22 Dec Montreal Food, Real Estate And Other Cool Stuff

Montreal Food, Real Estate And Other Cool Stuff

Montreal food, real estate and other cool stuff you need to know about!  Let’s start with food (my favorite topic of course because my heart is in my stomache).  One thing we know for sure and we can all agree on, Montreal has no shortage of great chefs! Lesley Chesterman of the Montreal Gazette just released her list of the best Montreal restaurants of 2017.   Here’s the short summary;

For Brunch:

Arthurs: Traditonal Jewish and Middle Eastern cuisine – some of the favorites “sprout-topped avocado toast, to more complex plates like challah French toast and classic bagel/lox/cream cheese. Other favourites include the cinnamon babka, the luscious Moroccan toast (think challah topped with a poached egg, marinated eggplant, tomato and cucumber salad, spiced chickpeas and tahini) and seriously piggy cottage cheese pancakes, known as syrniki”

Warning – this place is packed on weekends so be prepared for at wait!

Located at 4621 Notre-Dame St. W., 514-757-5190, arthursmtl.com 

Le Butterblume: Favorites – “coffee or granola, or opt for something more substantial, such as the luscious beet soup with smoked goat’s cheese, or a tartine made with lightly smoked avocado cream or even with a dark chocolate and hazelnut”

Located at 5836 St-Laurent Blvd., 514-903-9115, lebutterblume.com

For Comfort Food:

Café Cherrier: French Bistro – Favorites – “French faves like onion soup, duck confit and floating islands, and the wine list has something for everyone. Steak/frites lovers should not miss “le fameux rumsteck du Cherrier”

Located at 3635 St-Denis St., 514-843-4308, cafecherrier.ca)

Taverne on the Square: Favorites –  “Caesar salad, tuna tartare, mac and cheese and rigatoni with meatballs while incorporating seasonal salads, pastas, fish and steak and an excellent wine list”

Located at 1 Westmount Square, 514-989-9779, tavernonthesquare.ca)

For Drinks:

Bar Loïc: Cool wine bar in St Henri – Favorites – “mushroom crostini and the perfectly seasoned beef tartare. When it’s available, don’t miss the ricotta-filled ravioli topped with kale, Parmesan shavings and toasted hazelnuts”

Located at 5001 Notre-Dame St. W., 514-439-6806, barloic.ca

Oregon Bar à Vin: Wine bar in Laval

Located at 241 Curé-Labelle Blvd., 579-641-1414, oregon.restaurant

Lesley’s Best Asian Picks:

Pick Thai: Favorites – “fresh and fried rolls, satay skewers, pad Thai and pad nuea tuadin — sautéed filet mignon enhanced with galangal, kaffir lime leaves, cilantro and chilies and a great wine list”

Located at 5221 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W., 514-316-9696, pickthairestaurant.com

Tiradito: Favorites – “ceviche made with red snapper, a dish made with raw tuna blanketed in miso, tamarind, chicha Quechua beer and amarillo peppers, and octopus flavoured with Japanese chilies and Peruvian panca pepper.”

Located at 1076 Bleury St., 514-866-6776, tiraditomtl.com

Kampai Garden: Favorites – “The menu, developed by Montreal star chef Antonio Park, is Asian/casse-croûte fusion featuring tacos, tartares, dumplings, salads, a shrimp pogo, fried chicken and a gourmet hotdog topped with kimchi and potato chips.”

Located at 1616 Ste-Catherine St. W., 514-379-6161, kampaigarden.com

For Chef Driven Restaurants:

Laurie Raphaël: Favorites – “gravlax served with marinated juniper berries and puréed ramps, duck magret served with a strawberry compote and nasturtium leaves, and a chocolate sphere dessert filled with maple ice cream that was melted with the aid of a maple water caramel sauce, featuring a superb wine list”.

Located at 2050 Mansfield St., 514-985-6072, laurieraphael.com

Hopkins: Fine Dining – Sharing Plate Format – In NDG where Lucilles used to be – Favorites – “more meat-centric than vegetable-centric. After tasting dishes like bone marrow flan, tuna carpaccio niçoise, butter-poached lobster, scallop fish and chips, and a sublime duck ravioli,”

Located at 5626 Monkland Ave., 514-379-1275, restauranthopkins.com

Bistro Rosie: In Rosemont – Le Petit Patrie – Serving dinner and Saturday Brunch – Favorites – “menu changes weekly and is divided between hot and cold appetizers, plus some larger plates made with meat and fish.”

Located at 498 Bélanger St., 514-303-2010

Best Vegetarian:

LOV: In Old Montreal – Upscale vegetarian – Favorites – “Her cuisine is described as “botanical,” with an emphasis on natural, organic and gluten-free options.”

Located at 464 McGill St., 514-287-1155, lov.com

For full restaurant details, photos read the full article

Lesley Chesterman's best Montreal restaurants of 2017

Writing this year’s roundup of Montreal’s top places to eat out, I wonder if restaurant-list fatigue has set in. When I began writing best-of lists close to two decades ago, I simply chose the five or so restaurants that got the highest star rating, waxed eloquent about why they were so good, and there you’d have it.

The Latest Montreal Real Estate Market News

As the 2017 comes to a close this is a summary of what happened in our Montreal real estate market this year along with some projections for 2018.

According to the CMHC fourth quarter report, there was little evidence of over evaluation, an over heated market, and over building. The rise in demand did contribute to a tightening of the resale market, with more demand than supply.

”  single family housing was the one that posted the most significant price growth acceleration. In fact, in each of the large sectors of Montréal, the growth in the average price of single-family houses hovered around 8% in the second quarter of
2017, while it did not exceed 3% in the same quarter of 2016. As was mentioned in the previous section, the strong demand, combined with a relatively limited supply of new and existing single-family homes in several sectors of the Montréal metropolitanarea, put increasingly strong pressure on prices in this segment. The price of plexes (with two to five units) in the North Crown14 also registered a considerable increase, with a gain of 8% in the second quarter. Just like for single-familyhouses, the growth had not exceeded 3% in the period from April to June 2016. The situation was different in the
condominium segment, where only the North Shore and Vaudreuil Soulanges sectors showed greater price growth in the second quarter of 2017 than a year earlier. Still, this growth, at 3%, was relatively weaker than for the other housing types.
Finally, while evidence of price growth acceleration on the Montréal existing home market remained low in the second quarter, this indicator willhave to be closely monitored over the coming quarters. With the economic outlook remaining favourable to housing demand, it would not be surprising for market conditions to tighten gradually and cause, in turn,
a faster increase in prices.”

Read the full report here:

November 2017, showed a 12 per cent increase compared to November of last year. This was the most active month of November in eight years. Watch the video to see the full stats.

Centris Real Estate Stats From November 2017

“The Greater Montreal Real Estate Board says the region set a November record for condominium sales, which helped fuel a 12 per cent increase in overall residential transactions compared with the same month last year.

The number of condo sales across the region surged 23 per cent from last year to 1,137 in the month as the suburbs north and south of the Island of Montreal rose by 53 per cent and 33 per cent respectively.”

Things to do in Montréal!

I recently read a great post by Sharon Fung who recently visited Montreal. Her must do places are:

and must do places to ear:

Read her full blog post;

Getaway Trip to Montreal – Eat and Travel with Sharon

Just a few hours away from Toronto lies the small French speaking city of Montreal. With it’s previous European influence and historical sites, Montreal has a certain charm with its gardens, museums, art galleries and European architecture. I’ve been to Montreal in 2010 but I didn’t experience it the same way.