Music: Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi

What can I say about Schwartz’s that hasn’t already been said? Seriously, there’s a book written about the place, how many deli’s can make that claim?

I’ll simply say that it was delicious, exactly what a Montreal smoked meat sandwich is supposed to taste like.

Also, have a pickle with your sandwich, they’re huge, crunchy, and perfect.

Visiting La Belle Province breaks with our general attempt to find local and independently owned diners to review for our trip, but since we were in Montreal and I grew up there, I insisted we stop and get some steamies and poutine instead of trying to find a diner.

What can I say about a steamie if you’ve never had one? Well they’re small, regular hot dogs that have been steamed instead of grilled or boiled. When I was growing up in Montreal there was a restaurant near the Concordia west end campus that sold them for $0.25 each, and I would go there with a dollar and pig out.

The steamies were just as good as I remember, however the poutine was a thorough disappointment. The gravy wasn’t really hot enough to melt the cheese curds, and a poutine without melted cheese is a bit like a blt without bacon.

La Belle Province is a franchise restaurant though, so results will vary from location to location. Stop there if you’re in a rush and just want to try a steamie.

With special thanks to David, Maki, Jolan and Aiko for the warm welcome to Sherbrooke.

Music: Sombrer dans la folie by destroyalldreamers

[post edited to add music attribution and links - Geoffrey ]

You’ll notice that this video isn’t as slick as normal, that’s because I edited this myself in iMovie and don’t really know what I’m doing. So no soundtrack to this, we’ll have a proper video from Geoff up very soon.

Last night we arrived in Sherbrooke Quebec to visit Geoff’s good friend David and his family. Upon arrival Maki (David’s wife) let us know that she had seen my complaining about needing vegetables and had prepared a vegetable heavy meal for us.

Maki is a wonderful cook, we started with some delicious Vietnamese spring rolls.

With a side of fresh salad with just the right amount of that dressing you get in Japanese restaurants.

And finished off with a Japanese hot pot containing seafood, pork, and lots of tasty vegetables.

Yet another welcome change from the norm here on The Diner Dash.

Thanks Maki!

There will be a new video or two uploaded tonight, we’ve got more editing to do (again) and have scheduled time this afternoon once we arrive in Montreal to get caught up. Thanks, DC & GS

Geoff half remembered a very good cafe he had eaten at once in Quebec a year ago, unfortunately after much wandering through the icy streets we were unable to find it. Running out of time we opted for the nearest cafe.


I was desperately craving a salad, so I ordered the roasted chicken salad.


It was exactly what I needed. While the chicken was a little over-done, and there was slightly too much dressing on the salad, the dressing was a very tasty maple syrup vinaigrette, and the chicken was lean and had a very good flavour. On top of that, the salad had tomatoes, some sorely needed vegetables for my diet.

Geoff, I think simply out of habit at this point, ordered the Tatum burger.


Although perhaps not so great a departure from our diner path as my salad, it was a far cry from the greasy burgers we’ve seen so far. It came with brie and a nice salsa, on a tasty bun that didn’t fall apart. The fries were delicious and not greasy at all, and it came with a salad which was good since he didn’t need to steal mine.

All in all, a nice break from the greasy spoons we’ve been frequenting so far.

On Boxing Day, December 26th, Geoff and I went with Pat (Geoff’s mother), Claire (his sister) and Leo (his nephew) to Steve’s 50′s Diner Restaurant in Riverview New Brunswick, which is just outside of Moncton.



Steve’s is the kind of place that was obviously built sometime in the last 10 years but is trying very hard to convince you it’s been around since the 50′s.

There were 5 of us, so there is lots of food to talk about.

First, Leo had a hot dog. Upon questioning, he said the hot dog was “really good”.


Pat had the barley soup which was thick with barley, very flavourful and full of big chunks of chicken and altogether very good.


Claire had the eggs benedict, it was made properly with no mistakes and heart attack inducing as it is supposed to be. The homefries, pan fried with lots of onion, were particularly tasty, but didn’t add to the heart healthy-ness of the meal.


Geoff had the “Breakfast Boat”, which is basically all the things you expect to be served for breakfast cut up very small and put into a boat like dish, then covered with cheese and hollandaise for good measure. It was very greasy, tasty but very very greasy.


Since it was past noon I decided to skip breakfast entirely and went with the “Cadillac Burger”, which is just a burger with mushrooms, onions, and jalepeno peppers. While tasty, the burger itself was very much overcooked, and the bun it was put on was pathetically inadequate to the task of holding in all the ingredients put on the burger, forcing me to resort to knife and fork to eat my burger.


Apart from the food, I really should mention that the service was terrible. I don’t think it was the fault of our server, she was very obviously overworked and had too many tables, so perhaps it was merely an issue because it was so close to Christmas.

In lieu of our regular diner related programming I’m going to post something about the meal we had for Christmas eve.


Since this was my first visit to the maritimes we decided to get the obligatory lobster. Let me tell you, buying lobster on Christmas eve is an experience involving calling around to at least 3 different store to compare prices, driving to Nova Scotia, arguing with uncooperative fish mongers at supermarkets, calling from the supermarket to a competing supermarket, and racing other customers to Soby’s for the lobster you just ordered.

Enough blather, more pictures!

The last lobster, old one claw.


The remains of a lobster.


Our meat pie and brussels sprout accompaniment to the lobster.


And finally, home made cookies, home made chocolate truffles, raspberries, and ice-cream for dessert.