The Saint Amour

[cerealjoe]

Remember how I said that the point of a holiday is to have one epic thing happen in each city? In Korea that worked out marvelously well... and now I can say that I've had an epic adventure in Quebec City also. As background, let me say that Canada is full of places to eat. There are plenty of restaurants and they seem to be full most of the time. Canadians seem to enjoy Italian food immensely as there are "Italian" restaurants everywhere... and every single bistro or other food place will try its best to offer "Italian" dishes. I've already been to one "Italian" restaurant and that's quite enough for me (I'm a spoiled child, I have Italian friends who have cooked real Italian food for me). Yesterday I was desperately walking around trying to find a place to eat that wasn't a tourist trap and wasn't on the fast food side. In a side street I fell on a lovely place called "Saint Amour" which turned out to be one of those three star restaurants that have extremely reasonably priced set lunch menus. I'll let you look at the photos and guess how much the meal was (the starter, main dish, dessert and tea). Hint 1: an average pizza costs about 10-15 CAD in the area. Hint 2: I didn't spend all that much. Answer after the photos under the cut.

Kir Impérial (not included in the set menu) Salade de quinoa Main dish - Omelet ratatouille with goat cheese. Those were the best prepared veggies I've had in quite some time. Tea and framboisier.

Now for the price. The meal itself was 15 CAD plus tax. Yes, 15 CAD. For a three course meal. The whole meal, include the kir, cost me about 30 bucks including taxes and tips. I think the most expensive lunch possible was about 25 CAD for some fancy duck meat. This is basically the same food that you have to pay twice or three times as much during dinner hour, same chefs, same staff, etc. Honestly going to such a restaurant for lunch is one of the best options in a touristy area because usually the exterior puts people off and almost no one knows that during lunch the prices are much lower because of the limited choice... so that means that the place is almost always empty and you can enjoy your lunch in peace. Plus, the meal is made with proper ingredients and believe me, after such an omelet I didn't want to eat for quite some time! Laurie Raphaël also have a lunch menu but it's not available during the week-end. I would have quite liked to try that. Ah well.