Tuesday, July 27, 2010

East Coast Earthquake - What Just Happened?!

Breakfast.

Breakfast Breakfast Breakfast.

Seb had heard of a breakfast place in Montreal that we had to check out. We looked it up, and this is what we read:

L'Avenue has the best breakfast I have eaten in North America.

How could we not go? When we got there, there was a line-up outside with about 15-20 people. The place was banging! As rightly it should be for a Sunday afternoon. At first, when we were waiting, we couldn't help but notice that the 4top at the window had all but finished, and the father was reading the newspaper. We started asking ourselves how someone could do that in an obviously busy restaurant.

Guess which table we ended up getting?

Me being "shy", it was tough watching the line go past with women all in it. Our server, Guillaume, explained that our pitcher of mojitos was on the way, there was a bit of a jam at the bar. Sab explained we had nowhere to go, so don't worry about the wait, we were having fun. Then he got us a round of shots for being cool. Seriously. The food was excellent and enormous helpings, the atmosphere superb, and the staff were cool as hell, despite a VERY irate table of 8 waiting at the door.
Here's a tip to those who have never worked in a restaurant: When you walk into a popular joint with seven of your friends, at 2 in the afternoon, don't threaten to "snap the waiter's neck" because you were waiting 5 minutes while they ready your tables together. Bonus tip: if you then loudly announce that you "have to drive back to New York", and a table nearby laughs and starts talking about how much fun they're having, yes, those two events are related. Fuck that walking stereotype. I felt bad for his wife, she was obviously embarrassed. Guillaume was a legend, bringing us more shots (people having fun in the windows makes the place look fun. We BECAME the atmosphere!) L'Avenue is definitely a must-do for Montreal.

Over breakfast, and our second pitcher of mojito, we talked to JP from our first dinner out and he was going to drive us to Piknic Electronik, an outdoor party with djs and drinks. The event takes place every Sunday during the summer, and is situated on L'ile Saint Helene. You may recognize this name from its most internationally famous event of the year, the Formula 1 Gilles Villeneuve race track. Even better, because there was a heavy metal festival occurring where the usual site for Piknic was, we got to drive on the track! We spent a good long while there, and the party ended around ten pm. We were certainly not ending! JP drove us back to the main city by way of a re-enactment of the course, and while it emerged the following day that all of us wanted to retire to the apartment for a couple of hours, we ended up going to a club far too early. A classic case of too many chiefs and not enough indians; we ended up walking down a Rue Mont Royal trying to decide where to go. It was a truly bizarre evening; Boptes was our first bar (more cheap Jack), and after a couple there, we headed over to a great bar, La Disterie where they make monstrous cocktails in monstrous jam jars. I saw Andrea, the best bartender of my trip; she honestly must have been working on 6 to 8 orders at once, all different.
I think we caught a cab… JP may have driven… If he did, we all survived.

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