Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch

When traveling in the French-speaking province of Quebec, Canada, I suggest you keep three words at the ready. They do not – as you might imagine – form the question, parlez-vous anglais? Rather, the three most important words you’ll utter during your travels to la belle Canada are these: Tarte au sucre.

That’s right, sugar pie.

To explain: The Queen and her entourage are currently on vacation. And while most people tend to relax when they engage in leisure travel, the Queen of Tarts is still hard at work. She knows how disappointed her throngs of readers would be if a Friday passed sans pie, so she’s reporting this week from the road. (la rue) Hopefully, this pie-palooza will keep all three of you engaged until next week.

But back to the tarte au sucre. A traditional Quebecoise dessert, it’s still possible (though a bit difficult) to find the pie on the menu at select Montreal restaurants. The best tarte au sucre I’ve tasted was at La Paryse, a cozy burger-fries-shake shop in the city’s quartier latin. Recommended by new friends Anthony and Michelle at the Montreal-centric food blog an endless banquet, here it is: a lovely, gooey (in the best possible sense of the word) butterscotch-y creation.



In Old Quebec City, the Tatum Café serves a fine version. The gorgeous plate presentation holds a hefty slice, and is best accompanied by a cup of strong coffee.



They also do a tasty caramel pie (which, come to think of it, is just another form of sugar pie).



Lest you worry that the Queen has done nothing but consume pies during her sojourn, let me assure you that there have been many other merry moments, including a visit to the Contemporary Art Museum to see an exhibition of Brian Jungen. Jungen, a Vancounver-based artist, creates tribal masks from Nike Air Jordans and re-creates whale skeletons from plastic lawn chairs. Need I say more?


And then there was the pilgrimage to the incredible Jean Talon market, where we gawked at the bounty at the fruit and vegetable vendors and gorged ourselves on crepes, blue-cheese stuffed olives, and. . .pies. (Lemon and maple flavored tartlets, to be precise, from Les Sucreries de l’Erable)





Bike-riding through the Parc Jean-Drapeau and hiking up to and around Mont-Royal allowed us a guilt-free trip to the superb Premiere Moisson bakery, where, having temporarily misplaced our James Bond secret camera, we had to obtain permission from the manager to photograph the pie counter.



A la prochaine. . . Bon appetit!