Barroco - Cozy in Old Montreal

When my two friends and I arrived in Montreal on Friday, it was starting to get late so we did a little recon on restaurants while we settled in and got our acts together.  We didn't want to have to travel too far away from the hotel, so after a little Urbanspoon neighborhood searching, A stumbled upon Barroco, which had glowing reviews and was about a 10 minute walk - perfect!

Outside Barroco

After navigating the streets of Old Montreal we ended up in front of a perfect small stone building that looked like it should in an old English village.  Upon entering we were greeted by the friendly host who said we were welcome to grab a drink at the bar while a table cleared up for our group.

Bar Set Up

After grabbing three chairs at the bar and looking around we knew we were in good hands.  Between the plethora of ingredients available for drinks and watching the well-trained bartender (who was more like a magician!), we knew these were going to be some good drinks!  Both A and M went with a vanilla flavored martini with a hollowed lime with a pool of 151 lit on fire.  To say this was one of the most impressive presentations is an understatement.  When a drink like this actually tastes good too, even better!

Vanilla Flavored Cocktails

My drink, though not as impressive of a presentation, was great - the brown liquor flavors worked!  My apologies for not knowing the names of either of these drinks, but needless to say, the entire menu is delicious and you would be safe ordering just about anything.  The bartender was a real craftsmen.

Lipstick Brown Liquor Drink

He is literally pouring water thru the fire to heat it!

While hanging out at the bar, we could not help but feel totally at home in the stone walled restaurant with the large beamed ceiling.  There were so many decorative features throughout the restaurant that made you feel like you were in a country house of some rich relative (if you are lucky enough to have one of those!).

I could live here!

After enjoying our drinks we moved over to a large table tucked nicely in the corner and ordered a nice bottle of red wine to enjoy with our dinner.  I am a red drinker and while there was an extensive wine list, I'm not going to lie: we went more on price (and what they had in stock) than anything else.  After going through a couple of choices with our server we ended up with a nice French red - Domaine Ferrer Ribiere.  While a bit tangy to begin with, once it was allowed to breath it got a lot smoother.

Domaine Ferrer Ribiere

Once the wine was poured, our server brought over some nice bread and herbed butter.  While the butter was chilled the bread plates were warmed so that the butter nicely melted once you placed it on the warmed plate.  Who knows if it was supposed to melt or not, but either way it worked pretty well!

Bread

Melting butter!

We decided to go straight to entrees - it was about 10:15 at this point and I was hungry!  M went with the Mediterranean Sea Bream stuffed with ricotta, truffle, arugula and parmesan lobster bordelaise.  Sea bream is a mild white fish that is very common in Europe.  The flavors in this dish were great, however, not much ricotta.  My guess is too much would have over powered the rest of the dish.

Mediterranean Sea Bream

Having read so many rave reviews of the Beef Short Ribs, Abby and I could not resist.  Lucky for us, they had the dish for 2 so we decided to share.  However, when a dish that could have served a family of four arrived at our table, we probably could have split the serving for 1!  In addition to our dishes we decided to split the wild mushrooms and the mashed potatoes with roasted garlic and olive oil.

Meal For many more than 3!

Needles to say we had plenty of food for the three of us.  I wish I was hungrier because the short ribs were delicious - fall-off-the-bone tender.  The meat was braised in a veal stock and served with pancetta, a port wine reduction and thyme.  This dish was the definition of comfort food - the short ribs really were the perfect dish for this cozy restaurant.

Short Ribs

After finally finishing our food and drink and closing up the restaurant, we were brought over a small chest containing our check for the evening.  It really was a fun way to receive it!

Check Please!

Barroco was the perfect way to begin our weekend in Montreal - warm and cozy with good food and drink.  If you are heading to Montreal I would highly recommend heading to Barroco for a meal.  

Scenes from Old Montreal!

Its hard to believe, but in less than two weeks I will be a married lady.  I can't believe it was only about 9 months ago that I got engaged!  To say time has flown by is an understatement.  Around Thanksgiving I got an email from my friends A and M saying they were going to steal me away for a weekend in December for a girls trip to locations unknown.  I was told certain things that I would have to pack for a complete weekend and that was it.  So, on the Friday of that weekend I was picked up and we were off, still none the wiser of the destination.  I did have a strategy of guessing based on what roads we followed.  When we finally turned on 89N I assumed we were going to Burlington, Vermont because other than that, there was not too much going on that way and any further north required a passport!  Turns out I have a sneaky fiance and friends, they had actually gotten my passport from Nick earlier that week, so we were off to Montreal!

Notre-Dame Basilica

After 5 short hours of chatting the car ride away, we arrived in Montreal, pulled up to the Westin and quickly checked into our room and got settled only to then get ready to head out in search of food.  The Westin is located right on the fringes of beautiful  Old Montreal.  Having only been to Montreal once before for less than 24 hours, I really did not have a good feel for the city, so I was excited to get out and explore.  The nighttime views got me excited to see the city.

When we awoke the next morning we hoped to and headed out to see what Old Montreal had in store for us.  Turns out it's amazingly beautiful!  I felt like I was in the middle of a European city - between the architecture and the foreign languages everywhere Montreal made me feel like I was much further from home than 5 hours.  The main focal point of Old Montreal is the Notre-Dame Basilica and its surrounding square.

Everything about the area was just so striking and other-worldly.

Impressive Lampposts outside Notre-Dame

Entrance 

After fully enjoying the grandeur of the Basilica we set off down toward the river to explore the small streets lined with loads of shops - perfect for window shopping and starting some Christmas buying.  Each street was lined with stone houses that seemed out of a storybook.

Eventually we turned out onto City Hall Square, which was completely decorated for the holiday.

The copper lined roof top of Montreal's City Hall was impressive!  The building was so intricate in every way.  They seriously do not make buildings like this any more.  The detail and lines in all the windows and corners must have taken a considerable amount of time to set up.

Copper Lined Roof of City Hall

Really, it was hard to stop taking photos in Old Montreal as around every corner really was something new to see and photograph.

I was obsessed with the copper!

I will have a few more posts about some delicious food we enjoyed during our stay.  Old Montreal has so much to see and enjoy.  Really though, I was amazed at how far away Montreal felt even though it was a quick 5 hour drive north.  It seemed like I had been whisked away to a European village instead of Canada.