Biarritz

Before my big move to Toronto, I made sure to leave Montreal with a delicious send-off. I went to Biarritz (named after the beautiful city in France). Biarritz is a tapas restaurant with a warm atmosphere and friendly staff (we had a wonderful and helpful waitress). The menu is divided in small, medium and large plates. The worst part about Biarritz is EVERYTHING on the menu looks incredible so it's very hard to chose. Our lovely waitress helped us pick out a delicious meal! One of my favourite things about this restaurant is they make their own cheese! I'm a cheese-o-holic so that fine detail made me very happy!

We started off with the goat cheese and tapenade tartine. It was a beautiful piece of toasted crusty baguette topped with home-made goat cheese and black olive tapenade. Could anything be better? The creamy goat cheese worked perfectly with the salty olives and crunchy bread. I loved this appetizer! 

Then came the beef tartar and homemade (kettle) chips. Wow! This was so tasty! It had middle-eastern flavours with mint and cumin. They forgot to mention in the description the homemade hummus! The hummus was unbelievable! I don't like hummus... I don't like it at all. I licked that hummus off the plate! The actual tartar was wonderful. The meat melted in your mouth and the flavours were delectable! Definitely a winning dish!

Then we had the grilled octopus, chorizo, potato and cucumber. I liked this dish, I didn't love it. The octopus was cooked well. It was tender and definitely not chewy. I didn't love the flavours and probably wouldn't order it again BUT our waitress said it was one of her favourite dishes and one of the most popular.

The next dish was the winner! It will go down as one of the best dishes I have ever had. Go to Biarritz and order the pork belly. I have never been the biggest fan of pork belly, probably because I have never had it prepared correctly. I usually find it too fatty. This pork belly was perfectly seared on all sides with the most delicious fatty, meaty and juicy center. It was served on top of the best pea soup I have ever had in my life. We were scraping the bowl with our spoons to make sure none of it went to waste. Meaty pieces of ham-hock were found throughout the soup and the entire dish was drizzled with a bit of maple syrup. Bravo Biarritz! My taste-buds are forever grateful!

The last dish we had was the lamb ribs. I was unfortunately too full to eat very much of it but they were superb. They were melt-in-your-mouth-fall-off-the-bone delicious. I have never had lamb ribs before and I will be having them again. They came with a homemade mint-yogurt sauce and grilled eggplant. When that lamb hit that sauce, fireworks went off in my mouth... mmmm! I cannot wait for my next trip to Biarritz!