Au Pied de Cochon
I rarely post other people's reviews on my Site for fear of Mona's Apple turning into Yelp or Chowhound. Yet when I hear a great story about dining out, and think others could benefit from reading it, I encourage friends to send me reviews. They understand I will edit and I will probably take months to post their words, but in the end their experience will add a little bit of diversity and color to the Apple. SirDatesALot, Fashionista, JB, BYOWino and TheDude have all contributed their five cents' worth on dining spots. I have spent a large amount of time with each of them and know they have impeccable taste. Without further ado, here's a postcard from TheDude from Montreal.
TheDude writes:
A few months ago my boss got back from Montreal and spoke of a restaurant that sounded so perfect, I planned a surprise trip for my fiancé and I to go and see for ourselves. Having gone to school in upstate New York, Montreal was a place she used to visit for her and her friends’ birthdays before they turned 21. What can I say? The girl loves Super Sex.
We arrived at Au Pied De Cochon a little bit before our reservation. I knew it was going to be popular, but the place was jammed like I’ve never seen. The space between their interior and exterior door -- that should probably fit four people waiting for a table -- kept about 12 people dry from the rain. I hoped these were hopeful diners without reservations, because I wasn’t looking forward to joining them. I squeezed my way through to the hostess.
“Name?”
“Bond."
No, just kidding, “Raymond..?”
“One moment.”
And just as quickly as she came, she was gone. She returned about eight seconds later and lead us directly to our table.
The restaurant's decor was not at all what we had expected. We expected white table clothes, candlelight and background sound representative of the rustle and bustle of a steakhouse combined with some unpretentious refinement. What we got was very casual, bare hardwood tables, busy servers and a hot kitchen open to the restaurant. It put Momofuku (all of them) to shame. I’m sorry, it did, and I truly LOVE Momofuku (all of them). There was quiet Euro lounge music in the background, everything from mild rocker to somewhat electronic groove, just light enough to hear under the voices of extremely happy diners. There wasn't a single sad face in the place. In the bathroom, a television set played a video on loop. The portion I was lucky enough to see documented l’arrivee du thon (the arrival of the tuna). It showed four or five manly Quebecois unloading a fish the size of a… 300 pound fish and carting it away into the resto. Amazing…
Back to dinner.
The menu was fantastic for a true appreciator of meat. So many options, but so little in the description of each. It was like we knew what everything was, but didn’t know what anything was. There were eight preparations of foie gras in a section of the menu titled “Foie Gras”! Heaven! Questions, questions, questions. Where is our waiter? Ah... the maitre d’ notices my look of despair and quickly approaches.
“How is everything tonight?”
“Everything is great, however, we are overwhelmed with excitement. We have so many questions and we’re not sure who our waiter is.”
“Well then, I will answer your questions,” said Gail (our evening’s heroine).
What is this? What is that? What are your favorites?
“Well, something very special... today we were brought a 300-pound thon from that man at the bar right there.”
Enter a man wearing a “Pied de Cochon” hockey jersey signed by each staff member in the restaurant happily drinking and chatting away at the bar with the head chef, Martin Picard (our evening’s hero, no, sadly this time it is not me…).
“The thon was caught just yesterday and it was brought directly to the restaurant. It is very, very fresh and we are trying some special things with it. One option is to have it as a tuna steak, just lightly seared, or you can have it as a tartar, both are fantastic.”
My fiancé and I would have been happy to have had a seared tuna steak from a tuna that fresh, but we had traveled all this way to see the amazing things this man does with meats.
“We’ll have the tartar.”
“Excellent. My favorite item on the menu is the Plogue a Champlain.” (one of the eight preparations of foie)
We were having difficulty deciding which foie gras we wanted so this made life much easier.
“We’ll have one of those then! I think we also wanted to have the lange de bison a l’estragon (bison tongue -- a very random choice of my fiancé's that I was very excited about) and the Pied De Cochon farci au foie gras.”
“No.”
“Wha..?”
“It is too much.”
“But it’s just four things! We wanted to get so much more!”
“Have you seen the portions!? Wait here.”
I don’t know where we would have gone to, we were seated at our table. Gail returns with a platter, about one foot by two feet with the entire leg of a pig stitched up with something stuffed inside (she described the stuffing and preparation, I wish I remembered, but alas, I forgot) and a huge piece of seared foie gras resting right on top! She disappeared again. She returns empty handed, but my stupid expression of shock is still all over my face.
“Get the Duck In A Can, it’s fantastic. Come back in the winter when it’s very cold outside and get the Cochon.”
The Duck In A Can is what my boss raved about when he returned earlier in the year. It sounded like a good recommendation, because I had no idea what to expect. N- looked at me in a way that said, “I trust these people.”
“We’ll have the Duck In A Can.” With that we order a fantastic bottle of wine that had the words "Premier Cru" in it. Cheers!
