Five Things That Might Surprise You When You Go Drinking and Eating Out In Montreal*

[muckefuck]

1. The servers will ask you whether you want separate checks--or just bring them that way. (It's been so long since this happened to me in the States that at first I couldn't figure out what the hell they were asking for.)
2. You probably won't see anything telling you where the restrooms are, but if you head for the sign saying "SORTIE" ("EXIT"), you'll stumble across them.
3. When you get there, you'll find that there's actually hot water in the hot water tap. Sometimes scaldingly hot!
4. Taking food home is just not comme il faut. An older gentleman told me he's tried to acclimate himself to the fact that Americans and younger people find this perfectly acceptable, but it still strikes him as very déclassé. He's seen proprietors refuse to give customers doggy bags and even excoriate them for asking.
5. The one beer you can find pretty much everywhere isn't PBR. It's not even Labatt's or Molson. It's freakin' Bud. (Yeah, I can't understand it either.)

Additionally, a co-worker tells me that it's easy to find good draught cider in Montréal. I imagine she's right, but you'd never know that from the kinds of places we ended up. I wonder, though, how much of that is just a by-product of spending so much time in the Village and of the shitty selection that seems sadly typical of gay bars everywhere.


*Based on my extremely limited experience and Americentric perspective.