Maru visits Montreal

Last week, Lily and I had the pleasure of showing our friend Maru around Montreal. 

We met Maru in Tokyo during winter break but he's from Toronto. We ate a lot of good food and had some hilarious conversation. Maru is super spontaneous and down to earth so it was nice exploring our city with him. We got to discover some new eats!

Taking a nice walk in La Fontaine Parc, we were spying on the cute baby ducks. They were adorable -screams-!!!

Continuing the peace sign trend from Japan Y(^___^)Y

Like a good tour guide, we had to bring him to La Banquise, the quintessentially Montreal poutine eatery! We ordered a special (forgot name D; it was the better out of the two) and a 3 meat poutine. Maru exclaimed that although there's poutine in Toronto, there's no poutine this THIS in Toronto!

While we were indulging in some chocolate fondue, Maru cheerfully says: "You know, I've been thinking about this weight lifting stuff, I'd like to get into shape" while simultaneously dipping his fondue fork into the rich dark chocolate, scooping it up and lifting it to his mouth before he realized what he said.
Other memorable quote: "Maybe they're using organic berries from a cow or something!" says Maru about organic candies.

Having a jolly time : ) Who can be sad while eating chocolate anyways?

We walked past a cool art gallery on St-Laurent street, it was closed but I'm keeping a mental tab to check it out next time!

Other than La Banquise, Maru really wanted to try out Joe Beef and Au Pied De Cochon, two very well-known restaurants visited by Anthony Bourdain in one of his Layover episodes. Joe Beef was closed (to the relief of my wallet) so we went to Au Pied De Cochon for some meaty madness!

The restaurant looked pretty cozy and there were way too many waiters/bus boys. Maru and I jokingly "complained" that there were too many waiters/bus boys for the number of people in the room, yet nobody was taking our orders."

Brought my fisheye lens out after a long while. Back in 2010-2011, the fisheye lens was the only lens I'd use. Now that I have more lenses and more experience, I notice how fuzzy the pictures are and I don't like the ultra wide angle as much (8mm) : S *I'm rambling*

Foie gras Pâté with pistachios as appetizer on freshly baked bread :-) 

Maru's melt-in-your-mouth Foie Gras burger and my Happy Pork Chop (not quite sure the pork is happy). Look at all those juices! I really liked the toppings on my pork chop, a variety of mushrooms and onions I presume : ) If it weren't for the toppings, my pork chop would taste like any ol' pork chop.

Lily's Duck Magret in Mushroom Sauce with potatoes.

The food was extremely delicious (we sampled from each other) and flavorful that my taste buds were completely saturated with sensory stimulation! We all agreed that we can only take so much grease and flavor in one day. Next time, I'd definitely get some salad on the side with all that meat! 

I liked the cute pig details all around the restaurant = P Some of them were more graphic but always cute *think of a knife chasing a happy amputated pig on cluthes*

Maru taking a final bite outta his 40$ burger!

It was really nice having Maru around and I wish we had more money so that we could've gone indoor skydiving with him : - P Oh wellz! Maru's a pilot outside his 9-5 job so next time we visit Toronto, he promised to fly us above the CN tower! BWUAH EXCITED!