon i was just chuckling about that today.... eclipse is called TWILIGHT: HESITATION

hahahaha

also came across some kind of candid camera show called something like "droll and sexy" that seemed to mostly be people being squirted with water and topless women walking out of closets in department stores.

xpost was just about to mention the posters for Twilight: Hesitation

that's actually what life is like most of the time

btw mazel tov on the whole getting hitched thing

thanks!

Haha Hesitation

o ya simon i was just chuckling about that today.... eclipse is called TWILIGHT: HESITATION

I saw one of those posters and thought, "Instant improvement."

i mean it sort of cuts to the core doesn't it

I need to see Twilight

How big is Montreal? DO many people live in quaint Olde Worlde apartments with high ceilings above patisseries and such? And ride bicycles in elegantly faded clothes?

The population of the island is ~1.5 million, the metropolitan pop. is ~3.5 million.

Can I move there? Do they like foreign people?

Do you speak French? Then, yes!
Seriously though, if you want to immigrate to Canada and plan to live in Quebec, the province (in addition to the federal government) has to approve your residency there.

I used to speak ok French, I went to school in Paris for a brief while. But it was long ago and my French is embarrassing these days. I'm sure it is all in there somewhere.

Hey I was born in 78 too! Or maybe your name is ref. to 78rpm vinyl records

xpost- I lived there for 7 years and barely spoke any French. I think it matters in the rest of Quebec but almost not at all in Montreal (unless it's a really francophone neighborhood).

it matters if you want to live there as an immigrant.

yay, 1978, xpost.

Yeah my French is embarrassingly bad... grew up in the west and haven't had the chance to take classes here but I get by quite easily. But yeah, immigrating is another issue. Have a friend here who did it though (from the USA). She had to do an interview in French, for which she studied like mad for about a month, and passed quite easily.

for some reason montreal attracts the coolest anglos from the rest of canada, and has a pretty thriving english cool kids community. a lot of the less corny bc dudes move here, loads of haligonians and nova scotians. they're a good crowd. many of my friends live fulfilling and happy lives without significant contact with francophones.

that's not to say you're not missing out, though. french girls are way cuter and often more fun and outgoing than english ones, and although quebecois culture in general is not as appealing to me they are a people who have deep reverence for the sanctity of the leisurely life. lots of drinking beer and just hanging out and cracking jokes goes on.

there are some radical-minded francophones who can be unpleasantly forceful and militant about it, but generally speaking people do appreciate any polite attempt at speaking french. you probably have a better chance of kissing french girls if you've got a bit an accent, anyways.

LOL I'm married and this is an entirely hypothetical situation so...

sounds fun though!

lol, well your future children will kiss many a cute french girl should you choose to born & raise them in mtl

also u guys might find your attitudes get more liberal in this swinging city of bons vivants

Is it full of vice and delicious sin?

thinkin bout movin to montreal with bad french

full of copies of vice magazine tbh xp

I love Montreal so much...just been there passing through to and from Victoriaville (2x), but I'd live there in a heartbeat based on a couple of days.

Reading this article while in the process of deciding whether to take up McGill on their last-minute law school offer (and thus the possibility of staying in the city for the foreseeable future, instead of moving to Toronto) is probably a bad idea.

I mean, theoretically I should be picking the best program, not which city is more wonderful. Because, seriously, Montreal in a walk.

full of copies of vice magazine tbh xp

― young monet (samosa gibreel), Thursday, July 22, 2010 6:23 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Really? I am missing out on this distinct aspect of our culture! My life has had less Vice and more Vices&Versa these days. (which, btw, A++ place for drinks when you are up around St Zotique)

quebecois culture in general is not as appealing to me

Except...man. There is something so unself-consciously wonderful about monster truck rallies and souvereigntiste rap music and Celine and Caribou.

that was just a joke really, vice is actually totally less ubiquitous nowadays and i am grateful for it

attitudinally speaking quebec culture is pretty awesome, but i can't say i'm interested in it in any genuine or active way

u youngsters prob don't remember when VICE was based here

^^^grateful of this, tbh.

it was like the wild west

everyone lived on the plateau

listening to ninja tune records

drinking an espresso on a patio on avenue parc + reading french legal writing and surprisingly content with the arrival of a true montreal summer after that weird may/june false start.

ninja tune records? quelle horreur!

i think we've had a least a solid month of real summer tbh

yeah. And it was all in july! And those two weeks in April.

My life has had less Vice and more Vices&Versa these days. (which, btw, A++ place for drinks when you are up around St Zotique)

WHAT this place looks amazing. i was seriously walking to work today thinking "man i wish i knew a bar where they served a bunch of that qc micro stuff but like... not just their own stuff like ddc etc."

speaking of dieu du ciel though i went there on... wednesday? and had their summer solstice beer (i think) which is a sour wheat beer w/ cherries. it is like neon red with pink head and is so fucking good TRY IT MTLERS

Whoa and all of those V&V beers are en fut?!?! Awesome.

thoght that said TRY IT HITLERS

how weird would it be if i called all montrealers "a buch of hitlers"

or a bunch tbf

a bushel

Oh hey here's a question for the Montreal people: my French is garbage, how do I make it good w/o having to actually meet people? Everything on the internet that's all "LEARN FRENCH" is like "LEARN TRANSATLANTIC USELESS IN QUEBEC FRENCH."

You could try the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec at Berri. They have a section of language tapes/CDs etc.

it is such a good library and also nice to be in

man, i went through a few harsh months this late-winter/early-spring of 'oh, mtl, r u 4 me rly' but thankfully that has passed. i guess that happens in every relationship re people, places, jobs, etc. right now this town is rulin, so i'm glad i hung in there - like, where else is there to go in canada that is as good? srsly! i think i'm finally going to winterize a bike this year even. (lol now watch me get a great job in like mali or something)

I seriously spend 6 months a year wondering why I live here and 6 months a year wondering why I'd live anywhere else. It's so completely true.

If I weren't a non-real-winter person Montreal would be on a short list of spots to live for sure.

that travel&leisure article is pretty great! and well-written! (haha yeah, even i want adam to show me around and i live here) (he actually ended up in the group of people i went to see lou reed jazz fest show with! he lasted longer than the others)

is that after-hours at parc & beaubien still a thing or did it clse after the magical "6 motnhs and it's fucked" timeline that seems to exist for mile-end party jamz?

si1ver door? yeah, haven't heard anything abt it for a bit.. prob was a bit too talked-about..

yeah, the thing about montreal is that living through winter is key to summer bliss and key to serious love of this place. also: metaphor for life.

i always wondered if there was a trick ie. finding a job that spent half the year anywhere but here. my bosses at my old job used to basically spend all winter in the dominican republic. but then again they spent the rest of the year never, ever leaving DDO. kind of defeats the purpose of mtl summers.

I think Si1ver Door is opening a cafe or something actually. Or maybe I'm thinking of a different seekrit party hideout.

last time i was there a very high girl talked my ear off abt how i should buy a coffee because they make it sooooooooo good there (it was like 4am) and i was like "maybe next time :S"

so it is very possible that that's teh cafe place.

Is the DDC house beer Kriek (i.e. belgium style cherry beer)? cause that would be awesome.

i didn't even know about si1ver do0r and it is already non-existent? MTLFAIL. so bad at being in the know. i'm still all the way back at e4stern bl0c vis a vis mile-end party jamz.

gah so many scummy nights at the door. Kinda hate that place

i've had some wonderful nights there but i know what ya mean

someone offer me a job in montreal

I'm qualified

Is the DDC house beer Kriek (i.e. belgium style cherry beer)?

The site says "German inspired sour wheat beer," I don't think it's a Kriek style but from the sound of that it's not that far off! You should really really really check it out before they run out.

OMG I still have dreams about DDC.

But basically, no one's ever hiring for anything in Mtl, right?

My favourite thing in Montreal was Rrrobyn.

I've been here for what seems like forever. The food is still appalling (tourist trap brochetteries, rudeness bistros, overpriced fast food, casse-croûte straight out of Naked Lunch, Asian fusion nouilleries, the worst pizza of any major city in North America) in any of the areas that are "Montreal" enough to warrant living in. The food's good enough in some outer areas where the immigrants of colour have been granted restaurant licenses to cook their smelly ethnic foods, but you might as well live in Ontario and get a decent job at that rate since a Montreal suburb is just as ugly if not uglier than anywhere else and the food in Toronto is world class. Go ahead, live in Verdun. Have a hot dog. Tant pis. Or, live somewhere even shittier and, une fois par semaine, vas-t'en au quartier Chinois to enjoy the privilege of paying $8.00 for mediocre Pho. Bagels are good though, so is La Banquise (which hasn't poisoned me yet).

Any of the charmingly local nouveau cuisine has a kind of reactionary political context that I don't feel comfortable eating. Go ahead, eat duck and rabbit while your city collapses around your ears. Historical shit, right? Let's continue to harken to a semi-mythical vie de bûcheron. That's going to help a lot, bros. But the tourists love it so I guess you're getting paid, Picard.

The omnipresent corruption and incompetence can wear a bit thin. But, whatever.

Still not sure I'd want to live anywhere else.

maybe you're more of a toronto guy?

Not so much, but there is nothing I enjoy more than winding up Montrealers about their shitty restaurants.

...Whether it's the 1970s throwback "casual dining" or the extortionate, xenophobic "fine dining", fields of salmon is your guide to Montreal's culinary scene.

What about a restaurant that serves Pad Thai AND General Tao Chicken. You'd think I'm crazy, right?

it doesn't really haunt my days but I guess everyone needs a 'cause'?

my favourite thing about the pinefox's visit to montreal was def the pinefox. also: aw :)
xp
i'm no foodie, and i don't get wound up abt food (except sushi) but i fully appreciate it when food is good, and i have eaten some good food here, outside the above referenced categories.
ohman i so want to eat a huge plate of qing hua soup DUMPLINGS! right now

It must be poutine time out there right about now.

Fuckin' love Qing Hua! Once I am free of my minimum wage shackles I will eat there every other day.

btw anyone who has not been to kazu yet - run don't walk

Rrrobyn did take us to a Chinese place that wasn't bad! And the White Horse and Black Island bars - those were real good times.

salmon's "montreal food sucks" campaign is so bullshit.

ie, he has successfully wound me up

well if all u eat is salmon I definitely wouldn't recommend montreal, feel like that's probably his problem

Go ahead, eat duck and rabbit while your city collapses around your ears.

we are such backwoods aristocrats

wd eat while city collapsed

Yeah, fuck fiddling. Nero had the wrong idea.

It suddenly occurred to me last night that I might seriously consider moving back to Mtl in the fall.

Oh? What's happening here?

FoS wound me up for a second but then I was like "oh yeah, it is kind of collapsing huh" because I'm in my living room and I just looked at the walls in here. This house would be a flop for heroin addicts in any other city in the world tbh. But you can't beat $1200 a month split 4 ways a block away from virtually everything you ever need. Still want to move back to the Mile End though. Like real bad.

Alex in MTL - you are the Alex in MTL I know right? Worked @ CJ-ello? I had no idea you were thinking abt law school?

Oh no! Different Alex in MTL. There was a weird glitch in the ILX system that resulted in me unaware-ingly taking the name b/c you can be "alex in montreal" AND "Alex in Montreal". Been meaning to switch to a new handle to avoid the confusion but \(o_O)/

that was the real reason behind the Toronto move right

Lawlex

It's not so much that something's happening in Mtl as that nothing's happening anywhere else. If I have nothing to do, it's best to do it in Montreal.

See you at the needle exchange.

i wanna go to montreal

u should check out the needle exchange

We could get a steamé after.

what kind of food is it, at the needle exchange?

guessing satays

brochettes.

($14.50 with rice and salad, bring your own wine.)

how much is the satay

20 bag.

SOLD

that's bring your own baking soda and aluminum foil though.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2010/07/27/montreal-is-a-happy-place-cp.html

Montreal takes second spot in some sort of "happiest places on earth" list.

must be the food.

it's the girls.

salmon's "montreal food sucks" campaign is so bullshit.

― sean gramophone, Saturday, July 24, 2010 12:08 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ie, he has successfully wound me up

― sean gramophone, Saturday, July 24, 2010 12:08 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah, what a weird post eh? like i am not totally sure whether or not salmon is just a non-montrealer sufficiently aware of quebec culture signifiers and slang who's just pulling our leg. some really tasty food around hurr imo. you guys been to cuisine szechuan on guy?

cuisine szechuan is probably the reason montreal is the 2nd happiest place in the world

I love how all the people on this forum evidently live in Mile End and around Jean-Talon. Those are the sort of anglophones who would say the food is good.

instead of the smart anglophones who know to live where the food is bad

i mean dude... obv u r not happy where u r... but many ppl clearly are. so maybe u should either move to a neighbourhood that suits u better, move to a city that suits u better, or realize that it is perhaps not the city that is the problem here!

alternate suggestion: stop eating at cheapass pan-asian fast food restaurants

that applies to pretty much every city

hrm, i live in st henri and used to live in ndg. ndg had some fantastic restaurants and even st henri has some good food. i don't eat out very often, though, and i've never lived anywhere else so don't take my word for it. took a gander at slocki's blog after a link to a blog post about mangoes and iirc dude is a local restaurant critic so maybe he can shut you up.

oh, haha xps

I don't think anyone has said that bad food doesn't exist here. Looking at you, St-Hubert. But the good food is pretty great, and a lot less expensive than other cities in Canada.

bad food exists everywhere, with the possible exceptions of france and italy

fields of salmon i reserve judgment on whether you are a cool guy or not bcuz i don't exactly get what the fuck you're talking about but your posts itt are condescending in a really weird and hard-to-parse way. by all means enlighten us to your next level food criticism, but idg why you are accusing us of living in neighborhoods n stuff

there is also a lot of decent food in verdun! and parc ex! and way out east! sure it's not new york or LA but we also don't have anywhere near that population. anyway, i don't eat out a lot and prefer to make my own lunch *if only b/c like sandwiches and salads are crazy overpriced for what they are, even if 'gourmet' and i can make exactly what i want to eat), but when i do go out i feel like i have an abundance of good things to choose from.

i have yet to go to kazu! o_O

s1ocki i still need ot get yr professional opinion re: where to see what pasta's supposed to taste like within our fair city. although i kind of feel bad asknig you for advice because its liek i should be paying you.

don't feel bad

just pay me

(jk)

(or am I)

A close friend of mine is leaving for TO at the end of the week, most likely for good, and I'm looking to arrange a day/evening of MTL-exclusive activity. Suggestions?

what sort of activity? what do u like to do?

Well I already figured a walk around the mountain is sort of a no-brainer. The evening is mostly taken up w/ the roller derby final. In between, I guess a choice meal (not too pricey) and...something else...would suffice. Something else outdoorsy would be good, preferably something accessible by public transit. (I've lived here a fairly long time but basically never leave the house, is the issue.)

you could go to ile-ste-helene and pretend it was still osheaga :D

botanical gardens?

if u waited till after roller derby to eat u could take advantage of the sublime lemeac after-10 special

i do NOT miss apartment hunting, fuck a craigslist.

Spielberg to destroy Montreal, perhaps sparing Schwartz's and St.-Viateur.

i feel like i need to sneak onto the set of this and hijack the production somehow

as if apocalypse wasn't already hard enough to spell

i think i will spend next summer farming

taking a trip to the Hockey Mecca that is MTL in a week. i've been browsing relevant montreal threads, and wondering if anyone has any more ideas. i've got a hockey game one night, the pretty reckless @ Metropolis, will do the normal tourist things like sightseeing and whatnot....dieu du ciel and bagels are on my radar; i don't do meat to Schwartz'/poutine is out. all recommendations considered. and merci

what else do u like to do / eat

uh, i'm open to regions - SE Asian, Japanese, vegetarian fare, Italian....pretty much open to anything that's veg. based. been looking at the menu of a place called Kitchenette that looks kinda innerestin' -

what is it like finding an apartment in Montreal. try to incorporate the word 'soothing' into your response.

a soothing experience

you can't cherry-pick 'em like you used to, but i think it is still faaaaarrrr easier than apt-hunting in toronto/new york/etc.

^^^

yeah. solo places are more expensive then they used to be and it requires a bit of hunting but you'll find something affordable and livable and neighbourhoody if you put a bit of time in.

just found the greatest place to live imaginable for next year after like 1h of craigslist searching & 1 phone call, very soothing. although it's in st-henri not plateau/mile-end

i think the best place for cheap rent + beautiful architecture combo is like rosemont, little italy

Montreal real estate may be, of its many advantages over Toronto, the biggest. Like, it doesn't even compare.

st henri is p. good. i was out there for the first year or two of undergrad. up at the northern edge of mile end these days. parc/bernard-ish

sidenote: why do we never do montreal FAPs?

we're at least as cool as Chicago ILX0rs

st henri is cool but kinda isolating in the winter imho

oh, definitely. i have learned to embrace the isolation, although i'm also studying math so it helps not being surrounded by divertissements

get a calculator and enjoy the divertissements!

ha, i thought 'i have learned to embrace the isolation' was re: why no faps. i am not there yet but pro-fap.

ty for your advice. i have to move in a bit of a hurry so i'm hoping some short-term share or convenient one phonecall craigslist thing will crop up. i'm less spooked than i was.

i think we just have dance parties instead of faps here
and when ilxors come to town, sometimes we eat iconic montreal foods together

are you moving here for work or school or etc? shares and sublets are not so hard to find in the summer months (May-Aug), especially as many university students move away

i got my first apartment via a university housing message board 10 years ago - shared with one person in st-henri, stayed there 3 years, my rent was crazy cheap. then got my second apartment, in mile end, where i still live, because a friend was moving away, so i took over her lease. my rent is still pretty cheap. sometimes i think about moving to something bigger. lately though i just want to get rid of half my stuff.

maybe i will need half your stuff? am moving for school in sept, was planning to just bring like a garlic press and a tin opener & some clothes, so i'll have to get it together when i'm over there.

university housing message board sounds promising; i'm semi-alarmed at most return to school things on the horizon but the idea of living w/strangers is pretty high up there. st-henri's nice, or?

anyways, i'm here one more day and found some nice eats, fyi, S1ocki. Aux Vivres is a pretty brilliant vegetarian resto. Smoked coconut in place of pig for a BLT?! what a genius concept and execution. also had wonderful banh mi and Chinese. and i freaking love the beers by dieu du ciel.
gonna hit cheap thrills today in my walking about. cool city, but there is some definite wierdness here in Quebec. crazy people that hate English speakers are way outnumbered, but i've felt their impact (literally got a hard shoulder check just walking down the street yesterday)....

weird

Is this maybe a not-from-quebec-ppl notice it more sort of thing?

As a (mostly bilingual) Anglo with family from Montreal, I haven't noticed anti-Anglo hostility in Montreal in eight years living here. Part of me thinks that the narrative about QC is so linguistically-focused in the rest of Canada/the media that people are more likely to interpret any sort of brusqueness as related to that. I dunno. But then again, the longer I live here, the more I become a crazy person who hates English speakers - specifically here-for-four-years college students from Toronto or New York or whatever who by the end of their stay still can't order fast food in French and obnoxiously make a scene about how *ridiculous* it is that there are people in Quebec who don't speak English. And I suspect a lot of those tensions have to do with class divisions between non-Quebecois university students and the rest of the population of the city/province.

But even then, for me, it's not really hatred for English speakers so much as frustration at people's lack of curiosity? I know too many people who parachuted in here to partake in the 'cultural scene' and never bother to explore the other half of the cultural scene, which is just as rich as the Anglo stuff that gets national attention.

Alot of the anti-Anglophone sentiment dissipated after (since revoked) laws banning English from signage/advertising and threats of Quebec secession wreaked havoc on the economy and made mainstream Quebecers realize the whole anti-English thing was a bad idea.

it's been almost 10 years since i moved to Montreal and i'm still not fully bilingual (to my own shame but my efforts have been inconsistent), and i really do embrace the cultural/language difference now. it took a while, like, i did feel alienated for a bit in the beginning, but i think that was more cultural than language, plus i was in grad school, which is just an alienated experience as a whole imo. I came from BC, knew very little about Quebec, had been to Montreal twice but only for a day each time when i was younger, but I also really wanted to get away from BC and Montreal was the only place that really appealed in a major way.

i almost always order in french except if i'm at a known anglo establishment (Schwartz's, etc)
haha i also have become that same crazy person, alex! even though i'm a big huge anglo!
eeesh, when i get back home next week, i'm going to make a point of finding a language partner again

that's cool that you are moving here for school, schlump! it's a good reason to move here, esp if you don't stay in the schoolzone all the time.
st-henri is nice enough, though quiet. some people really like it and pointe st-charles (in same area). the climbing gym i go to is in pointe st-charles, which is cool. there aren't a ton of things to do there, but the canal is really nice in summer for cycling and walking, and the atwater market is good too. it's all just kind of quiet really. i would always end up taking a cab home at 3am from mile end and the plateau, where the shows and bars are, or i would bike in summer, of course. only place i would avoid living would be downtown, but some people are into that mayhem. some people also like verdun, but it's further away than st-henri/pt-st-charles and even quieter. i do think about moving further up (little italy, rosemont, park ex). and yet... there is something so awesome about stepping out my door and running into people i know 5 minutes away, especially during my anti-social winter moods.

i've been away from montreal for almost 3 weeks! i miss it.

i would move to montreal in a heartbeat if i could find a good job in my field. little chance of that unfortunately.