First, bison tongue and tuna sashimi. The bison tongue was amazing. It was very succulent, tender, not overly rich as tongue can be. It was great. The sashimi wasn't at all what we expected. It came in a giant stuffed sushi-style hand roll cone with rice and seaweed. The tuna was cut into cubes and topped with a quail egg and caviar with duck fat French fries tucked down the side. It was upright in a stand and wrapped in heavy butcher paper to make it badass (a nice touch). N- and I fought at length over it, grabbing it back and forth, screaming "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" We bit at it simultaneously while it was pulled in four directions by all hands at the table until it was gone like Keyser Soze.
Next was the seared foie gras. Oh my god. I have to say on behalf of both of us, it was the best foie gras either of us have ever had, and we’ve had a lot of it, at some of the nicest restaurants all around the word. Foie is a favorite of both of ours. It’s almost sexual and I don’t care what PETA has to say about it. We’re with you David Chang. I never remember exactly how anything was prepared the day after I eat it, but I can say that it was lightly seared, placed delicately on a buckwheat pancake, topped with shredded potato, bacon and cheese (but the hard cheese that you’d find on the bottom of a fondue pot, I don’t know how they did it). Finally, it’s drizzled with maple syrup. I was shocked by the syrup, but it’s amazing. No joke. Go get some.
I don’t do it justice:
Once finished, we sipped wine and told each other how lucky we are and how much we love each other, we had a cigarette and eagerly anticipated the final dish to come. Duck In A Can, it’s here, and it’s… a can? The waiter comes with an over-sized soup can wrapped in a homemade label, “Canard en Conserve,” with the Pied de Cochon pig dancing on it.
Please watch this movie.
In the can was a breast of succulent duck in a stew-like cabbage broth (what you saw drizzled all over the bread in the clip), and oh yeah, another chunk of foie gras! They blew us away again. The best way I could describe our experience at this restaurant is to say that it was like being a child trying so many things for the first time. Au Pied de Cochon turned delicacies into beautifully crafted comfort food. What I also loved was that it made each dish local, adding maple syrup to the foie made my evening.
For dessert we had the pouding chomeur, which isn’t really a pudding as much as it is a piece of soft white cake with crème, maple syrup, and cheese in a ramekin that you’d normally see used for French onion soup. It was amazing as well. Sweet and savory.
Gail came back to our table and saw we were extremely happy. She told us we need to come back at the end of March when their Cabane a Sucre reopens for the Sugar Season in Quebec. Wondering where we should stay I asked, “Is there a cute little boutique hotel or a bed and breakfast nearby where we should stay!?”
“NO! You come and stay in a motel, get a real sense for Quebec!”
I can’t wait.
Neither can Mona. Thanks, TheDude!
APDC info:
514.281.1114
536 Duluth Est, Montréal
aupieddecochon@qc.aira.com
TheDude writes:
A few months ago my boss got back from Montreal and spoke of a restaurant that sounded so perfect, I planned a surprise trip for my fiancé and I to go and see for ourselves. Having gone to school in upstate New York, Montreal was a place she used to visit for her and her friends’ birthdays before they turned 21. What can I say? The girl loves Super Sex.
We arrived at Au Pied De Cochon a little bit before our reservation. I knew it was going to be popular, but the place was jammed like I’ve never seen. The space between their interior and exterior door -- that should probably fit four people waiting for a table -- kept about 12 people dry from the rain. I hoped these were hopeful diners without reservations, because I wasn’t looking forward to joining them. I squeezed my way through to the hostess.
“Name?”
“Bond."
No, just kidding, “Raymond..?”
“One moment.”
And just as quickly as she came, she was gone. She returned about eight seconds later and lead us directly to our table.
The restaurant's decor was not at all what we had expected. We expected white table clothes, candlelight and background sound representative of the rustle and bustle of a steakhouse combined with some unpretentious refinement. What we got was very casual, bare hardwood tables, busy servers and a hot kitchen open to the restaurant. It put Momofuku (all of them) to shame. I’m sorry, it did, and I truly LOVE Momofuku (all of them). There was quiet Euro lounge music in the background, everything from mild rocker to somewhat electronic groove, just light enough to hear under the voices of extremely happy diners. There wasn't a single sad face in the place. In the bathroom, a television set played a video on loop. The portion I was lucky enough to see documented l’arrivee du thon (the arrival of the tuna). It showed four or five manly Quebecois unloading a fish the size of a… 300 pound fish and carting it away into the resto. Amazing…
Back to dinner.
The menu was fantastic for a true appreciator of meat. So many options, but so little in the description of each. It was like we knew what everything was, but didn’t know what anything was. There were eight preparations of foie gras in a section of the menu titled “Foie Gras”! Heaven! Questions, questions, questions. Where is our waiter? Ah... the maitre d’ notices my look of despair and quickly approaches.
“How is everything tonight?”
“Everything is great, however, we are overwhelmed with excitement. We have so many questions and we’re not sure who our waiter is.”
“Well then, I will answer your questions,” said Gail (our evening’s heroine).
What is this? What is that? What are your favorites?
“Well, something very special... today we were brought a 300-pound thon from that man at the bar right there.”
