Category: Travel

Stepping out our door smack into First Friday

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When we first bought our loft in King William, we walked over to the patio at Azuca for lunch. It immediately hit us that we were going to live in the exact spot we would want to stay if we were on vacation in San Antonio – a block off the river, a quick walk into downtown, in the midst of an emerging restaurant scene.

Last night, we strolled through Southtown’s First Friday for about 20 minutes before sitting down with banh mi sandwiches from the Duk Truck at Alamo Street Eat to listen to a set by Mitch Webb and the Swindles. I snapped a few – well, a lot of – photos on the way, all taken within about a three-block radius of our house.

I would recommend any of the food stops in the photos, and I cheated by throwing in our favorite weekend lunch spot – Tre Trattoria Downtown.

Grazing our way through Quebec City…

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macarons

This represents our final fulfillment of our pledge to record some of our restaurant experiences from our recent trip to assist other travelers who obsessively turn to the internet before mealtime. (Well, semi-recent. And only a partial fulfillment. This has been a slow process, and the memories of restaurants and meals are fading a bit.)

Our apartment was in the Vieux-Port area of Quebec City, and foot was always our mode of transportation during our stay.

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On the night of our arrival we lucked into seats at L’Échaude, a tony spot where reservations normally are a necessity. Service was extremely polished, and we enjoyed the rich flavors of a mussel and seafood soup in lobster broth and grilled seafood risotto.

Somehow we ended up in the neighborhood of Le Pain Béni in the old city twice at lunch time. The multi-course table d’hote menu represents quite a bargain and inside was relaxing after our long morning explorations. A crispy duck appetizer flavored with maple was wonderful. Maple seems to slip into the ingredients of numerous dishes in Quebec City. Among the dishes we sampled were a lobster-based risotto with fish and a flank steak with purple potatoes and carrots. The fruit salad was not a good dessert option, but the blueberry cake soaked with maple is highly recommended.

SSS, formally named Simple Snack Sympathique, is a popular, trendy spot in the port area and is a sister restaurant of Restaurant Toast. Weekday lunch seems to attract professionals rather than tourists. For lunch, I had salmon tartar with sesame seed and avocado, and the Mister ordered roasted lamb shank with gremolata and roasted vegetables. Both came with French fries, which you can exchange for salad or vegetables. But don’t. These are great fries.

A visit to the impressive National Assembly building was on our agenda, but, rather than go on the total tour, we checked out the restaurant, Le Parliamentaire. We had no reservations, but they are recommended. The Beaux Arts dining room with soaring ceiling is elegant, and service is formal. The table d’hote is not as expensive as one would expect in such surroundings, and the setting is worth experiencing.

We flunked planning ahead, and so often could not get in at the last minute for dinner at some of the popular restaurants in the old quarter. Part of the failure to make reservations was due to lack of hunger. Our long table d’hote lunches left no room for major dinners. We actually slipped into – true confession – a chain, not once, but twice, for lighter evening fare. The Piazzetta in the Old Port area is quite pleasant. The pizza is fine, but what surprised us was how good the restaurant’s main course salads are. We split a warm asparagus and prosciutto salad, which included grape tomatoes, olive and onions with balsamic vinaigrette; and a warm apple and camembert salad with croutons and pecans topped with a three-pepper maple syrup dressing.

As we neared the end of the two-week trip to Canada, I was beginning to yearn for a non-restaurant meal. The century-old farmer’s market, Marché du Vieux Port, was only about a block or two from our apartment and was filled with fresh fruits, vegetables, cheeses, meats and fish just waiting to be relocated to our kitchen.

One more night, and I’m sure I would have cooked.

Maybe.

Ceci n’est pas un grafitti: Random snapshots and superficial observations of Quebec City

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Ah, historic old Quebec City. So clean, so orderly. It makes sense the only graffiti we spotted would deny its very existence.

Building upon the initial observations of Quebec found in my post about Montréal, the following represents additional random thoughts from our stay in Quebec City:

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1. Quebec City is spotless. Amazingly litter-free. Everywhere. Even by the port where we were staying.

2. Within the walls of the old city, the buildings are beautifully preserved. Williamsburg-perfect. Virtually everything appears as if it has been carefully restored only yesterday. Even the architecture of the train station is Disney-castle-looking perfect.

3. While we often appeared to be the oldest couple in restaurants in Montréal, Quebec City made us feel the opposite. Blame it on “the boat people,” as I call them. Cruise ships pull up at the port at the base of the city, and empty their contents ashore. Herds of elderly (at least in the fall) take over the streets, swarming their way through the shops.

4. Which means the oldest part of the city is filled with shoppes (which I pronounce shoppies) designed to appeal to the repetitive invasions of the upscale boat people. People who might think opera-length giraffe gloves a necessity.

5. While we loved the pedestrian-dominated streets climbing upward and the perfectly restored buildings, it was when we broke out of the walls and walked past the state capitol that we found the Quebec City I liked. The buildings were all still historic; everything was clean; but there it felt real. More people lived and worked there on a daily basis, there out of the walking range of most of the boat people. Instead of shoppes, the ground floor of buildings housed businesses providing practical services and necessities. Small, neighborhood multi-ethnic restaurants flourished. Outside the old walls, the city has a more authentic feeling personality.

6. And, saints alive. Well, dead actually. Canadian Catholics still elevate relics, as in bones, to prominent display. American Catholics tend to ignore this old-world religious tradition. While I am fascinated but strangely accepting of this, to the point I was not content until I purchased some saint’s bones of my own, the Mister is more mystified. He always comes up with remarks such as, “One saint sure must go a long way.” And he worries about when they chop up the saints into all those little pieces spread out to inspire faith and prayers in churches around the world. Is this the fate of all saints, or only the ones who were martyred in such a brutal fashion their bones already were rendered into shards? Out of curiosity, I thought I would check on the disposition of the body parts Canada’s newest saint, Kateri Tekakwitha, declared so by Pope Benedict on October 21. Stumbled across a virtual audit of her skeletal remains from skull to sternum. The Mister is right. One saint does go a long way.

To view more snapshots taken during our vacation in Quebec City, visit shutterfly.