Montreal is my favorite city and I'd love to move there but I'm already poor enough in the crappy city I live in, so Id hate to imagine how poor I'd be living in an expensive city.

who said it's an expensive city? that's crazy! i have a friend who right now on facebook is casting around for a $300 apartment haha

^^

Montreal

i would move to montreal in a heartbeat if i could find a good job in my field. little chance of that unfortunately.

I'm sure they have pedants in Montreal just like everywhere else, but it's a competitive market for sure.

a six-pack of local beer in vancouver is $14 w tax. a six-pack of local beer in montreal is $10 w tax.
i rest my case.

and by w i mean incl

that's cool that you are moving here for school, schlump! it's a good reason to move here, esp if you don't stay in the schoolzone all the time.
st-henri is nice enough, though quiet. some people really like it and pointe st-charles (in same area). the climbing gym i go to is in pointe st-charles, which is cool. there aren't a ton of things to do there, but the canal is really nice in summer for cycling and walking, and the atwater market is good too. it's all just kind of quiet really. i would always end up taking a cab home at 3am from mile end and the plateau, where the shows and bars are, or i would bike in summer, of course. only place i would avoid living would be downtown, but some people are into that mayhem. some people also like verdun, but it's further away than st-henri/pt-st-charles and even quieter. i do think about moving further up (little italy, rosemont, park ex). and yet... there is something so awesome about stepping out my door and running into people i know 5 minutes away, especially during my anti-social winter moods.

i've been away from montreal for almost 3 weeks! i miss it.

― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Tuesday, 10 April 2012 04:24 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hey ty! for the st-henri lowdown also. also interesting knowing about your history of linguistic integration; i figure i should live in a french-er neighbourhood, because i learn better with cues & would feel better once i'd got the basics of being able to order stuff and talk a little down, at least to a degree of demonstrably making an effort. i live in a town where you see your boss & friends & former lovers & previous landlords &c&c&c every time you leave the house, and that can be a little much, sometimes, but it's kinda good to live in a hub once you move somewhere. i planned on disguising myself as a non-grad-school attending resident, as much as is possible, and being off campus. i will gratuitously turn to this thread to liveblog & q&a my move.

what school?

I'm sure they have pedants in Montreal just like everywhere else, but it's a competitive market for sure.

Ha, was this a direct response to me?

slocki: mcgill, i am pretty excited. hey i was wondering, actually, i thought you might be a useful-montreal-person to sound out what the cinemas are like. i know toronto's the big film city, & i know that there's a really good mostly-french cinema in town, but what are the others like? is there anywhere with a particularly interesting/reliable/eclectic programme?

our cinema situation is pretty sad these days but check out cinéma du parc. the amc forum, which is one of the big box theaters, actually has some of the best indie programming in canada (according to some distributors/programmers i know). also check out the cinéma parallèle, which mostly but not exclusively shows french stuff.

Am I wrong in thinking the NFB has some events? I know the headquarters is in Montreal and I was thinking I saw a flier for something or another.

btw as I mentioned on another thread, I'll be in mtl at the end of May, probably going to wander around the city a bit more

dude... its heartbreaking, the nfb downtown center and cinema is being closed thanks to fuckface harper's fucking fucker budget cuts

so thanks for BRINGING IT UP

u might want to also look at the cinémathèque québécoise's schedule, kind of a crapshoot but often great stuff

I didn't know! Fuck, that blows.

I think I took a picture of it previously because lol boards of canada

btw I am not related to the canadian Harper family of note, lest you think I'm bringing this up to spite

NFB is getting closed? fuckin' hell. I only have so much rage left in me after they cut the budget for the Native Friendship Centre in Montreal and the National Aboriginal Health Organization.

And the new immigration bill.

And and and and and.

Sigh.

You still have so many nice cultural institutions, though!

I won't let you in on the secret about booze prices, though. I will continue letting you all think they're reasonable.

the nfb ITSELF isnt getting closed, thank goodness, just the downtown cinema/robotheque.

oh and 10% of everything else.

yeah, sorry. i understood. i just meant - that little cinema room thing was awesome.

ya man i had several flix play there, both at fests and at cast/crew screenings (for the latter it was really the only affordable screening room in town)

It's also fun that the nfb offices are above the 40. and that now they'll have zero downtown presence.

good times these days for national arts institutions/funding bodies... ugh.

I also hate how this govt makes me so sarcastic.

dude... its heartbreaking, the nfb downtown center and cinema is being closed thanks to fuckface harper's fucking fucker budget cuts

― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Tuesday, April 10, 2012 2:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what. the. fuck.

god, why hasn't someone fucking slaughtered harper already.

from what I understand, there are plans to move the entire NFB downtown in about 4 years time, and this will probably include a new cinema/robotheque type place. At least this is what a guy who works for the NFB told me.

They have filled his head with pipe dreams.

i also hate stephen harper for making rrrobyn sarcastic :(

because ilx wasn't working on that already!

I go to Montreal tomorrow for a week or so, MTL ILXors please help me out with a couple of questions. Mostly doing work stuff but I might go see Nina Nastasia at Casa del Popolo on Thursday? Anyways:

- Is the Parc du Mont-Royal a good place to go running?
- My French is ok but not amazing (I expect I won't understand the Quebecois accent too well), I assume most tourist-facing Francophones will end up speaking English to me but is it a good idea to "make the effort"?
- Tuesday night I'll be looking for somewhere to go hang out with a bunch of conference people: preferably downtown-ish, open late, laidback/not too hipstery, good beer would be a bonus. Any ideas?

Pro tip: many "tourist-facing francophones" (aren't they all, har har har) are actually bilingual anglophones who will initiate a customer service interaction in French because it's their job to do so. Don't get upset if someone doesn't reply to you in French. They may not, in fact, be French themselves. My advice if you wish to try out a bit of French would be to keep your customer service and tourism French to "bonjour" and "merci" and find a local friend to converse with. Busy customer service people are not paid to humour your fantasies of language proficiency.

Busy customer service people are not paid to humour your fantasies of language proficiency.

Sure, they're not "paid" to do so, but decency-- not to mention a desire to propagate a language-- would suggest that it's a better to encourage new French speakers, not discourage them?

But otherwise OTM.

Thanks for tips. I'm less interested in trying out my French than in not pissing anyone off.

in my experience i didn't understand a blinking word of the Quebecoise French and got the impression they felt exactly the same about the French i learned in school, save for merci, i reckon

Sure, they're not "paid" to do so, but decency-- not to mention a desire to propagate a language-- would suggest that it's a better to encourage new French speakers, not discourage them?

At a systemic level, "desire to propagate a language" works out to tax credits and socialized childcare so that white francophone women will have more babies. The only people in Quebec who believe that being able to order a sandwich in French constitutes propagation of the language are McGill students from USA, tourists, and people posting on message boards. The people making your sandwiches, increasingly, don't give a fuck about French anyway and only speak it well enough to take someone's sandwich order.

I know no French and have been running around speaking English w/no probs.

The park would be good for running if you like hills!

