Day 4: Montreal III

March 5, 2023

A quiet rest day today. The snow remains, but the temperature is more moderate. I walked out to the very nearby Marché Malo for eggs, so I could make Egg McBagel for everyone. I suggested to Josh that Marché Malo could be a pun, like marshmallow, but he sagely pointed out that marshmallow is not French, and there is no way this thinking would get us to "Guimauve" (French for Marshmallow). Clearly my mind is fibrillating due to already half a rest day!

We continued various birthday festivities with the Stefanka cake and also the strudel. They looked like this:

This candle got re-lighted for anyone claiming a birthday fairly soon.

The strudel had lots of mohn, but the consensus was that it could have been sweeter.

Suitably stoked up on cake (and sure, some real food as well) we headed downtown in the evening for a festival of light being held next to Place Des Arts, the premier concert venue in the city.

The festival consisted of art installations based on light, as well as a well lit set of slides, and a ferris wheel.

Lots of people came out to the lit up streets.

A bright outdoor skating rink. It would be nice to think that this is natural ice, but it probably is artificially cooled from below.

One rather fun light show projected the images of the kids and Sabrina onto a nearby wall.

The Grampies out on the town in Montreal.

Although not exactly mind blowing, the light festival was a nice supplement to Christmas, brightening the street in one of the darker months.

A natural for any outdoor activity in the cold is hot chocolate, and in Montreal the richest most sinful hot chocolate is at Juliette and Chocolate. There are about eight outlets around the city, but we went to the original, on St. Denis street. St. Denis is one of the great Montreal streets of restauants.

The menu at Juliette and Chocolate offers fondu and crepes, but really it is about their hot chocolate, which is somewhere just off pudding consistency, and of course offered with whipped cream, marshmallow, brownie, and such as add ons. That is a simple enough concept, but still the menu managed to bamboozle me. The thing was, you could order the "traditional" hot chocolate, choosing between 70%, 55&, or 33% chocolate, before choosing any desired add-ons. That's fine, except that I did not notice the add-on clause somewhere on the menu, but I did notice the separately listed hot chocolate with marshmallow item. So I think I told the waitress that I wanted 33% hot chocolate with marshmallow, pointing variously to the marshmallow item and the 33% specification. What she got from this was that I wanted two - one 33% and one marshmallow special. The marshmallow special, incidentally is a mix of 33% and 55%, making it potentially a 44%. Not so simple anymore!

When the waitress repeated what she had heard, both Amelia and Evee thought it strange that I was ordering two of the (expensive!) beverages. But kids are used to bizarre behaviour from adults, particularly Grampies, and did not mention it. That is, not until all sorts of things started showing up at my table setting. It's not like you just get a mug of hot chocolate, but rather there is a bowl and a pitcher and a spoon, and other bowls - of whipped cream and such, arriving. The vote around the table was that I had ordered double. Only Dodie was in my camp, saying she understood what I had wanted. Maybe it was the language barrier that caused the misunderstanding, but I felt the menu had been misleading. Since the menu had already been taken away, I fired it up on my phone. But Sabrina took my phone away, saying just drink up. I did manage to get Joe to take one serving, sparing me hyperglycemic shock. Poor Joe totally zonked out then on the Metro home.

The marshmallow hot chocolate. You can see that these are not trivial choices.

Some of the other stuff that landed on our table.

The girls listened to me ordering, and thought it strange. Their French is way better than mine!

Joe accepted the 33% hot chocolate as well as half the fondue.

The family, at Juliette and Chocolate, looking good before overdosing on chocolate.

Dodie and Evee, heading home. It had been quite a night one the town!

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