Weekend in Quebec City - By Jody

I went to Quebec City for the weekend on a kind of whim. It's only 4.5 hours away, I had never been, and I was meeting up with several friends. It wasn't a huge foodie weekend, but food and drink kind of defined it.

I think of myself as fairly adventurous, but I've never driven to a place where I didn't speak the language. Fortunately, I was among friends who did speak French, so they translated a lot for me. Saturday was spent at a gathering that included a dinner, but since the meal was made by amateurs, I'm not going to review it.

After dinner, my friend Alys and I went back to her hotel, Loew's Le Concorde Hotel. And when I say we "went back" I mean we drove around Quebec City, without directions or a GPS, only vaguely knowing where we were going. The tag line of the movie they'll make of our adventure will be: Two middle aged women, driving though a foreign city, trying to get to their hotel, what could possibly go wrong?

Once we finally got to the hotel we found out that room service was closed (on a Saturday night) so we dropped our bags in her room and went to the bar. I wish I had pictures of the bar. It was a quiet, classy place and the hostess/waitress/bartender was one of those quintessential Frenchwomen of indeterminate middle age, wearing a little black dress and sweater set, her blond hair in a perfect up-do. We ordered drinks, a cheeseplate, and a turkey sandwich and split them. The sandwich was nice, piled with lots of turkey. The cheeseplate was mostly brie and blue cheese, with some lovely fruit. What really blew me away, though, was my Martini. It was perfect. I like my Martini a bit on the dirty side and this one was sublime. If I could only drink one thing for the rest of my life, it would be this Martini.

Sunday morning Alys and I were off to breakfast at her favorite creperie in the old part of Quebec City. If you haven't been there, it is the only walled city in North America and it looks just like any old part of a European city. We went to Au Petit Coin Breton, both of us having the apple & cheese crepe and a breakfast crepe. It is a really cute place, tons of old world charm and tiny chairs. The food was wonderful, flavorful and much different than the only other craperie I've ever been to, in San Diego.

 

When we left we realized there was a tea shop a couple doors down, David's Tea. Both of us being tea drinkers, we could have dropped a few bills there, but settled for a bunch of small sampler packs so we could get a good cross section of their wares. Although mostly a Canadian chain, they also have stores in Boston, NY, Chicago and San Fransisco, so if I love them, I'll be headed to Boston for more.

Alys had a plane to catch and I had to drive back to Maine, but before we parted, Alys gave me the word I wanted to look for before leaving Quebec: Fromagerie. The weather was turning slushy so I headed south. About 25 miles before the border, I saw the word and stopped. I picked up a nice sized wheel of Brie, a 10 year old cheddar and a Trappist cheese. I've only tried the cheddar so far, but if that is any indication of the quality, they should all be an amazing treat.

If you think about going to QC, but your lack of language skills makes you nervous, I was pleasantly surprised that a quick "en anglais s'il vous plait" was all that was needed.