Slice of Life: Garde Manger’s Snow Crab Bloody Caesar

Now this is what I call a Caesar:

For you non-Canadian drinkers, a Caesar (a.k.a. Bloody Caesar) is a variant of the Bloody Mary in which Clamato — a mix of tomato juice and clam broth – is used instead of plain ol’ tomato juice. It’s a great way to start a hearty dinner. This was a particularly well-dressed Caesar, going beyond the standard celery stalk and featuring a couple of giant snow crab legs.

Chef Chuck Hughes’ Facebook profile photo.

The Caesar shown is the large snow crab Caesar served at Garde Manger, a bistro in Old Montreal whose kitchen is run by chef Chuck Hughes, who hosts a great show on Food Network Canada called Chuck’s Day Off. Chuck has kindly shared the recipe on his show’s site.

Here’s a recent photo of the menu at Garde Manger. Foodies and francophones shouldn’t have any trouble reading it, but if you have any questions, let me know in the comments:

 Photo courtesy of Eat Well Montreal.

While many restaurants in Old Montreal are content to simply look like Parisian bistros and let their quaint settings rather than their pretentious food dazzle their visitors, Garde Manger takes the opposite tack. They serve comfort food done very, very well in a setting where you could just as easily show up in jeans and t-shirt as a suit (for the record, I wore a fancy-pants dress shirt with French cuffs and cufflinks that I bought for my wedding and black jeans). Some of the crowd in attendance were fancy, but the place isn’t stuff – the DJ at the bar was spinning tunes that could’ve come straight from my MP3 collection: Bob Marley’s Jammin’, Faith No More’s We Care a Lot and one of those mash-up numbers by Girl Talk.

I took the Ginger Ninja there a couple of weekends ago. I had the lobster poutine as an appetizer, magret de canard, foie gras et sauce a l’orange and the deep-fried Mars bar with ice cream for dessert. She had the salmon tartare, beef short ribs and brownie with ice cream (it was a large brownie and I had to help). Because we were there for the end of service, the staff invited us to join them in celebrating it by sharing shots that were equal parts espresso and Galliano.

If you’re in Montreal and you love good food, make sure you pay a visit to Garde Manger. It’s at 408 Rue St François Xavier in a building with no markings save for this metal panel on the exterior wall: