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Headed north to Montreal and Toronto last week and made most of the appropriate pilgrimages for smoked meat, poutine, bagels, a depraved dream come true at Au Pied de Cochon, and much more. Along the way we kept encountering that discombobulating phenomenon of the travel doppelgänger–skewed Canuck incarnations of familiar characters from home popping up everywhere. There was the one-eyed cousin of my cat skulking down a Chinatown alley, and toothy Quebecois analogues of minor Chicago politicians plastered all over the light poles. And then we ate at Cowbell, Toronto’s answer to Wicker Park’s Mado.
See, everything I ate on this trip–and I ate extremely well–was overshadowed by a heartbreaking and hauntingly good meal at Montreal’s notorious Au Pied de Cochon. I wish I could show you the Plogue à Champlain I ate there, a mountain of ham, potatoes, and foie gras atop a buckwheat pancake drizzled with maple syrup (wait–here’s one). We started that meal with a ridiculously over-the-top crispy salad, a towering mound of greens larded with crispy, fatty porky bits and topped with a card-deck-size croquette filled with glistening fatty hock meat. God help me, I can’t stop thinking about it.
