Is this the 1,000,000,000th food blog?

What's the point of another food blog out on the world, I know. And to be honest I don't have any hooks or tricks. I'm just a guy that loves food and trying to replicate half the stuff I eat at home. I'd say I love many different types of flavour profiles (yes, flavour not flavor. I'm Canadian) but what I really care about is enjoying the meal itself.

In Montreal, there's certain foods we do well, and there's some that we fail miserably at. This is the same for any city really but if you're looking to travel here some of this info can be good to know. Let's see, I'd recommend french of course. There's the fancy 4+ courses with wine pairings which is always good, but the better stuff is bistro\brasserie style. French country cooking is just pure happiness. We also have excellent Indian food, Thai (although not cheap but moderately priced), Portugese and Italian (but not as much as most people think).

There are cuisines that we fail at and accept very poor versions. If you disagree, feel free to send me recommendations cause I LOVE being proved wrong. Well.... in THIS case. But I'm always right. Mexican food is generally poor mexi-cali style where nobody really knows the difference between a burrito and a fajita. There is a new crop of great cheap mexican eats, but they're rare. El Rey Del Taco at Jean-Talon Market is probably my favourite spot for tacos with lamb or pork fillings. There's also the Grumman 78 crew who are creative and excellent but it's a food truck that isn't actually allowed to sell food most of the time. Japanese food is missing a major presence. Sushi firstly is not a good representation of japanese cuisine (I spent 2 weeks traveling through the country, never ate a single piece of it) and secondly the quality of the fish we get here is not as good as what New York gets or any coastal city like San Francisco. There's a shining star in this category, and that would be Kazu. An izakaya is a pub in Japan, you'll find these anywhere, especially near the train stations as people eat there before jumping on the train to head home. Kazu is the first proper izakaya in Montreal. There are a couple of other spots, some aren't very good like Big in Japan, and some I haven't tried yet such as Imadake.

In the future I hope to expand on this jibber jabber, give you recipes that I've created, stolen, modified, and just have fun.

- Marc