Day 118

August 22nd

We slept in hard core this morning to make up for the short night and long day that we had. After lounging around and taking it really easy, we made it to the Museum of Nature by about 3pm. That was a pretty good one to see. There was a lot of variety and even a live insect farm. I guess it wasn't all that bad that we missed the insectarium in Montreal. The only bummer was that on the way, the back wheel on Dustin's bike popped. This was the same bike that we patched up before except this time we were no where near Carleton. So we left with enough time to walk back and get ready before going out for our fancy dinner at 18. We got all dressed up and made our way down there by bus. The restaurant was quite romantic and the waiter was very informative and helpful. We decided to do the 5 course blind tasting with the wine pairing instead of choosing our own meals. First they gave us a little spoonful of flavor. It had apple, cheese, squash and some kind of herb on it. Then we got 2 slices of baguette (I had the whole grain) with whipped butter. We had champagne with this. For our appetizer we had shrimp done 3 different ways. Two of them were with butter and different flavors I think. the one in the middle was the best, it was chopped and made into a hot mixture with who knows what and stuffed into a zucchini blossom! That was tasty :) It came with a white wine. The next dish was a salad with 3 different tomatoes. They were garnished with minced and marinated olives and very smooth goat cheese. mmmmmmmmm That was one of my favorite dishes. It also came with white wine. The next one was BBQ fuagra and Octopus with suuuuper sweet octopus jus all around it. Another winner! This one also had white wine and at this point I was feeling all the wine lol. Then on to the main course which was the ostrich that I was planning on ordering had we chosen our own meals! It was very good. They cooked it so that there was that raw part in the middle and there were bits of pepper corns coating it. There was also a mix of potatoes, corn and a tasty sauce all around it. This one came with red wine! By this point Dustin and I thought we would guess at what the dessert might be but we were both wrong. Dustin guessed some kind of Angel Food cake with berries, I guessed cheese cake with berries but it was a very rich piece of chocolate brownie and Mango gelato ice cream sitting on shredded unsweetened coconut with dried but very tasty cherries on the side. wow! This came with a small glass of ice wine which Dustin said is really expensive. That meal was a real treat and I'm glad we splurged and went out for it!