How many more blockbusters would you be willing to drop 13 bucks for? Personally, I'm done with it.
However, I love cinema and will be the first one to admit that renting movies is not the same as going to a movie theater. A movie theater gives you the atmosphere, the sound and the focus. In the coziness of your seat, you are "inside" the story unveiling on the screen. For good movies
(and I mean
guaranteed good movies), you have to go to one of Montreal's
répertoire (or repertory) cinemas, the best of which is Cinema du Parc.
I assumed Cinema du Parc had closed its doors a while ago, which I thought was unfortunate because it had left fewer available alternatives to watch good cinema. However, it recently reopened with a vengeance...
Read the rest of: "Cinéma du Parc"»
A staggering number of chain cafes and coffee shops in Montreal
haven't yet cornered the market on favoured hangouts. We Montrealers
enjoy our home-grown locales. Café Utopik is such a place that seems
to thrive on its independent situation...
Read the rest of: "Café Utopik"»
Canadians have a reputation for loving their beer, but the mental
picture most often associated with your average beer drinker is not
generally a positive one. Loutish frat boys drinking cases of
mediocre mass-produced brew is an image that lovers of good beer
abhor.
One Toronto restaurant is determined to polish the reputation
of both the drink and the drinker -- their logo says it all --
changing the way people think about beer.
Read the rest of: "Changing the Way People Think About Beer"»
Say "Indian food" to just about anyone and they'll swoon over chana
masala, paneer, maybe tandoori chicken. Say the word "dosa" and their
faces will get a confused expression.
India, like many countries that are long in length and encompass a
variety of distinct geographic areas, has many different cuisines.
Most Indian restaurants concentrate on the cuisines of the northern
regions; heavy on dairy, tomatoes and meat. In the south of India and
Sri Lanka, the food is very different. Dairy is rare, the spices are
hot (deep fried chili peppers make a common and tasty snack) and the
heavier breads of the north are replaced with large, light,
crepe-like breads called dosa...
Read the rest of: "The Other Taste of India"»
“MMMMMM!" was the exclamation of pleasure from a life-long New Yorker
when first sampling Montreal bagels. This was high praise indeed. This Long-Islander went on to concede that these bagels even rivaled New York's otherwise unrivaled bagels. Montrealers have known for some time that
their bagels were world class. In fact, beyond smoked meat and poutine,
perhaps no food characterizes Montreal more than its bagels. Like their
smoked meat brethren, Montreal bagels are originally a contribution of
the city's sizeable Jewish community. And just as debate might wage
between smoked meat at Shwartz's or The Main, a similar competition
exists between Montreal's top bagel bakeries, Fairmount and St Viateur...
Read the rest of: "Fairmount versus St-Viateur"»
I awoke one morning after a night on the town with a desperate craving for a fast, filling, delicious breakfast to indulge my palate and soothe my aching stomach. Fortunately, the decision of where to go was easy: Dusty's, on the corner of du Parc and Mont Royal...
Read the rest of: "Breakfast at Dusty's"»
I've met quite a few people in Montreal, and all of them surprised me with the same statement: "I've never been to La Grande Bibliothèque".
Worse, that would happen immediately after I'd answer the most common question, which is: "What have you liked the most in Montreal so far?"
La Grande Bibliothèque is definitely one of the top things on my list
and when I mention it many people seem surprised...
Read the rest of: "La Grande Bibliothèque: Not Only For Geeks"»
You've seen it if you go to the movies. It's the backdrop for most of Chicago and parts of Cinderella Man. Walking the cobblestoned laneways of Toronto's Historic Distillery District is like a journey back in time.
Established in 1832, the Gooderham and Worts distillery grew to become the largest in the British Empire. Known as the most well-preserved collection of Victorian Industrial Architecture in North America, the Distillery District covers 13 acres and is made up of over 40 buildings...
One of the biggest complaints about the neighbourhood was the dearth of good restaurants. Balzac's coffeehouse offered sandwiches and crepes, but the other two restaurants onsite, run by the same management company that runs the entire complex, were overpriced and more than a little pretentious...
Read the rest of: "Mill Street Brew Pub"»
