Epic Diamond Road Trip - Day 2 Part 3: A Very Polish Dinner in Montreal

J and I went back to our hotel room after the basilica, changed, and redeemed our complimentary drink coupons (another perk of J being a baller!) in the hotel bar - I got red wine (how refined!  I know, I know, and uncharacteristic...don't worry, I made it up by ordering lots of beers later...) and we set out into Old City Montreal for dinner.

Gorgeous sky.  Don't worry, I wasn't standing in the middle
of the street with oncoming cars, it just looks like it.

We passed a Canadian First Nations store while we were winding down the very European-esque streets, and I had to take a picture.  The similarities between this art and Native Alaskan art were many (for obvious reasons) and it made me miss Alaska in a pretty extreme way.  The shop was closed, but I spent a good long time looking in the window.

We ended up at a Polish restaurant called Stash Cafe (um, could this get any better?!?) that was the right price for the right amount of class - after all, I WAS wearing a pretty dress, and I didn't want to be overdressed for the occasion.

I saw this dress, and had to have it.
Target clearance, you are so good to me sometimes...

 The menu in both French and English...although I like to think that I would have been able to explain to J what everything was just fine even if it hadn't been in English at all.

Fun placemats

James got the kielbasa dinner, which looked fabulous (and honestly, if I had seen it before ordering, might have swayed me...J let me taste a little bit of everything on his plate and it was FANTASTIC!)

I, of course, looked at the menu and got immediately overwhelmed by all of my choices - remember, this trip was in August - it had been since Easter that I had eaten any Polish food, and everything on the menu was making my mouth water.  As usual, when I get overwhelmed, I opt for the first thing that I see, and the thing that I know that I'll enjoy.  I went for the bigos, which is hunter's stew.  Basically, it's one of those "everything but the kitchen sink" meals - SO GOOD.  

The best bigos that I've ever had in my life I had when I went to Poland with my mother when I was 17.  We stayed with hosts through the Servas program all over the country for two weeks.  One of the families that we stayed with made bigos for lunch one day, and I could not believe how amazing it was.  I was still a quite picky 17 year old eater, and here I was, hungrily noshing on a stew made with God-knows-what by people who had no idea what my taste preferences were and didn't care.  The first bite was purely polite - the second (and every bite after) was because my mouth was in heaven.

This bigos was quite good.  Not quite as good as the first bowl of bigos ever, but damn good.

It doesn't look like much, but WHOO BOY!!

J got one beer, I got one beer, we each had half of each

The restaurant had a piano player who
played for most of our meal.  Super classy.

Street art

This scene just reminded me of traipsing around Europe in my late teens

We then proceeded to head off to a bar for a drink, and then another bar for another drink, and then another bar for another drink....

Delicious food, great company, amazing city.


-Bethy