Friday, September 28, 2012.
New England-Canada Cruise Journal, Day Eight: Quebec City.
Our cruise is billed as featuring fall foliage, but only sporadic patches of that were on display in the six cities we've visited so far. Most of the fall colors have been shades of green.
What a difference the past thirty-six hours made! We awakened well within peak foliage territory, in the St. Lawrence River. The balcony of our stateroom gave a view northwest to the wooded bank of the river, illuminated by the rays of the sun behind us. The tree colors ranged from brilliant gold to day-glo red to crimson to maroon to that funny color you get when greens and reds mix. It was a breathtaking view. The Marys and I stood at the railing and watched the trees and the meadows behind then slide by for an hour.
Another distinct change in the environment was in the temperature. After six days of sailing in sixtyish degrees, we were now in the forties. In past cruises this way at this time, we ran into much colder air than this. Three years ago, there was snow on the ground of Prince Edward Island when we visited.
The brilliant leaves heralded our entry into Quebec City, unarguably the highlight of this voyage. When I visited this old French city three years ago, it jumped onto my short list of places I hope to visit again and again. The resemblances to my home town--combined with the differences--conspired to make me love the place.
Quebec is the oldest city in the eastern half of North America, about a hundred years older than New Orleans. It's always been thoroughly French. The Canadian province of the same name has French as its sole official language. (The rest of Canada is officially bilingual.)
The schedule of the Queen Mary 2 has the welcome advantage of including an overnight stay in Quebec City. The Eat Club could have dinner in one of the city's restaurants, after a full day of walking around or touring. We would take full advantage of all of that.
The ship tied up at nine-thirty. I was up early to let the Eat Clubbers know that the ship was well away from where I said it would be. Reason: five ships were in town. Two of them were turning over--rolling one batch of passengers out, and bringing in a new one. There wasn't enough room at the dock for all of them. Since our ship is by quite a bit the largest one here, we were moved upstream to the container dock. Which wasn't as ugly as I expected. (In fact, it had a view of the cliffs above which the city is built.)
Quebec has a landmark as prominent and unmistakable as the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben. Chateau de Frontenac looks like a castle, right on the riverfront. It's a hotel these days. The Marys--who were, as usual, on the first shuttle from the ship to town--said they'd meet me there. I was arrived first, huffing and puffing after scaling the cliff by way of the steepest streets I could have chosen. It's like walking up the most angular blocks of San Francisco, and just as scenic. I became concerned that some of the people who reserved spots at our dinner tonight--for which I am financially responsible--might not be able to make it.
Quebec's old town is beautiful, quaint, clean, in superb repair, and very French. It's a tourist area, and there was the predictable number of T-shirt and souvenir shops. But even those are tastefully done. Mary Leigh's inexplicable fanaticism for ice hockey found plenty of fodder. Two big shops sold the goods for her favorite team, the Boston Bruins. She loaded up as MA beamed and I scratched my head.
Interspersed among the shops is a large community of restaurants, each of which looked better than the one before. While the Marys shopped, I scouted out lunch venues on the lighter side. The crepe shops looked good, but it took some persuading for the girls. They were thinking in terms of Le Chic Shoppe and Le Trois Garcons--both of them hamburger joints. I will not go to Quebec to eat a hamburger, I let them know. They resigned themselves to crepes. I feel no guilt.
Our chosen crepe shop was Le Petit Coin De Breton--"The Little Corner of Brittany." Brittany is famous for its milk, cream, cheese and butter. The chef, working in an open kitchen in what looked like a gigantic fireplace, was slinging around large quantities of all these things. It all smelled and looked good, and a waitress wearing an antique Breton getup kidded around with us as we tried to negotiate French. It's not necessary to speak the language--everybody here speaks English without a hint of protest--but it's more fun.
Onion soup au gratin, bean soup, salad with some big, puffy cubes of bechamel and cheese browned around the outside, and a gigantic crepe stuffed with white cheese and ham came forth. All this was delightful enough that even Mary Leigh was happy.
Then back to the rues. When Mary Ann saw the wall that once enclosed the old town, we had to ascend it. And get our photos taken by strangers. Mary Ann believes that no photo lacking the entire family is worth taking, regardless of the interest of the background elements. On the other hand, if I took all the pictures we'd have none of ourselves at all.
When we got tired of walking around, we returned to Chateau Frontenac to refresh ourselves. In the bar, we were able to wheedle the password for the hotel's free wi-fi, allowing MA to make contact with Jude. He's been a little ill for the past few days, and his mommy is concerned. Meanwhile, Mary Leigh was able to make contact with The Boy.
A Manhattan in the Frontenac's bar is $17. Liquor and wine prices are very high in Canada, and have been for a long time. Taxes are the problem.
When it got to be around six, I dropped out of Mary Ann's insistent wanderings and sat down at the bar at Aux Anciens Canadiens, where the Eat Clubbers will have dinner tonight. It's the oldest restaurant in Quebec, in the oldest house in the city. Built in 1640, it has thick walls, low ceilings, and a warm tightness inside. It reminded me a bit of the dining room at the extinct Elmwood Plantation. Not only is the food distinctly Canadian, but from a time gone by. It's sort of the Galatoire's of Quebec. I love these old places. Last time I was here, I didn't find Aux Anciens until after I'd already lunched, and made a note to try it next time.
Despite all that antiquity, the restaurant employs an innovation so brilliant that I think every restaurant ought to copy it. The two television screens above the bar--and another, larger one in the upstairs dining room--show not ESPN or CNN, but a live video feed of what's going on in the kitchen. I couldn't stop watching the three chefs working the line and churning out the food. When I saw a dish I didn't recognize, I asked the hostess. Long before we sat down to dinner, I had seen in great detail a large percentage of what they serve here.
"A lot of restaurants have open kitchens, but we barely have space in this old building for the necessities," explained a man who identified himself as one of the partners in the enterprise. "So we installed the camera in the kitchen. Everybody loves it!"
The video feed had no audio. If it ever did, the management probably turned it off after a few minutes. The last thing a restaurant customer wants to hear is the banter between cooks working in a tight space. Especially when tensions rise.
Aux Anciens Canadiens has a special tasting menu for groups that they call "Le Formule." The four courses each gave many options, some of which were quite exotic to our palates, while very much a local specialty. Rillettes of caribou, for example. I started with that, then moved on to grand-mere's pea soup (not green peas, as it turned out). The entree for me was a take on beef bourguignonne, made with bison instead of beef. The favorite dish of the Eat Club appears to have been the Canadian wild game meat pie, but the duck with the maple syrup glaze (Canada produces vastly more maple syrup than New England) had its fans.
Maple syrup also made its way into one of the ending options: a creamy liqueur flavored with maple. I thought this was wonderful, and I expect I will not taste it again until the inevitable time when I return to this marvelous city.
We finished at about nine, giving us plenty of time to catch the shuttle back to the ship. By then, the beautiful weather had departed, the temperatures rose, and a mist that I heard one Quebecois says had come all the way up from New Orleans was beginning to make everything damp. This would be our weather for the next three days.
Restaurant Aux Anciens Canadiens. Quebec, Canada: 34 Rue Saint-Louis. 418-692-1627.
