All beef, all Montreal
Casino de Montréal’s Joël Robuchon invited to indulge in specialty: the steamé
Dear Joël,
So good to hear from you, as always.
I have been reflecting on questions you asked about what real local items to have on the menu in your new restaurant at the Casino de Montréal, and I am happy to offer my suggestions.
In fact, I feel it’s my patriotic duty to help out as best I can.
By now you have heard about all the “obvious” local food stars and how you should look like you’re fitting right in: smiling over a steaming bowl of poutine, which I actually believe to be disgusting, especially with foie gras; smoked meat (even I could dream up the photo op of you and Céline cavorting on the counter at Schwartz’s; personally, I think you would look good in a togalike garment, a large white-seed bagel on your head — looking something like an emperor or just a guy with an over-sized yarmulke).
I suggest we take a tour of places where I think the culinary highlights of true Montreal food lie. This will be biased, as I am but an anglo of Irish extraction, not a people with whom culinary delights are necessarily associated.
And you’re a franco, so we won’t argue about pigs’ feet, though, alas, I am ashamed to admit that trotters are harder to spot than new restaurants operated by amateurs and tourists who think they look good in aprons.
Coleslaw is my first love. Not that shreddable stuff all mixed together with sugar — just cabbage salad, marinated in a simple secret recipe I have often tried to bribe counter staff for.
Nowhere else in the world can you get this, Joël, though imagine my surprise when I tasted something almost exactly the same in the Serbian countryside.
The purpose of this coleslaw is to ride atop a steamed hotdog, mingling with crunchy chopped onions and lying in a bed of mustard. Not Dijon, no, the one we love, the one that looks a little like baby poo.
Mais le chien qui est chaud, alors il est quoi? I can hear you saying in that charming accent of yours.
You really have a restaurant in Jakarta, eh?
In Montreal, the dog itself is a mysterious combination of meats mixed together and then referred to as all beef, a simple expression we Montrealers have come to find great comfort in as so little else offers all of anything.
Again, your ethnicity should help you here. You’ve stuffed a saucisson or two in your day and not stopped to point at something mysterious in the mixture as if to say “vraiment?”
It is my claim, Joël, that nowhere in the world except Montreal can you get a steamé.
We also do toasté, but we will save that for a culinary tour of the Bell Centre once you have had a chance to unpack and get over what a hideous looking building it really is. Often these hotdogs are served up with the wisdom and sagesse of the Greeks.
Did I mention, mon cher Joël, that Montreal is full of Greeks working in and owning all sorts of restaurants, even those where ne’er the smell of feta can be whiffed? They are particularly inconspicuous in Italian restaurants, the only giveaway an over-reliance on oregano on the cheesy pizza that doesn’t melt in your stomach, let alone on your fingers.
These days there is a Nouveau Système on Notre Dame St., west of Atwater.
It is a kind of chic diner, with stools, booths, scary lighting and jukeboxes.
But before the foodies with their hoodies came, there were more steamed hotdogs available per square inch on Notre Dame than any other place on earth. The cross street, Rosede-Lima St., we called Rose-deSteamé.
Be careful where you walk, I don’t want you to get whacked by a tiny, orange Nouveau Système car. Like the casino, they, too, are open 24 hours a day.
Bite into that steaming tube and savour that coleslaw.
Bienvenue à Montréal, mon Joël.
Kevin