[ July 2019 ] The next place we went during our food tour on Ile d’Orlean, the island in the suburbs of Quebec City in Canada was a winery.
We had leaned that Canada produces good wine on the day we arrived in this country a few days before, but this was the first time for us to try Ice Wine.
Ice Wine is made from the grapes which is frozen while they are still on the vines.
The water is frozen, but the sugars and dissolved solids are not, so they can get the more concentrated grape juice.
So they can make the very sweet dessert wine.
The problem is that the amount of the grape juice they can get is very small and they have to harvest the grapes just on the right time, so it is very difficult to make a good amount of Ice Wine and that is why they are expensive.
It was sweet but a little sour, too, which was very nice.
Because we still had a long way to go in this holiday and we cannot take the liquid into the aeroplane, so we did not buy anything here, but at the end of our holiday at the last airport, we bought some and now we are enjoying it at home.
After the winery, we visited an apple farm where there was an energetic woman, a nougat shop and the last one was a cassis winery.
We tried eating and drinking many things and did some shopping, too.
When we left the island and crossed the bridge, we saw a big waterfall on the other side from our bus.
It is called Montmorency Falls and according to Peter, our guide, it has a drop of 1.5 times of Niagara.
There were some tours to go and see this waterfall from Quebec City.
After we arrived in the city, Peter introduced many good restaurants we should try and the tour finished at the centre of the city.
Unfortunately, the weather was not so good, but the tour itself was very well made and we enjoyed it.
I should have told this first, but at the beginning of the tour, Peter said “In Quebec, the first language of 95% of people is French. So try starting the conversation with ‘Bonjour’. They will immediately understand that you are not native and switch to English”, which made us laugh.
After the tour, we went to one of the restaurants he recommended which served typical foods from Quebec called Buche Cuisine Quebecoise.
The atmosphere here was very casual.
I chose Bison again, but this time was a steak.
My husband chose spareribs.
It seemed that the typical foods here are rich and heavy, maybe because they need a lot of energy to survive in the harsh winter.
The vegetables served with the meat were cooked al dente, the same as the first steakhouse we went in Toronto.
They served an interesting appetizer, which was something like the fried pork fat with some sweet sauce.
That reminded me of Jumari we had eaten in Romania.
I ordered Maple Fudge for the dessert and they served a small paper box just like a matchbox.
When I opened it, a thick white soft stuff was wrapped in a sheet of paper.
It was extremely sweet.
