Travelfood

I have visited Canada a few times and this time our 3-day layover in Montréal raised a few negative thoughts that I wish to raise. First of all, the tipping culture just cannot cease to amaze me. Coming from Europe I am used to pay the price stated on a product or service, but in the US and Canada the final price is something else. Going to a restaurant the stated price for a dinner might be for example 50 CAD. When you receive the bill, there is an addition of 15% of two different taxes on top of that price, making the payable bill 57,50 CAD. On top of that the waiter expects a tip of minimum 15% for a service that really doesn’t exceed the attitude of a waiter in Europe, where ”tips” are incorporated in their salaries. Paying the 15% tip (making the final price at this moment 65 CAD), you receive an annoyed attitude from the waiter (since he or she actually expects 20% or 25%) and still you as the customer have a bad feeling for paying hugely for your meal. So, you will probably pay more for products and services in US and Canada and citizens from those countries still think that prices are high in Europe (where the stated price is what you actually pay). I truly wish that tipping would lack to exist and be seen as a strange relic soon. 

Speaking a bit of French I was excited to arrive to French-speaking Montréal. Talking French in shops, the service quickly turned into English, though. Did I not speak French good enough? At some point I got the feeling it has to do with Canada´s bilingual status. The French-speakers are used to English-speaking Canadians addressing them in French whereby the French-speakers expose them by turning the conversation into English. This might be the domestic way of communicating, but for a tourist it feels bad that you even tried talking French.  

The third annoying thing concerns all the restaurants in the world, but the problem was especially real in Montréal. Some restaurants do not print or express their menu anymore in other ways than by a QR code. You are supposed to scan their online menu with your cell phone. As a tourist your are probably dependent on wifi in order to access Internet abroad. We had a seat in a restaurant that did not have wifi whereby we were not able to access their menu. The waiter (that would have expected a huge tip for outstanding service) did not have the means to tell us their offerings and prices so we left the restaurant and the waiter truly expressed that we were the ones behaving badly by doing so! 

My fourth note concerns the pride of Montréal’s cuisine: the smoked meat sandwich. The rype bread is not as dark as we are used to in northern Europe and the smoked meat is equivalent to Italian pastrami. The other pride is French fries in brown gravy, so if that is not gruesome enough, they call it by the name of a dictator: poutine. Hopefully the taxes and tips of that meal did not end up in the pockets of any dictator! But I have to admit that Canadian maple syrup is yummy and it goes well with all kinds of dishes.

food, Montreal, travel, travel experiences, USA