Olive et Gourmando, Montreal

So after my TWO dinners the night before with Evelyne and then Neil, I slept for 12 hours!!! I guess the craziness of being a teacher in October (and the Foodbuzz Festival) finally caught up on me…

We weren’t super hungry when we finally headed out but I had a mission: Olive et Gourmando. We had eaten here a few years ago and I still remember the fabulous buttery croissants and pastries and great coffee.


I was very amused to find this sign as we entered:


When I lived in France, brownies and other “exotic” North American treats were just starting to become popular – from les brownies, le cheesecake and le brunch to my all-time favourite McDonalds item, les potatoes, one had to ditch one’s native pronunciation of these items and assume a ridiculous sort of franglais (the sort that my students often use when they don’t know words in French. If you are an 8 year old boy and you don’t know the word in French, a good strategy is to just throw “le” in front of the noun and pronounce it with a French accent. Love it!), therefore:

le brownie = le brooooooooooonie
le cheesecake = le chizkek
le brunch = le brooonch
les potatoes (these were wedges if I recall correctly) = les po-te-toze

I never ate a brownie that I had to order in Paris – I just couldn’t do the accent!!

Anyway, I digress…

Olive et Gourmando was packed to the gills at 11.30 on a Saturday morning but we only had to wait about 5 minutes for a table. They brought us water immediately:


And it was even free:


Sounds so much nicer than “tap water” n’est-ce pas?

We got coffees:


Neil, the purist, ordered a plain croissant and a cheese one:


he polished them off pretty quickly but suggested the cheese one could have been warmed slightly…

Me, I couldn’t get past this:


Brioche au chocolat Valrhona. Full of chocolately goodness:


I am a bit ashamed to admit I couldn’t finish it all (!) because it was heavy with chocolate but it was out of this world…

If you find yourself in Montreal Tuesday – Saturday, run, don’t walk here! A little piece of France in the heart of Old Montreal.

Olive et Gourmando
351 St Paul Ouest
Old Montreal, Québec
(514) 350-1083

Olive Et Gourmando on Urbanspoon

14 thoughts on “Olive et Gourmando, Montreal”

  1. I absolutely LOVE your French phonetic interpretations of these food stuffs. I used to go to Paris twice a month for work, and on the rare occasion when I ordered a brownie or cookie rather than a pain au chocolat, it was quite an amusing translation. Great observation!
    Eva

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  2. ooh my goodness, that brioche does look intense. and thanks for the french phonetic pronunciations, that just made my morning 🙂

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  3. I don't blame you for not being able to go past that brioche, it looks amazing.

    Your funny accent story reminds me of a friend who was learning French in primary school, and they had a special French day where they had fake money and could buy treats with it, but they had to ask for the treats in French. The poor little thing couldn't remember the word for cake, and all he could remember was orange, so all he got was an orange as his treat, haha.

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  4. Mardi, what a wonderful post! Dan used to have an office in Montreal, and I loved going there. I think this restaurant has opened since I was there, though…

    Thanks for your kind message on my blog.

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  5. Great post, Mardi. I am reminded about a slim Penguin volume (first published in 1979) by Miles Kingston, a "Punch" columnist at the time.. called "Let's Parler Franglais". On the back of the volume it stated: "Le Franglas est un doddle! Parlez Franglais et le monde is votre oyster. Apres 10 secondes, vous serez un expert, un belt Noir Des Languages – sans kidding."
    Geoff

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  6. The brioche looks so decadent – I love Old Montreal! The last time we went to Montreal, we went the Schwartz for the smoked meat…mmm…then we walked all the way down the "mountain" to downtown to work it off!

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  7. Eva – yes sometimes it's quite a challenge, huh?

    Conor – that is too funny – would be quite motivating to learn the treat words though!

    Simply Life – definitely

    Linda – merci!

    Kate – you're welcome and definitely you should go there if you ever go back

    Natalie – it's a great foodie town!

    Geoff – that is hilarious!

    Chow and Chatter – thanks

    HighLow – yes, we've done the Schwartz's and the walk thing too!!!

    Evelyne – 🙂

    Reply

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