Whether you're in Lima or Napoli, Southern European and Southern American cities have similarities, they still have bustling produce, fish and meat markets with restaurants that blend in with the chaos. Wooden tables without napkins. Sturdy cutlery. Pots, pans, dishes, and plates in all sorts of shapes and textures, just like the patrons. Layers of seafood on ice along the bar. And of course, the sizzling of onions and shallots (the aromatic of choice for French cuisine) filling the dining room. Patrons gossiping and boasting about their lives, all in all an orgy of noises and smells.\n\nThe problem is, we are not in Sao Paolo, but in Montreal, in the bowels of Le Plateau. This is chef Martin Picard's Au Pied de Cochon. The acclaimed Chef attaches his beginnings to Montreal going back to the early 1990's.\n\nThe raison d'etre of Au Pied de Cochon is to delight its customers, as much through its exquisite food as through its friendly atmosphere. When it is a question of pure pleasure, one would have a hard time convincing that the feeling of fresh vegetables cracking in your mouth, as good as it may be, is as pleasurable or as intense as a piece of meat, cooked perfectly, especially at the moment it releases its fat and its juices, filling the body with warmth an instantaneous feeling of well being. \n\nOne thus goes to Au pied de cochon for the comforting pleasures of a meat-plentiful and generous kitchen, terroire inspired. Martin Picard is a larger-than-life character, for whom eating well means eating a lot, and drinking well means drinking a lot.\n\nLike the changing temperatures of the seasons, the kitchen at Au Pied de Cochon offers a variety of seasonal fare. Without giving up the pillars of the meat repertoire that characterizes the restaurant, Martin Picard's estival cuisine includes a large number of fish and seafood dishes. During the winter the menu goes through a dramatic transformation.\n\nMost dishes have only four or five easily identifiable ingredients, in balanced proportions. Chef Martin Picard does get clever with one pervasive product: foie gras. It comes in nearly a dozen combinations, including stuffed into a ham hock, with poutine, and in an interesting creation called \"Duck in a Can\" which does, indeed, come to the table with a can opener. Somehow! this canned duck provided us with succulent meat without any of the chewy fat that is usually expected. After having magret de canards in Montreal in the past, none have come close to satisfying me like this dish. A heap of mushrooms and onions covered the deep colored duck strips, which were teased to perfection by the chef. \n\nThe main courses are for carnivores and pescivores. We were tempted by but did not try any of the large plates of seafood on a bed of crushed ice. The zucchini flowers were delicately fried and sprinkled with fleur de sel, and the calamari was light and citrus filled accompanied by caviar.\n\nWhen you feel like another bite will send you into a cholesterol-induced coma, maple syrup cake is the only fitting finish.\n\nThis is not an establishment for sensitive stomachs and underperforming livers!
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