Enter a man wearing a “Pied de Cochon” hockey jersey signed by each staff member in the restaurant happily drinking and chatting away at the bar with the head chef, Martin Picard (our evening’s hero, no, sadly this time it is not me…).
“The thon was caught just yesterday and it was brought directly to the restaurant. It is very, very fresh and we are trying some special things with it. One option is to have it as a tuna steak, just lightly seared, or you can have it as a tartar, both are fantastic.”
My fiancé and I would have been happy to have had a seared tuna steak from a tuna that fresh, but we had traveled all this way to see the amazing things this man does with meats.
“We’ll have the tartar.”
“Excellent. My favorite item on the menu is the Plogue a Champlain.” (one of the eight preparations of foie)
We were having difficulty deciding which foie gras we wanted so this made life much easier.
“We’ll have one of those then! I think we also wanted to have the lange de bison a l’estragon (bison tongue -- a very random choice of my fiancé's that I was very excited about) and the Pied De Cochon farci au foie gras.”
“No.”
“Wha..?”
“It is too much.”
“But it’s just four things! We wanted to get so much more!”
“Have you seen the portions!? Wait here.”
I don’t know where we would have gone to, we were seated at our table. Gail returns with a platter, about one foot by two feet with the entire leg of a pig stitched up with something stuffed inside (she described the stuffing and preparation, I wish I remembered, but alas, I forgot) and a huge piece of seared foie gras resting right on top! She disappeared again. She returns empty handed, but my stupid expression of shock is still all over my face.
“Get the Duck In A Can, it’s fantastic. Come back in the winter when it’s very cold outside and get the Cochon.”
The Duck In A Can is what my boss raved about when he returned earlier in the year. It sounded like a good recommendation, because I had no idea what to expect. N- looked at me in a way that said, “I trust these people.”
“We’ll have the Duck In A Can.” With that we order a fantastic bottle of wine that had the words "Premier Cru" in it. Cheers!
First, bison tongue and tuna sashimi. The bison tongue was amazing. It was very succulent, tender, not overly rich as tongue can be. It was great. The sashimi wasn't at all what we expected. It came in a giant stuffed sushi-style hand roll cone with rice and seaweed. The tuna was cut into cubes and topped with a quail egg and caviar with duck fat French fries tucked down the side. It was upright in a stand and wrapped in heavy butcher paper to make it badass (a nice touch). N- and I fought at length over it, grabbing it back and forth, screaming "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" We bit at it simultaneously while it was pulled in four directions by all hands at the table until it was gone like Keyser Soze.
Next was the seared foie gras. Oh my god. I have to say on behalf of both of us, it was the best foie gras either of us have ever had, and we’ve had a lot of it, at some of the nicest restaurants all around the word. Foie is a favorite of both of ours. It’s almost sexual and I don’t care what PETA has to say about it. We’re with you David Chang. I never remember exactly how anything was prepared the day after I eat it, but I can say that it was lightly seared, placed delicately on a buckwheat pancake, topped with shredded potato, bacon and cheese (but the hard cheese that you’d find on the bottom of a fondue pot, I don’t know how they did it). Finally, it’s drizzled with maple syrup. I was shocked by the syrup, but it’s amazing. No joke. Go get some.
I don’t do it justice:
Once finished, we sipped wine and told each other how lucky we are and how much we love each other, we had a cigarette and eagerly anticipated the final dish to come. Duck In A Can, it’s here, and it’s… a can? The waiter comes with an over-sized soup can wrapped in a homemade label, “Canard en Conserve,” with the Pied de Cochon pig dancing on it.
Please watch this movie.
In the can was a breast of succulent duck in a stew-like cabbage broth (what you saw drizzled all over the bread in the clip), and oh yeah, another chunk of foie gras! They blew us away again. The best way I could describe our experience at this restaurant is to say that it was like being a child trying so many things for the first time. Au Pied de Cochon turned delicacies into beautifully crafted comfort food. What I also loved was that it made each dish local, adding maple syrup to the foie made my evening.
For dessert we had the pouding chomeur, which isn’t really a pudding as much as it is a piece of soft white cake with crème, maple syrup, and cheese in a ramekin that you’d normally see used for French onion soup. It was amazing as well. Sweet and savory.
Gail came back to our table and saw we were extremely happy. She told us we need to come back at the end of March when their Cabane a Sucre reopens for the Sugar Season in Quebec. Wondering where we should stay I asked, “Is there a cute little boutique hotel or a bed and breakfast nearby where we should stay!?”
“NO! You come and stay in a motel, get a real sense for Quebec!”
I can’t wait.
Neither can Mona. Thanks, TheDude!
APDC info:
514.281.1114
536 Duluth Est, Montréal
aupieddecochon@qc.aira.com
posted by Mona at 10:19 AM
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2 Comments:
Ate here in last summer. 6 people- 12 appetizers, 8 entrees, simply because we wanted to try everything. It was incredible; and to us the duck in a can will forever be the stuff of legend.
that's what it sounds like. i hope to get there sometime in my life! thanks for commenting!
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