@fields I agree with everything you're saying, re: service industry professionals. And your advice is sound. My experience with bilingual Quebeckers-- my family, for example-- has been that many have a profound lack of patience with anybody who is not already fully fluent in the Quebecois dialect. I don't take issue with it but myself try to be more patient with new French speakers

My sister hosted an exchange student as a teen and it was always "bien non speak English" in the guy's face, I was like, really?

So the language thing has turned out to be more complex than I expected - I've spent lots of instances speaking French because English is clearly the dispreferred option.

More important though: where should we go dancing tomorrow/Friday night?

I tried to order Montreal restaurant meals in French a couple of times, but it was apparently obvious I wasn't too fluent because they always responded in English to make it easier for me.

What kind of dancing/music? Did you find a downtown bar for work gathering? What part of downtown? Grand prix is on so I would say avoid crescent st and avoid st-Laurent btwn Sherbrooke and Pins - both are that particular brand of swanky-shitty-painful nightclub scene.

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/montreal-mirror-to-end-publication-tsx-qbr.a-1672679.htm

June 22, 2012 12:42 ET
Montreal Mirror to End Publication

MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwire - June 22, 2012) - It is with great regret that Sun Media Corporation is today compelled to announce the closure of the Montreal Mirror. The current edition of the free English-language cultural weekly will be its last.

The growing popularity of digital media and communications has irremediably changed the context in which free cultural weeklies operate, bringing about economic challenges which have unfortunately compromised The Mirror's viability.

The closure will result in the layoff of seven employees and the transfer of two more into other parts of the corporation.

Sun Media Corporation sincerely wishes to thank these employees who contributed to making the Mirror a true Montreal cultural and journalistic institution.

i am gutted by this miserable news! this paper was my first glimpse into the montreal music scene, and despite some noticeable downsizing in recent years was still an invaluable source for local news & cultural events of all kinds. it will be dearly missed not only by its readers, but by future generations who will miss out on it

RIP

freakin sucks.
the weekly i worked for shut down 1.5 years ago, and it was because of profit-above-all-else. but business is business. pretty fucked up that we have no english-language weekly paper now when less than 2 years ago we had two.

plus people losing their jobs and freelance gigs, ugh

i don't even know how i can live in this world anymore

i guess it's time to start a(nother) website

i feel like i have 8 different rants i could go on

i hate quebecor for so many reasons but this is too personal, too close to home

it's a massive fuck-you to anglophones and to anglophone tourists imo

but the paper wasn't making money, that's what counts, not politics, business is business, blahblahblah, rmde, it's not like anyone tried to change the business model at the mirror or at hour

it is massively depressing that such a valuable cultural institution could not make enough money to persist, even in a majority french province the need for such a service feels so great, it felt permanent because it was so necessary

the whole reason these weekly papers started in the first place was to give a voice and some PR to up-and-coming music and culture and the creators of that, the stuff that didn't make it into the dailies and magazines/tv. and then they were bought by companies, who for a while let them do whatever they wanted (lol 90s!) and then slowly but surely started to cut sales team attention/hours and thus cut pages, and here we are...

it's also a big fuck-you to journalists in general

as if facebook and bookmarks for 10 different websites can somehow replace the information provided by these papers

okay i think i've hit 4 rant topics already

energy to be channeled!

yes <3

i want to cry dudes

why not, it's a loss, seriously

This sucks real bad.

im so depressed

10 years that place paid my bills

honestly i dont think its a fuck you to anglos, sun media caters to english douchebags all over the country. it's just another sign of total mismanagement. honestly im amazed that the mirror survived as long as it did as a distant outpost of the quebecor empire, the thing they had no idea what to do with. really gotta hand to the EIC for that.

well, i think at the very least sun media looks at its consumers/advertisers base in quebec and says that it's not big/$ enough to warrant certain products, e.g. the mirror.

anyway, it is sad :(
and the state of media these days is something i am trying to think about in a problem-solving way and not an aargh depressing way

sorry, s1ocki :-(

i guess i'm glad i got out when i did... i knew one day i wouldn't have a job anymore, and i wanted it to be my own decision

i blogged about it if anyone cares http://markslutsky.com/post/26018910565/montreal-mirror-1985-2012

i totally care
last paragraph otm!

thx!

yeah that is the saddest part of the whole thing, really

ppl havent really gotten that yet i dont think, having been on the 'front lines' of listings & BOM & soundcheck etc for the early part of my career its quite clear to me thats where the impact will be

Yeah, not having the Mirror for recommendations for Fringe next year, or Pop, or even just weekly 'what i should be doing in town' will make filtering through the hundreds of things going on in the city much more difficult.

there wasn't much fringe coverage this year tho?

honestly facebook sucks

flopson did you ever start FLOP'S ON

haha yeah i did, you mean the dj night right? it's tonight, in fact

yes, that's what you called it in the end.

oh really!

ugh that huffpo article by will. nothing against him as a person but how obviously untrue is it in montreal that listings are "scattered across other sites which can be reached just as quickly (and cheaply)"? that sentence negates the argument in itself! having a couple of informed, local, comprehensive, descriptive (yes!) arts & culture listings that include lesser-known/indie/anglo/underground events is so important and just doesn't exist now.

it's a big deal to create that kind of listings - that's why people are/were paid to do it. i mean, i kind of slaved over hit list for Hour, going through so much info and writing it up with hardly any space to do so, but we felt it was really important, especially when our page count was down. i do my TM things to do article every week and my email is full of events of all kinds, but that article is hardly the forum for grad student avant art and noise shows in st-henri. and facebook, as useful as it can be for knowing about events, remains a curated news feed and one that has to be monitored constantly - and it still doesn't give much critical (vs PR) information about art/bands/etc. i like to believe that people still want to know what's going on from an informed and aware source. that doesn't have to be by one person but i think it should be in one (or two) places.

yes, i know that dude is well respected but writing something that ignorant, in the fuckin huffington post, is smh

yep

I thought only americans were able to be suckered into writing for huffington posts

we have a canadian version! and a french-canadian version! canadians are suckers too!

we're all the same on the inside

gullible

we just want to belieeeve

where is FLOP'S ON? I was not aware of it.

It's at b@r de coµrce11e in st-h3nri! "every 2nd Thursday"?

I am at the jazz fest... at a press thing. but/because drinking champagne (sparkling white)!

~romados~

work is flying me to QC later in July, and I get to drive down to Lac Megantic again

qc city?

yup. poutine there is disappointing compared to what i've had from local food carts

i cannot speak to that

go to la belle province, or the the rinky-dinkiest casse-croûte you can find

will do, if time allows.

wtf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_hot_dog

oh def get a couple steamies (or toastés, my preference). and say OUI to all-dressed.

or just head out to Orange Julep, because hot dogs from a GIGANTIC ORANGE on the side of the Decarie Expressway = living the life. Especially after going to the Dollar Cinema.

he's gonna be in q city, silly

belle province in verdun sells beer

felt like the rash of cynical internet assholes who came out of the woodwork to talk shit about the mirror on fb/comment sections after in the past week are a good argument for alternative print media

also: http://montrealmirror.org/ ???

uh

good luck with that.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

looks like smiley face has been pumping iron

Just learned that Montreal Steak Seasoning is an actual thing from your city! Thank you Montrealers!

yup. my butcher calls it the "jewish"

In Lac-Megantic right now, will be driving back up to Quebec City tomorrow afternoon after finishing up at customer's. Nice little town when its not covered in snow, and I was recommended the best poutine place around here. The french-only thing does get annoying, tho; it's like, cmon, you folks are within only half-an-hour of the U.S.

do. not. express. that. opinion.

