The Cosmopolitan Blog

I went to see “Angels & Demons” recently, & while i’ll spare you my numerous issues with the movie, i did find something very funny. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Moulin Rouge”, you’ll know that Ewan McGregor & Nicole Kidman break into a song every 5 seconds, anytime they have something deep & meaningful to say.

So I found Ewan McGregor so funny in this movie and couldn’t seem to take him seriously. Every time he had one of his passionnate tirades about the battle between science & religion (and he had many!), I just expected him to break into a song any second now. See, everytime he acts the “passion” emotion, he only knows how to act it in 1 way: it transcribes as these big blue innocent eyes looking straight at you with, apparently, “passion”! In “Moulin Rouger”, he had the exact same puppy-dog look, he would passionately stare into Kidman’s eyes & break into a love song. So naturally, anytime the Ewan-McGregor-Passion-Eyes came out, I’d naturally expect a song to follow!

In fact, I think i might have enjoyed Angels & Demons way more if McGregor HAD ACTUALLY broken into a song & a dance now and again!

I went to FondueMentale for the 3rd time in 5 years, and it was great, as always. But i wanted to write a review this time, because i found the perfect combination of dishes to order. We were 4 people and went for dinner on a Friday night. It is recommended to make a reservation.

When you walk in, the restaurant is very quaint, you have to walk up a few steps and pull an old heavy door. The romantic atmosphere can be felt as soon as you walk in, with wood and candlelight visible from the entrance foyer. There are stairs that lead to the upstairs level, but we were seated one the first floor (I’ve been upstairs before, it’s nice too, more of a modern feel whereas here below, it feels nice and retro).

Fondue is originally a swiss dish that comes in very different varieties, but the 1 common thing is that it’s about putting a piece of something onto a long fork and placing it into a pot of a boiling liquid and leaving it there for a little while.

There is the cheese fondue where you put bread into liquid melted boiling swiss cheese. There’s Chinoise and Bourguignonne ones where u put raw meat into either boiling oil (bourguignonne) or broth (chinoise) to cook your meat. then there’s the ever fabulous chocolate fondue for desert.

So, at Fondue Mentale you can choose any one you like, there have different variations on each. And of course, if there are many of you, you can each take something different for a variety of samples. But what i really recommend you should do it take the menus, you have to be a minimum of 2 people for each menu though.

L’ aventure is the cheapest, at $29 per person, and there’s also La Romantique at $33 per person. We were four people, so we took one of each. For starters, you get a cheese fondue (a smaller portion), but still it’s a very filling dish, and we puposely ended up leaving a little at the bottom of the pot, to save place for the rest of the food. The good thing is, since we get 2 portions of Cheese Fondue (since we had 2 menus), we had a different type of cheese in each fondue.

Then came the fondue Chinoise, where we got dishes of raw beef and chicken (L’ Aventure) and a dish of raw beef, chicken, shrimp, salmon and calamari (La Romantique), that you have to place at the end of your long fork (you get 2 forks per person so you can be more productive)…

Of course, I made sure to tell my dinner companions that, when i was in Switzerland, i had been taught that the rule for fondues was: if a piece drops off your fork (i.e. you pull your fork out of the pot and there’s nothing attached to it), you have to pay a penalty… and the penalty can be anything from kissing your neighbor to handing over a piece of food in penalty

Oh! and rule no2 (way more important if you care about your tummy): with cheese fondue, NEVER drink ice water while eating the fondue, because then the melted cheese solifies in yuor tummy and well, not good! So, ice with no water (small sips only, otherwise effect will be the same, and you’ll be full by the 4th bite) or better yet, a nice bottle of white wine (always good to use this as an opportunity to try a german or swiss wine).

Desert was a fruit fondue, perfect end, a little pot of hot melted chocolate and a plate full of cut up fruit to dip into it. FABULOUS!

Anyway, so, conclusion: for this restaurant, my tips are: go with a group, be adventurous, come hunry, stay away from too much water, stay close to lots of wine, and find a way to maximize the different dishes you end up with. The menus are GREAT ideas because they are designed for maximum sampling. HAPPY FONDU-ING!

