So as winter winds down, people start to breathe a sigh of relief; days feel longer, the fear of waking up to 20cm of snow is ebbing. So that means one thing: that’s right, Pied De Cochon Cabane à Sucre. If you aren’t familiar with the Pied de Cochon Cabane à Sucre, it’s a foodie’s dream come true. This dream is made up of a few ingredients, one part being foodie hero/saint aka Chef Martin Picard, add a generous portion of foie gras, some maple syrup, some duck, a little bit of meat pie, and 20 hungry people all ready to experience a culinary delight.

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Le Jurancon – A Marseille inspired brunch

The 411

Fine French dining meets brunch – often a pairing you don’t see on a regular basis. Interestingly, brunch is not native to France and although there are more and more spots that offer brunch nowadays you would not associate it with a small little French bistro. So, when I heard that Le Jurancon was offering brunch, I was quite curious. How would it pair French dining with brunch? What ingredients and what surprises would we be in store for, and how is it that a French restaurant finds itself in the eastern part of the city? This and many more we hope to answer as well give you some idea of what Le Jurancon has to offer.

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Sain Bol – A new favourite spot

The 411

Healthy, market fresh, vegetarian friendly, gluten free options, constantly changing… These are words you would never associate with brunch. In a world of bacon and eggs, healthy tasty options seem to be foreign. Often times, if you want something healthy and tasty, you will need to look really hard among a sea of options which tend to be one or the other : places that are healthy and good for you often do not come off as tasty, while places that come off as tasty tend to not focus on health. Sain Bol, on the other hand, is a gift; a rare gem where chef Frederic Houtin serves up some amazing dishes inspired by market fresh and in-season ingredients.

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A Table – Nuevo Latino success yet again

The 411

Last year I had the pleasure of checking out Madre, which is one of the restaurants of Mario Navarette Jr, a chef who does Nuevo latino style of cooking. Madre was a hit and is one of my favourite brunch experiences so, when I heard that he had another place that did brunch by the name of A table, I needed to check it out. Situated on Fleury, in the Ahuntsic area, A Table is not in it the usual spots you would expect a cutting edge restaurant to be. Often we picture the Plateau, Mile End or Old Port but this location choice is quite interesting.

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Pied De Cochon Cabane A Sucre – and this little piggie went sugaring off

The 411

Cabane à sucre: that one time a year when we get together and have food you would never have any other time of the year; those classic meals dishes like tortière, omelettes, Oreilles de crisse, beans, sausages and others. Now, cabane à sucre food is not exactly brunch food, but it isn’t exactly lunch either so for this review we will make an exception. I should also note that we currently do not plan on going to every cabane à sucre since I can only handle so much line dancing music and hits from the 90’s at once. All this to say that we decided to do a classy cabane à sucre and by some cosmic power, I got a call recently from a friend saying that he had a spot for me at the Pied de Cochon cabane à sucre.

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Jolifou – Brunch comfort food that doesn’t end

The 411

As part of Festival en Lumiere, I decided that it would fun to see what some of the brunch options are for the festival.. Festival en Lumieres offers us a rare chance to have brunch at places that rarely do brunch and Jolifou is one of them. I had never had the chance to go for their dinner service although, I have only heard good things. Keep in mind that they only do Brunch once a year and that is during Festival en Lumiere so this is a limited opportunity to check it out. So, a group of 4 of us decided to go try it and see if it would be worth waiting another 365 for the next time they offer brunch; what we found surprised us.

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Lawrence – The wait is over

The 411

Lawrence is a new addition to the plateau/Mile end area with an interesting story to tell. It had its roots as being the kitchen staff from The Sparrow which was one of the hottest brunch spots in the city. They came on the scene and turned a whole lot of heads and changed things up. Recently, in late 2010, the Kitchen staff from the Sparrow moved. It was a mutual arrangement since the Sparrow no longer wanted to do brunch and the kitchen staff had made quite a name for itself pumping out some seriously tasty brunches. So, recently they opened Lawrence and started to serve weekend brunch. For those who loved the Sparrow brunch, it’s still here; it just moved a block over. Now we can see what changed, what stayed the same and if it’s 4.5/5 rating still stands up after the move.

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Au P’Tit Cochon Santé – Well worth the trip to the North end

The 411

As you know, distance is not an issue for us here at Montreal Breakfast Review. If there is even the slightest rumour of a place off the island that is serving up an exceptional brunch we will investigate. Normally, we tend to go west, sometimes up in Laval and even the south shore. This time we heard of something in Rosemère. Rosemère is the most Northern spot we have done yet, and we technically got lost there thanks to a certain online mapping instruction that shall remain nameless. Seriously??? 6 minutes from the exit? And there IS a difference between slight left and a normal left but no need to dwell on direction issues, we came here to eat..

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Mildred’s Kitchen Temple – Classy, Sexy, Cool

The 411

On a recent trip to Toronto, my friend brought me to this place that is apparently a hot spot for breakfast in the city. Every time I travel to Toronto and visit my friend, I always end up going to a quality spot for brunch so needless to say, I was excited. We had been drinking the night before at my friends fundraiser, and although we knocked back more than our fair share of drinks, we were still in decent enough shape to put some food into our system.

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Montée de Lait – Refined brunch experience

The 411

Once upon a time I promised one of my good friends that when she came back from her 5 month European excursion we would go to this place called Bouchonné. Well, 5 months turned to 6 then to 8 then to 10 and we finally got a chance to go for brunch only to find that it had closed down. We decided to check out Montée de Lait instead sinceI had heard good stuff about their lunch and dinner service. You may be confused when looking at the map since Bouchonné used to be on 5171 boul Saint-Laurent and Montée de Lait was on 1424 Bishop but Montée de Lait moved a few months ago, and all the Google maps and various site listings are presently messed up. So, now that we have this mini mystery straightened out we can focus on solving the mystery of how the food will stack up and see if this place is worthy of all the foodie praise it has been getting as of recently.

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