The Taste of Comfort, Winter 2008

With things looking something like this around Montreal at the moment,

fig. a: birch tree, Mount Royal

we need our simple pleasures, our sources of comfort.

fig. b: pistachio pastries, Pâtisserie Mahrousé

1. Michelle and I have long been fascinated with Montreal's largely overlooked Petite Belgique neighborhood, a tiny sliver of the north end of the city tucked between Boul. de l'Acadie and Rue St-Hubert that includes Avenue d'Anvers, Rue de Liège, and, yes, even the miniscule Avenue des Belges. Predictably, a lot of our interest in this neighborhood stems from the fact that it's a treasure trove for those who appreciate good food, and one of la Petite Belgique's greatest gems is Pâtisserie Mahrousé, a humble Rue de Liège storefront that just happens to produce some of the city's finest, freshest, and most subtle Middle Eastern pastries. We're especially fond of their wide variety of pistachio pastries, like the beauties you see pictured above.

Pâtisserie Mahrousé, 1010 Rue de Liège W., 276-1629

fig. c: Cream Earl Grey, Un Amour des Thés

2. Montreal, "the Paris of the North," is a city that, like Paris, is much more closely associated with coffee than it is with tea. In fact, Montreal might actually be more coffee-centric than Paris, which, after all, is home to Mariages Frères, Betjeman and Barton, La Maison des Trois Thés, and several other top-flight salons de thés. Montreal is no Paris, of course, but that doesn't mean its tea lovers are completely without options. Camellia Sinensis is the city's most accomplished tea house and tea shop, and the only absolute "must" for tea aficianados visiting from out of town, but there are a number of neighborhood tea merchants that also hold their own. Un Amour des Thés is probably Outremont's best tea shop, and we've recently fallen in love with their Cream Earl Grey blend. It's so smooth that it requires neither any cream, nor any sweetener, but that hasn't stopped us from giving it a little shot of each to make it even smoother, even more comforting. After years of favoring the feminine charms of "the Lady," Lady Grey, this blend has made us believers in "the Earl" again.

Un Amour des Thés, 1224 avenue Bernard, 279-2999

aj

ps--TY, S.B.!