FondueMentale is located at 4325 Saint-Denis (between Marie-Anne and Rachel) - (514) 499-1446 - http://www.fonduementale.com/ - open from 5.30 to 10pm (weekdays) and until 11.30pm (weekends).

I love canada. it’s that simple. i’ve lived in 3 other countries in my life: UK, switzerland and the US. and you know what, Canada is awesome. everything about canada is inclusive, not exclusive. canadians are proud to welcome their new immigrants. canadians are proud of their country and are not always complaining about it (well, apart from its weather). canadians care about their environement as much as their care about their families. In the UK and in the US, these things are not the case. switzerland, on the other hand, compares to canada.

I listen to the news and look at what’s happenning in the US, and everything is so negative, the economy, the borders… listening to lou dobbs (why i do this to myself, is a whole other question), watching Pelosi’s daughter’s documentary today where a bunch of rednecks (they called themselves that, i didn’t) complained about how the world was changing so fast and they still wished black people weren’t heard from and women couldn’t vote… i can’t help but think… u know what? canada’s really figured something out.

i applied for immigration in 2003. the process took 8 months. in feb 04 i arrived at the montreal airport as a canadian resident. Then and there, the officer gave me documentation and flyers on where i could attend free classes on learning / integrating in canada, this included telling us how we could get our driving licenses, our health cards, our social insurance numbers… even the driving license process was fast and efficient, i just exchanged my massachussets license for my QC one. Later as a french citizen, i was sent the address of a joint french-quebec organization that helps french nationals find jobs in QC (yes, for free). Then, i applied for citizenship 3.5 years later, and was canadian before my 5th year living here. The process was fast, the ceremony was emotional and something i will remember forever. i got a certificate, a card, and a warm fuzzy feeling inside. and yesterday, i got an unexpected diploma.

seriously, how often can you say that a bureaucratic process was seamless from beginning to end? let’s take a moment and be grateful for well oiled, well run, efficient democracies with smart, caring and welcoming citizens. Congratulations Canada, you rock!

I nearly lost my blog last night (DB backup issues), but didn’t, thanks to the diligence of my web host. Still, during the 3 hours of sheer panic, many thoughts went through my mind. Would anyone miss it, other than me? Would i start all over again, or just give up?

Very quickly, i wondered if it was all worth it. I mean, how many people was i really affecting? Afterall, i’m not the most famous blogger in the world, so the answer is “less than the famous bloggers of this world”… but even for those famous bloggers… don’t they sometimes think that they’re just talking to thin air?

So then i thought… here we are, in this little bubble of technology… blogs, twitter, social media, etc… but who really cares other than those who know about it? For every 10 twitterers, there are a million that have never even heard the word, let alone understanding it’s power. Does that make them less of a customer or an audience? Should we ignore them?

Too often, when i request feedback on a particular trend or idea, i find that all i get is the feedback of the last person we spoke to. I hear “the trend is to start using this technology”, but actually, it’s not… it’s just that we spoke to 5 people in our own bubble and they all said the same. But what about the rest of the world out there? We seem to forget what “gathering market feedback” really means.

So imagine my relief when i found out that one of those famous bloggers was talking about exactly that, hours later. Read “Get out of your own way” from Mitch Joel. Then come back and tell me, do you agree? Are we just that conceipted that we think that everyone does it the way we do it?

As some of you may know, i became canadian in january. and yesterday, out of nowhere, i got this package in the mail, i opened it, and it looked like a diploma case, you know those letter size leather padded folders that open upwards with the diploma inside? so this diploma case is green, and it’s from the House of Commons. So i open it and see this diploma, with all the provincial flags, the government stamp, and it’s signed from my MP, Marc Garneau (yes, the ex-astronaute). The text is all about welcoming me to canada and congratulating me on bahalf of my fellow citizens.

ok, so maybe this is just a marketing ploy, and he’s trying to get me to vote for him. but u know what? it just made me smile all day. because i didn’t expect this, and it just made me feel good.

So let’s take a moment to be grateful for the small things in life that make us happy.

I’m trying to keep to short posts, but stay tuned for my commentary on the entire canadian immigration / citizenship process.