8 foods you should say, “bonjour” to in montreal

Poutine – fries with gravy and cheese curds. Need I say more? I don’t normally like soggy fries but somehow, this just works. Must be all the cheese. This dish originates from Quebec. Being that Montreal is IN Quebec, you won’t find a shortage of poutine places. I would think that it’s like finding a pizza place in NYC – it’s only a matter of finding the perfect one
Poutine from Poutineville in Plateau Mont Royal
Smoked meat – similar to New York pastrami. This is also where the recipe for Montreal steak seasoning comes from
Smoked meat sammie with some smoked meat poutine from Smoking Meat in Ville Marie
Montreal-style bagels – according to Wikipedia, as compared to NYC bagels, it’s a “smaller, thinner, sweeter and denser, with a larger hole, and is always baked in a wood-fired over. It contains malt, egg, and no salt, and is boiled in honey-sweetened water before being baked”.
St Viateur is probably the most popular for Montreal-style bagels. They have a few locations but you should go to this one.
Kinka Izakaya – okay so this one isn’t technically a food, but it’s a restaurant. Another thing I always like to try in different cities is their sushi. I found this restaurant via Yelp and it just happened to be a 5-minute walk from our hotel. The food was great and we ended up doing a sake bomb. Ahh..brings me back to my youth.

Beef Tataki

Cheesy, broiled oysters

Fresh Sashimi
Tim Horton’s – not specific to Montreal but you’re in Canada, so why not?
We prefer fattier breakfast foods with meat and cheese
Starbucks – I always like to see what gift card designs they have that are specific to that city, and what drinks they have. In this case, it was a honeycomb lavender latte, which I wish they had in NYC.
McDonald’s – nothing too different, except for the poutine, which is why we didn’t end up getting it since we’d rather have restaurant-style poutine. I’d imagine it would just be McDonald’s fries with some sort of mediocre gravy and some cheese, which is why we opted out. Still fun to look at the menu though!
Shawarma – added this one last because it’s a bonus one. Not specific to Montreal, but I had no idea that the shawarma here was so good (and cheap!)
Gotta love some meat on a spit

Platter for $12, which is enough for 2 people @ Shawarmaz