Friday, June 24, 2005
A Night On the Town: Montreal

Montreal's nightlife is very similar to nightlife in European cities. Especially Crescent street is a favorite of mine. The list of bars, clubs, and restaurants there is quite extensive. Of course the downside of going to Montreal for business is that one does not have time to enjoy the town much. But on this trip, we were staying for a few days, and we managed to break away for an evening.

We started out with a trip to a Brazilian stake house. I can not recall the name, but it doesn't really matter since it was mediocre at best. If you are in the mood for a Brazilian stake house, look for Fogo de Chao, which is among the best Churrascarias I have found in the US. The one we went to had ok meat, but the side dishes were disappointing, and they had no salad bar or anything that would appeal to anyone who doesn't like meat very much. Plus, the meat was only ok, and they didn't bring around all that much. They did however have a Samba dancer. She had obviously seen better days (quite a number of them, as it appeared), but it still added some fun and excitement. Cool.

After dinner, we proceeded on to Crescent street and went to Jacques Villeneuve's Newtown club. (In case you don't know, Jacques is a Formula One driver who even was world champion back in 97 when he was in better shape). It is a modern hip place, but it was a bit dead that night (Monday night). We had a few drinks and some people who joined us there had some food, which apparently was pretty good (I didn't try it myself). I think it's the kind of place that is much better when it's rockin'. We ended up moving on to some other bars on Crescent, which were more lively.

The next evening, we didn't have enough time to go to any bars, but we did end up eating at Zen (at the Hotel Omni Mont-Royal), a sit-down Chinese restaurant. I had been there two years before, and I wanted to go back, voting down the Treehouse, which was Ellen's favorite. At Zen, you pay 32 Canadian Dollars for all you can eat family style food. You simply order as many individual dishes as you want, and everything is then shared amongst the people at the table. The food we had all tasted excellent and we only managed to eat about half of what we ordered. I did however feel a bit nauseous afterwards. I think I just am not used to eating fried food and Chinese can often be pretty rich. A few hours later I found myself wishing we would have gone to the Treehouse instead, even though I'd go back to Zen as well.