Last night Marie and I spent the evening at McKibbin's Irish Pub on Bishop Street in downtown Montreal. The Guiness was superb and the pub fare just as good. I had steak and kidney pie, Marie a large green salad topped with smoked Atlantic salmon. As I have often said dining in Montreal is an experience you can only appreciate by living here - the variety and sheer volume of absolutely fabulous establishments boggles the mind and in a lifetime one would never be able to savour them all! French cuisine abounds of course in the bistros, brasseries and creperies everywhere but there are wonderful Swiss, Belgian, Italian, Spanish, Portugese, Thai, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, Malay, Indonesian, Philippine, Greek, Middle Eastern, African, Carribean, Latin and South American, Eastern European and anything else you can think of all within the confines of the island. Lest I forget there is even
Canadian cuisine - burger joints, kosher and fast food places on every corner it seems. We try not to visit the same place more than twice but it is hard not to resist a gem when you find it! This though was our first visit to McKibbin's and if you like dark, cramped spaces, hard stools and loud conversation, flowing beer and great pub grub, this is for you! Our menu reminded us that the historic red sandstone building was built in 1904 and once was the home of one of Canada's most brilliant surgeons, Dr. Frank Richardson England. He and his wife both worked at Western Hospital, which today houses Montreal's Children's Hospital. Here on Bishop Street history abounds and we were both amazed by the architecture of the buildings about us, on this one small part of the city, when we headed out of the pub and home. And as the Irish say, Céad Mile Failte!
gws