Isn't most of Europe a quick car ride? Why all those languages. ;_;

hahaaaaaa
srsly
this is place with complex french-english colonial history and hundreds of years of french language/culture battles. a border is a border for historical and cultural reasons and language is a part of that. and so is defensiveness about it. outside of montreal in quebec unless i know the town/area to be anglo-skewed (rare but happens), i don't speak english.

tho quebec is fully survivable no matter what language you speak as long as your parka is sound

! kingfish you are joking, yes?

and i was being drunkenly earnest

My family used to own quebec

wait did I actually post that

i take it back, it's been a long week

I'm so loving Montreal this week. Not too hot, so much good arty and social and music stuff to do and see, inspiring people/friends, bike rides towards the setting sun, etc. Usually this time of year I've had it w city living but I was just in the country for a few days, so I guess i got recharged for urban life.

I was there once.

And I kind of get Kingfish's point. For Americans, it's downright RIDICULOUS that there could be a region SO CLOSE to the United States that spoke FRENCH of all things! A European language! (Right, they're all European, but this one is like ... actually EUROPEAN. Like ITALIAN or something! Like, do you know anyone who speaks French?)

come on, quebec! 'merica!

hey, colonialism, it worked

sort of

supposedly my great great great Meme owned part of this sexy island

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=quebec+city+google+map&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=46.914158,-70.995712&spn=0.326922,0.539703&safe=off&hnear=Quebec+City,+Communaut%C3%A9-Urbaine-de-Qu%C3%A9bec,+Quebec,+Canada&gl=us&t=h&z=11

Thusly I am the real "King of Quebec"

This is the Montreal thread, not the Green City one!

Ah but mon Pere, you forget Quebec is capitol of Qubecland and thusly yoru precious Montreal! I am King of Montreal

lolll

http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/perm.php?c=165&q=109

Are Americans shocked that people speak Spanish in Mexico

I was mildly surprised to learn that 10% of Americans spoke Spanish as a first language. I learned that when I was 12

Part of the US used to be Mexico and they're still next door, speaking it.

Wow do they have their own unique culture as well?

So great to get back to Mtl this summer, if only briefly. Ikeda exhibit, Dieu du Ciel, Tam tam park.

i'm sorry i missed you! the ikeda show is great, eh?

hot day in montreal. going to see fakoly tonight outside for free!
http://youtu.be/iEC-8005oXM

am sitting trawling craigslist but just throwing this out there: let me know if anyone has friends w/desirable apartments looking for a roomie; i am moving to your city in one month.

i keep looking at the weather forecast, montreal sounds pretty nice right now.

internet apartment hunting is tough, i feel really bad reading descriptions of wholesome, active, social people i could live with & thinking "oh no man that wouldn't work at all"

The sound/video part of the Ikeda exhibit was cool, for sure. I love Ikeda's music so much that I think I had unrealistically high expectations tbh.

yeah, the main space gallery stuff a pretty intellectual experience, i found. and squinty for the eyes... i really liked standing in front of the giant screen getting bombarded by sounds tho.

i will keep my ears open for friends w roommate needs! these things sometimes crop up on facebook or wherevs.
if it's any consolation, i moved to mtl from vancouver 10 years ago and found a place through a university housing message board (in the pre-craigslist days!)

ty! yeah i think i will just end up somewhere, ideally somewhere with a lease just through the end of this year or something so it isn't super-important. but am just mentioning it to increase the likelihood of a dream-apt-dropped-into-my-lap situation.

university housing message board: still good!, so you know. still advertising nice-looking places populated by studious, wholesome types. i can't really imagine tentatively agreeing to have someone come live in my room without meeting them first, so they'll be more use when i'm in town than before, but they are all over the map, plentiful, affordable, &c. i think i am just gonna be craigslisting on arrival but we'll see. i pummelled you guys for area tips a while back, will return to consult over finer details soon.

Can we get around to doing another MTL ILX FAP? It's a beautiful summer day and I feel social!

Totally! I'm not back in town til wednesday though.
Oh and are you going to osheaga?

Alex do u know about my Casa party tomorrow??? (and Robyn too)

NO I DID NOT BUT NOW I DO AND I WILL PROBABLY BE THERE I HOPE.

OSHEAGA i'm not sure about. it's a lot of people who are in montreal ALL THE TIME on their own for a lot of money, even if i like a lot of them and i wasn't earning money this summer really at all.

Mykki Blanco is at the royal phoenix tonight for 10$ though and that will be amazing and wonderful.

im going to osh on the saturday cuz my friends gave me ~backstage passes~ for their band and i want to eat all the catered food.

alex BE THERE tomorrow

Is someone here still looking for an apartment? I've got one I might let go, it's a cheap, one bedroom, et c'est dans le vrai cœur du Plateau.

oh my! maybe?, i'm looking, can i webmail you?

Reply sent!

I miss mtl :(

man this might be something that's existed forever and i just discovered now but you guys NEED to go to theatre outremont's cinema screenings, just paid 7 bucks for 5 HOURS of roman polanski movies! and there is so much amazing shit coming up in the next few weeks: http://www.theatreoutremont.ca/fr/programmation/?prog_type=cinema&page_id=415 what a BEAUTIFUL SPACE, too!

yeah it's a lovely theatre. i noticed they have really good screenings this year! and it's v close to my house. but i haven't gone yet! busy times :/
might need to hit up the On the Waterfront/Rebel Without a Cause double-bill in sept

anyone know of any cool "cultural" (high-brow ish / [pseudo-]intellectual) stuff going on in the city right now? feeling the late-summer brain melt getting to me

well, this is kind of my job, knowing what's going on in arts, culture, etc etc
there's a production of Macbeth on right now at Theatre Nationale, for instance
pretty heady ryoji ikeda exhibition at DHC/ART, a art talk (mostly in french) at darling foundry tmrw eve, show at the MACM has some thought-provoking stuff too.
last weekend there was a full day of short orchestra performances at place des arts, but i don't know, most of august is usually about parties, shows and bbqs...

that's just off the top of my heat. there's a lot of stuff that could be sort of intellectual depending on how you look at it, e.g., that cool 360-degree film at SAT

http://oppositeinc.com/images/uploads/yourulevid.jpg

man this might be something that's existed forever and i just discovered now but you guys NEED to go to theatre outremont's cinema screenings, just paid 7 bucks for 5 HOURS of roman polanski movies! and there is so much amazing shit coming up in the next few weeks: http://www.theatreoutremont.ca/fr/programmation/?prog_type=cinema&page_id=415 what a BEAUTIFUL SPACE, too!

― reductio ad burzum (flopson), Wednesday, August 15, 2012 5:43 PM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

gah i always mean to go to these... are they actually film?

or an acceptabel digital format?

ty so much for that link!, flopson. seeing old american films subtitled is gonna be super useful for me & the programme looks fun

xp i have no idea, if digital it was more than acceptable (to me) in fact very crisp

if it's like bluray i can deal, if its dvd i'll be sad :(

might have to just called the box office and see?

i was going to email the theater

because i'm very plugged in

be that guy

i am guessing not film tho, just because it seems like that would be a thing they'd prob say on the site?

the ones i saw were definitely not film

tarkovsky season! http://www.cinemaduparc.com/english/prochainemente.php?id=maitresrusses#top

also i live here now

buy some ontario peaches theyre really good rn

oh and welcome!

I hear people in Montreal eat gerbils.

that would be weird

welcome to the city!

omg I need to buy some peaches

I went to the maker faire thing this weekend, sort of part of experience mtl thing, out at Olympic stadium - fair was neat, nerdy DIY techy, interesting, but I can't get over the oppressive concrete environment out there, with the stadium looming over it all. it's no wonder the govt is trying to revive the area, since it's a large space near the botanical gardens, biodome, etc, but man if it is hardly a welcoming spot... Also I posted abt experience mtl on my fb and friends were like "what is this and how did I not know public enemy is coming to town?" In my mind, more proof that Anglo weeklies are important...

There were gerbil sandwiches there, I saw with my astral projection

I think you're thinking of south american guinea pig sandwiches

that's montevideo not montreal, I see where the mistake could be made

OH SNAO! You are right. I was thinkig of Don Matus

In my mind, more proof that Anglo weeklies are important...

No it's cool there are other ways to learn things like those really informative TVs in the metros where you totally look at the 95% of the screen that isn't the number of minutes until you can go home

(I joke but that's where I learned about the Ryoji Ikeda exhibition :/)

The only thing vaguely important or significant thing in the Mirror was the Rant Line. I don't disagree that we might need an anglo weekly, but it sure wasn't that piece of shit.

yes but u hate everything including seemingly life itself

life's the worst, imo

"u hate everything including seemingly life itself - THE MONTREAL THREAD"

lol

:D

you cheat yourself of everything that moves

The Mirror was a tired little cabal, the sort that produces nothing of value but still feels the right to be applauded for it. Appearing in print (on REAL PAPER) is not a virtue nor is evidence of quality

sick burn

oh wait you're that dude that hates everything and refuses to meet other montreal ilxors right

like you spent time clowning on people telling them not to practice their french because they will be the absolute worst people on the planet, no exaggeration

montreal's own burt_stanton

I'm paraphrasing myself on some thread from months ago, but I believe my comments were to the effect that "people who work at Subway for $7 an hour aren't paid enough to humour the fantasies of American tourists and hipsters who wish to 'practice their French'." You want fromage on that, boss? Toasté?

Take a French course. There are clubs you can join for that. Don't hamstring the customer service efficiency of a functioning North American city because you wish to pretend the person serving you doesn't understand the difference between fromage and cheese.

I may also suggested it's insulting because the person you're dealing with may also prefer to speak English, but you wouldn't get that.

Montreal threads collect some lame hangers-on, but I guess that's proportional to the city itself.

when eaton's removed the ' fields of salmon was there

but he's losing his edge

When Mookieproof bought a fixed-gear bicycle made out of random spare parts, I was there.

lol your hatred for your city is consistently hilarious and depressing, i'd suggest you'd move but i'm sure you'd be just as miserable wherever you went

http://jeslacasse.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/The-Problem-Is-You.jpg

I'll try not to be too miserable when I'm back in yr burg yet again this year, sir

for memories, for posterity:

I've been here for what seems like forever. The food is still appalling (tourist trap brochetteries, rudeness bistros, overpriced fast food, casse-croûte straight out of Naked Lunch, Asian fusion nouilleries, the worst pizza of any major city in North America) in any of the areas that are "Montreal" enough to warrant living in. The food's good enough in some outer areas where the immigrants of colour have been granted restaurant licenses to cook their smelly ethnic foods, but you might as well live in Ontario and get a decent job at that rate since a Montreal suburb is just as ugly if not uglier than anywhere else and the food in Toronto is world class. Go ahead, live in Verdun. Have a hot dog. Tant pis. Or, live somewhere even shittier and, une fois par semaine, vas-t'en au quartier Chinois to enjoy the privilege of paying $8.00 for mediocre Pho. Bagels are good though, so is La Banquise (which hasn't poisoned me yet).

Any of the charmingly local nouveau cuisine has a kind of reactionary political context that I don't feel comfortable eating. Go ahead, eat duck and rabbit while your city collapses around your ears. Historical shit, right? Let's continue to harken to a semi-mythical vie de bûcheron. That's going to help a lot, bros. But the tourists love it so I guess you're getting paid, Picard.

The omnipresent corruption and incompetence can wear a bit thin. But, whatever.

Still not sure I'd want to live anywhere else.

― fields of salmon, Friday, July 23, 2010 8:51 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.startrek.com/uploads/assets/db_articles/d606d07c815f2bcc099e17ee3b1e6463037f7c92.jpg

I guess you're getting paid, Picard.

speaking of our "shitty food" I had a burger at La Flammee (in Brasserie Cherrier, which apparently isn't a dive now?) and it was in my top 2 burgers in the city! RIYL: burgers

I made Pizza poutine the other day - pwned the kitchen - fries, Newmans' Own saucey and cheese. chez Manifique!

speaking of our "shitty food" I had a burger at La Flammee (in Brasserie Cherrier, which apparently isn't a dive now?) and it was in my top 2 burgers in the city! RIYL: burgers

― #1 Thwartstop Prospect (Will M.), Wednesday, August 29, 2012 11:11 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

im hearing good things about this burg

it's not some sort of bold redefinition of the burger or anything, it just plays the hits RIGHT. so juicy. plus you can order it rare since they grind it to order. yeah i rather enjoyed it. the fries were no joke either, and the coleslaw was not creamy = a win for coleslaw everytime imo.

can anyone rep for a good falafel sandwich, here. it doesn't seem to be a big ~presence~ afaict. i am exploring quite a lot at the moment (ty for the tips on the ikeda exhibition btw!) & am pretty open to most-all top-veggie-menu-items anyone is pushing. this time of year is so nice in montreal.

hm.. most of the middle eastern joints focus on shish taouk and shwarma, and altho they all have falafel i wouldn't describe any of the fast-food falafel as A++.

