My Big Fat Weekend in Québec

[upbeat jazz music]

Hi, I'm Rachel Karten.

I'm the Social Media Director at Bon Appetit magazine,

and this is my big fat weekend in Quebec City.

I'm gonna be eating all the things,

drinking all the drinks, and exploring the region.

Let's go.

[skateboard glides]

My first stop of the day is at Le Grand Marche.

It's in the neighborhood of Le Marlou.

It just opened.

It's sort of like a food hall meets farmers market

with tons of local vendors.

I just got a donut, but it's not a normal donut.

It's a potato donut made with potato flour,

dipped in maple syrup, very Canadian.

Mm, it's chewier than a normal donut.

Not too sweet.

So good.

As if there weren't enough cool things happening

at Le Grand Marche, there's also a micro brewery,

and I happened to find the brew master

for SNO Nordik Micro Brewery.

Tell me about this beer.

Well the SNO devil is a pale ale that I produced

using local ingredients to bring out the flavor profile

of Quebec.

I am drinking the SNO angel.

I feel like I'm the devil, you're the angel

on the shoulder. I'm the angel.

Cool, cheers. Cheers.

Thank you. You're welcome.

Mm, that's good.

I could drink like two more.

That's a good breakfast beer.

[Daniel chuckles]

There's so much going on at Le Grand Marche,

but I gotta go to my next spot.

Let's go.

[upbeat jazz music]

Just arrived in Charlevoix.

The first stop is at family malarone.

They make some of the best cheese in the area.

I'm here with Madeleine.

She's gonna tell me a little bit about the fromagerie.

We started the cheese business when there were

pretty much not many cheeses in the whole province

of Quebec.

Charlevoix is one of the birth places of this whole

flavor trail's movement.

In Quebec, you have amazing duck farms, a cider factory,

you have charcuteries amongst the best

in the province as well.

So yeah, let's dig in.

It's creamy.

A little funky.

[Madeleine] We actually won the best cheese in Canada

with this one.

No big deal.

No big deal at all.

[Rachel] Well cheers to that.

Yeah, welcome to Charlevoix.

Thanks. [glasses clink]

I'm at Le Germain Hotel in Bay St. Paul,

and I hear they have an amazing restaurant

called Le Labours, so we've arranged for the chef, Alexei,

to give me a private tasting.

We're in an area here that has lots of producers,

so my goal is to put more producers as I can

in my plate, in my dishes.

I like international cuisine so I use produce from here

but flavor from around the world.

I feel like it's the essence of Charlevoix

that the same fromagerie that we were at this morning

is now showing up on my plate tonight at dinner.

I gotta take a picture of this first,

but I'm so excited to dig in.

Thank you.

Believe it or not, we're still on this big fat weekend.

Tomorrow I'm headed to Ile d'Orleans,

and I'm gonna try some cassis.

I just arrived at Ile d'Orleans.

I'm at Cassis Monna & Filles.

I saw them at Le Grand Marche, and I knew I had to come here

to get the real experience, meet the owner,

and do a tasting.

In Orleans, it's the garden or product city.

Very nice for berries, strawberries, and black current.

Also, you know it's not very known black currant

even here, but we were the first to produce

the black currant in a large scale.

[Rachel] Yes. In Quebec.

Cheers. Cheers.

This place is all about black currants.

You can try them in the classic cassis.

You can try them in a sangria, like I did.

Or you can try them in their amazing soft-serve,

and then you get to walk around their farm.

It's just picturesque and a totally awesome experience.

All weekend I've been hearing about the strawberries

on Ile d'Orleans, so I had to pull over to this farm stand

and try them for myself.

[foreign language]

So juicy and so sweet and so good.

I think the thing that surprised me the most

about this trip is that I was able to start in Quebec City.

There was so much energy there, I met amazing people,

I tasted delicious food, and I was able to go to Charlevoix

just an hour away and meet some of those same producers

of that food that was on my plate.

It's clear that there's such a tight-knit community

of chefs, producers, and they're all supporting each other.

It's just really amazing to see.

There's so much more to explore here.

I definitely need to plan another big fat weekend.