I heart Montreal... I mean the food

Wow what a great weekend - I drove down to Montreal with Mercedes and Lucy, two of my great friends from York and while the lovely ladies had the sole purpose of partying in mind and generally going crazy, I had FOOD in mind as I've been slowly recovering from being unable to eat, due to the enormous quadruple gargantuan empty sockets that now reside in my mouth. It was so much fun, althought the drive was long. On the way there, we stopped at a roadside McDonald's despite the fact that all three of us vowed never to eat awful fast food again about five minutes earlier. I caved in and got a chicken mcnugget happy meal (oooh my favourite) and while I really wanted a certain Pirates of the Caribbean toy, instead I got a blow-up sword that looked very phallic in nature. It was so funny, I was waving it around and hitting everyone with it and we got a lot of weird stares from drivers passing by! Finally, we arrived and it turns out not only was the hotel the girls were staying at situated in the gay area of Montreal, it was also the Outgames that weekend (I still have yet to figure out exactly what these games entail) so it was kinda funny, considering the girls wanted to hook up with some fine single men!
That night we ate at Chao Praya, a wonderful Thai place and had some very good wine, a Gewurtztraminer, in fact. I found out that generally Reislings and Gewurtraminers go well with Asian food, so no wonder I love sweet white wine so much! That night I finally got to meet up with Priya, who had been away for two months volunteering in Ecuador and travelling in Peru, and her pictures were gorgeous, absolutely stunning. I was also quite jealous of her new digital camera, which is sooooo nice.
The next day while the girls were out shopping, I dragged Mike to Ikea because I've been dying to go and I missed the last summer garage sale at the Toronto Ikea because of my oral surgery. It was a lot of fun finding out what Mike liked furniture-wise and fawning over beautiful kitchens but by far the best part was dreaming about having a $1 Ikea hot dog at the end of our shopping and finding out the hot dogs actually only cost $0.50. What a steal. Seriously, Ikea has it down pat - a maze-like showroom so you have to walk through every area, products that you don't mind paying full price for because it's already so damn cheap, a self-serve furniture area so people don't feel like they have to wait for things, a cafeteria showcasing the very furniture they sell on the premises and FOOD that is damn CHEAP, so that everyone is full and happy and they don't have to go off the premises to eat or drink. I don't understand why more companies don't pick up on this concept... I guess Wal-Mart has a similar scheme, but still you can't compare that with Ikea.
After that we met up with the girls to eat at SCHWARTZ's, I can't believe I've never been to this deli, even after being to Montreal so many times. I've never enjoyed smoked meat so thoroughly in my life. I stole what bits of steak I could eat from Mercedes' gigantic combo. Not to mention the coleslaw and pickles. It was funny because it was Mike + 3 girls, and the waiter was thoroughly impressed. He asked Mike, "you're such a lucky guy, how do you do it?" and I responded, "he takes us to Schwartz's!" and we all just laughed. Whatever odd time I do manage to become Lorelai Gilmore-esque and crack a witty joke, it's quite satisfying, I must say.
As if that wasn't enough food, we descended upon Rockaberry, a wonderful place that serves tons of desserts and iced coffee, very reminiscent of Nairobi Java House! We each split warmed pecan pie with ice cream, lemon meringue, apple crumble and a truffle cake. We wobbled home, and while Mike and I fell asleep watching 24, the girls went out to party... after hours too.
The next day Mike made me steak and eggs for breakfast, because I was still dreaming and drooling over the steak at Schwartz's. It was very yummy and then we went shopping on St. Denis. I was so happy to stumble upon a store called "Giraffe" that sold beautiful Kenyan art! Mind you, the items were 600% more in price, but I finally got to purchase for myself a wooden giraffe carving that I always wanted but never got the chance to get in Kenya. I feel badly that it's not truly authentic, but I console myself by the fact that hopefully I am contributing to the Kenyan export industry.
The afternoon ended with gelato (not as goos as in Italy), a kick-ass shoe purchase by Mike and a meal at Bieres et Compagnie. Such a cool modern pub, that's the only way to put it! We ordered Diabolo mussels (white wine, red chili, celery, shallots) and caribou ravioli. Mmmm, it was all so yummy... I was sad to leave. It's not often Mike and I get to be tourists in Montreal so it was a lot of fun. On the way home, the food didn't end however... we pigged out over take-out poutine from La Belle Province and it was soooooooooooooooo good purely because of the gravy alone, which is superb, seriously I was asking myself over and over what do they put in that gravy because it is just that good. Lucy was driving and so as not to leave her out I was feeding her poutine, which garnered even more weird stares from other drivers.
Anyways it was back to work today and a bunch of us went out for lunch at Spring Rolls, which was very nice! I had Korean glass noodles and Jennifer called them "vas deferens". It was hilarious and gross at the same time, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the noodles and the jokes we made afterwards. Near the end of the day I was inspired to design an invitation for an upcoming outing we're having to celebrate a few birthdays. However, the ancient computers we're working on have zero nice fonts (it still shocks me how in the Image-Guided Therapy offices, which represent cutting edge medicine, we work on ancient computers from a decade ago with roller ball mouses and monitors that could act as anvils) so I designed it at home... and I found the coolest radiology-slash-party picture:

I hope everyone likes the invitation!


In my medical opinion, the best way to waste your last precious days before medical school starts again: I just finished watching the reality show One Ocean View, and it cracks me up because I actually know the twins on the show (high school friends of Mike) and because of that, I can totally tell that everything is fake and contrived... but it's still so much fun to watch! Usman is full of himself but for some reason it's kind of endearing... and KJ is such a playa! And Mary is very cute. (Omg, school better start soon because my brain is turning to mush!)

p.s. The project that I slaved over two summers ago at Sick Kids in pediatric cardiology will finally be published! Exciting times...
p.s.s. What's with the new show UGLY BETTY!?!? It truly angers me to no end...