Daou is a pretty solid restaurant that has quality Lebanese food.

good falafel doesnt really exist here, you might want to try panthère verte on st-viateur tho, its prob the best

ps go to jean-talon market if you havent already

this isn't a great falafel city but Falafel Freiha is regarded as the best.

also great veggie options (middle-eastern stuff) at Petit Alep.

both sides of the alep are wonderful

I really like panthere verte's falafel - but yknow I'm a health-food type - whatevs tho, they're really good!

ooh I haven't been to either of the aleps in ages, need to fix that

what is falafel made of anyway? Fala?

yes

the fala fel, burning in defiance

have any of you ever been to akli? in the foodcourt below office building on mctavish/metcalfe and sherbrooke. killer falafel imo, if a bit salty

also nilufar (st catherine bw atwater guy, st mathieu or sth?), not necessarily the best falafel but they cost like 1.75$ each and are pretty good, green & fresh rather than brown & dry

thanks thread now i have to get falafel for dinner

been really depressed by all montreal lebanese etc. food tho since going to berlin & basically living off sandwiches there, no comparison ito middle eastern sandwich scene

wow, my riding actually went Quebec Solidaire!
i guess i'm not totally surprised, but still, wow

trying to keep that in mind as PQ seems to be headed towards a majority? srsly?

i'm pretty pleased with these results so far

yeah i guess i am too, kind of. my previous post was written when a PQ majority was being considered a reality. i figured PQ minority would happen though, so hey, here we go!

well, "pleased" is not exactly the word tbh

pq coalition majority w/ qs (provided they give them a cabinet seat) still possible tho?

sometimes seems like being an anglo in quebec is liked being consigned to vote for the same party for your entire life it's pretty pathetic, like as soon as there's a pq alternative standing across the stage no amount of corruption arrogance is too great to be swallowed & forgotten, ppl should be relieved the party they've spent the last 4 years cursing is being held accountable

oh i'm certainly glad to see the liberals go! or go-ish!
i don't know if the QS would want to be in a coalition with PQ? seems weird

Based on the current seat projections, I don't see how a PQ-QS coalition could form a majority?: http://www.cbc.ca/news/live/2012/09/quebec-votes-2012.html

Are there more updated numbers?

i think that was just speculation from earlier in the night when PQ was much closer to a majority

Ah, cool.

Ha, a Lib-CAQ coalition is theoretically possible!

without charest having won his seat?

I didn't say it's likely but constitutionally, that's not a problem at all.

Afaik, there's nothing that says a PM or premier needs to be a sitting member. (Just double-checked with a constitution nerd.)

Seriously, in general, I wish people were more open to the possibilities offered within parliamentarianism. It's so unimaginative that the sitting leader of the party with a plurality of seats always becomes PM/premier and I think it actually undermines parliamentary democracy a little.

That's more of a post for the Cdn politics thread though.

this is awful. this is...i can't even.

have you ever had some delicious food ethic or otherwise out somwhere and then you are punished badly in the restroom and you feel as if "why did they do it? "

his is awful. this is...i can't even.

― twinkin' and drinkin' and ready to fly (Alex in Montreal), Wednesday, September 5, 2012 6:18 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^

as a smaller aside ty for all the recommendations. i'm gonna go to jean talon soon, they sell aubergines in hypnotic configurations, so i'm sold.

as for me I find the Plant of Egg to be most unpalatable

awwwww really? i was never crazy about them before. i don't want to suggest user error but i have been detailing my eggplant wiles here if you feel like giving that little guy a second chance, the hell am i gonna do with this eggplant

You may as well toss that Solanaceae in the rubbish bin. It would do as well there as anywhere. In fact I am suspicious of the entire Nightshade family, including the Tobbaco plant and Tomato as well. Only the potato has my permission to love itself.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/OriginalPoutineLaBanquise.jpg

now we're talkin

i do like the small japanese eggplants tho

I like eggplant but it has to be cooked correctly, which isn't as intuitive as it should be, so maybe I hate eggplant.

eggplant is def a harsh mistress

when not done well its gross, but it can be so sublime

i went to the fall apple-themed menu at cabane à sucre au pied de cochon last week and one of the dishes was this aubergine pancake... impossible to describe but fuckin cuhrazypants

WHat of the seeds, the seeds? are they not an offense to the mouth?

i think i have never noticed aubergine seeds

http://siteware.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/eggplant-seed-harvest.jpg

BEHOLD!

ha ha. are you sitting at your keyboard running knives over unwanted aubergines getting mad about subpar vegetables? no i mean i'm aware they exist, but like i have never texturally tasted them or felt them interfere with the eating of an aubergine. they just seem fine.

It seesm to me thy tongue is not as sharp and precise as this steel blade or you too would quiver in horror at the granulations!

lol

i am quiverin

i just think you need to grill one of these guys, throw it in a sandwich or eat it on toast with mustard, let the good times roll

The only thing that is rolling is my eyes and my bowels!

I bought some of those marinated, grilled eggplant slices you can get at any deli (in this case La Maison des Pâtes Fraîches). I made a basic tomato sauce then threw the eggplant slices in the food processor. Dumped them into the sauce. It was the richest, tastiest pasta sauce I've made in a long time.

I've been trying to replicate this at home by roasting eggplants in the oven. I can't seem to do it. I can't seem to do much of anything with eggplant at the moment.

if you have a grill, you can grill them until they totally collapse (err on the side of overcooking), then let them cool a bit, peel them and get rid of the juice that leaks out, then chop em up like crazy or blend them, add lemon juice salt pepper tahini, and you got yourself a baba ghanouj.

I guess we should make a newthread "HELLISH EGGPLANTS COME ALIVE"

you know just to justify derailing the mtl thread into aubergine territory, i cooked w/a few of the little (japanese? i think they're canadian but i think i've heard the lil baby aubergines called japanese before (maybe itt)) aubs yesterday, grilling them, & they were kind of a little bitter. just putting it out there that, factoring in regional supply variety, ymmv.

would def grill instead of roast, if i were you, fields of salmon; roasted aubergines are amazing to make into sauces but more as a weird smulchy disappearing ingredient than as a solid eggplant component. i slice; salt; sweat for awhile; brush w/olive oil & some spices (smoked paprika/sumac/i haven't found smoked paprika in montreal yet/what is up w that); & then grill for ten minutes, turn over & grill for ten more. getting tahini involved sounds like a real good idea too.

Making eggplant for lunch!

"Montreal, where Eggplants are Revered"

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/466970

Janice Lawandi, Montreal Cooking Examiner

http://www.examiner.com/article/mini-eggplants-are-perfect-for-stuffing

she can go stuff her eggplants

Aw man, I want to go back to Montreal. I really loved it.

quite a resume M'lady

http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/janice-lawandi-phd/7/711/471

Lawandi awaits you E-to -the-NBB

I am considering sending Latham Green in my stead

i hope the forecast rain this weekend doesn't happen. there's a lot of good outdoor stuff i want to do (that wld suck in the rain)

uh
xp

tho i do like his not-necessarily-Montreal contributions to this thread

One activity I can think of that would suck in the rain it trying to build a house of playing cards. Or trying to draw faces on coffee filters with a que-tip and some sort of ochre - tehy would be ruined! mon deiu!

tabarnouche! now i really hope it doesn't rain

Ta Bouche est tabarnouche!

I guess I could plan a trip myself, someday, instead of sending Mr. Green

You have no need for worry - I do not travel. Ever.

Montreal all is probably not that far from you!

err no "all"

Montreal-all is what we call the city as a whole

it's like "galactica actual" on BSG

s1ocki recommend to me brunch places near mile end

other people can recommend places too but i want that gourmand seal of approval

Boston -all includes Newton I guess and Peabody - seems like some sort of linux command with a dash liek that

ipconfig -all

it's ifconfig on linux

really? shit I suck at linux! The Official Distro of Montreal is Eggplantware

lol galactica montreal actual

???
http://www.worldsfairphotos.com/expo67/battlestar-galactica.htm

"Actors Dirk Benedict (as fighter pilot Starbuck) and Bobby Van (as Hector, the android), traveled to Montreal for these scenes. Benedict has been quoted as saying it was an uncomfortable experience - not all that surprising in that the scenes were shot in winter in buildings that had not been heated in years."

plus he was with an Eggplant man