Montreal highlights festival

Truffle dinner at Restaurant Julien

This past Tuesday, I was invited to Restaurant Julien for a dinner that centered around the Perigord truffle. It was a media dinner and I was invited because I am now writing for zurbaines, in case you didn’t know that already 🙂 The dinner was fabulous, a preview to what is to come at the Julien as part of the Montreal Highlights Festival. The invited chef, Gaëlle Benoiste‐Pilloire created a 6-courses dinner using truffles. She will be at Restaurant Julien for 3 sold-out nights during the festival, but the truffle dishes will be available à la carte for the duration of the Festival, February 17th to 27th. If you are a truffle lover, hurry up and make some reservations, some of these dishes are well worth it, especially the quail egg with truffle oil accompanied by a fresh truffle and salted butter bite, so simple yet so decadent!

Quail egg with truffle oil accompanied by a fresh truffle and salted butter bite

White bean soup with black truffle

Scallop carpaccio with black truffle oil

Veal blanquette with black truffle

Chocolate indulgence dishcrawl

6-course of chocolate desserts, need I say more? Saturday afternoon I joined a few other chocolate addicts to indulge in a 6-course chocolate dishcrawl at Le Maître Chocolatier. The desserts were prepared by Nada, owner of Le Maître Chocolatier and pastry chef Jami Liverman. I never thought I would see the day when I would say enough to chocolate but that day came this past Saturday when I had to take the last “course” home. Jamie’s pastries – including his amazingly fudgey brownies – will be available at Le Maître Chocolatier. If you didn’t have the chance to attend this dishcrawl, don’t fret, you can join any of the monthly dishcrawls coming up. I now leave you with some pictures that might induce severe chocolate cravings, you’ve been warned!