Barbelith Underground > Conversation

Subbacultcha,

You should be here now, so if you're reading this, you may want to check out the following:

-Mount Royal (maybe not today though cause it's drizzling rain).

-St. Catherine Street (Montreal's main street in the downtown core) has loads of shops and restaurants to check out. You're bound to find something of interest.

-Crescent Street which is the core of downtown nightclub scene.

-St.Laurent Blvd (aka The Main) is another street that's a must see. Plenty of stores and restaurants here too. However, these stores tend to be boutiques. This doesn't necessarily translate into being more expensive though. Sure, there's plenty of trendy stores with the latest brand name designer clothes, but there's also small, trippy hippy, vintage clothing stores as well. The Main is pretty eclectic - you can have an ultra hip designer boutique and just a few doors away, a run-down restaurant and/or strip bar/club.

-St. Denis street for more cafés, restaurants, and bars.

-For cultural events, there's the The 34th Festival du Nouveau Cinéma of Montreal happening right now. And of course, there's always the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. There's also La Ronde, an amusement park, which also has a Halloween theme going on at the moment. There's the Botancial Gardens, which has the Magic of Lanterns (a display of gorgeous chinese and japanese lanterns hung in the Asian gardens) and the Great Pumpkin Ball (600 decorated pumpkins) on show. There's also the Biodome (basically a small zoo within the city)

-Food/Restaurants: You MUST go to Schwartz's Deli on the Main (3895 St.Laurent Blvd) and try some of their world famous smoked meat sandwhiches. The food is fabulous, the service is lousy (the servers tend to be grouchy old men). For amazing strawberry cheesecake, go to Dunn's restaurant, on the corner (more or less) of St. Catherine and Metcalfe in downtown. For Indian food, I recommend the Curry House on Bishop street (also downtown). And of course, you must try poutine (french fries smothered in gravy and topped with cheese curds from Quebec farms - sounds odd, but it's surprisingly tasty though it is a heart attack on plate), and Montreal style bagels. In general, due to the european and diverse multi-ethnic restaurants and cultures here, Montreal's restaurants tend to be a cut above other cities. It's relatively easy to find good food at decent prices. Small cafés/restaurants can provide really tasty yet economical meals. I bought lunch from a café today - had a bacon, tomato, swiss cheese panini sandwhich and a large italian wedding soup. Both were delicious and lunch cost about eight bucks and change.