Pops for Champagne- take 3

By now, I’ve dined at Pops for Champagne enough times to confirm that this place offers a consistently wonderful experience. In the meantime, I have cooked a few splendid dinners at home and dined around enough NOT to be blind-sided. AND here comes the verdict: Pops kicks ass (pardon my honesty) – but it really does! I can cook fish in many ways and my chicken never fails but what Chef Brochu is putting out is hard to reproduce at home and that’s what the fun is all about. I am talking about three kinds of pate – let me take that back: it’s four, actually; with a newly introduced fish pate (!!!) Not to mention that the ripe banana puree which arrives alongside a buttery foie gras pate is one of the most delicious culinary riddles I’ve had to resolve. I love foie gras and I was relived when the ban was lifted by the city. Are you kidding me??!! We have a third-world-class public trans system and we were discussing goose liver?!!! Chef Brochu’s foie gras pate is delicious. Now, I told you before I was a lucky girl and I did get to try foie gras creme brulee at Jean George in NYC as well as at the local staple of the old school of fine dining: Carlos’s where they bring the HOT and COLD foie gras combo. Trickery aside, Mr. Brochu makes this creamy dish as proof: foie is here to stay!
Back at Pops: pates and cheeses arrive surrounded by a lovely backup of surprising flavors: red bell pepper puree and green garlic marmalade – all imaginative and delicious! Not to mention that you get to round up our meal with cardamom ice cream with banana biscuits!! “When do we get to go back for cardamom ice cream?!!” – cry my lovely friends. “Soon”- I say- “Very soon!!!”
The modest write up in “Conscious Choice” does only a partial justice to the place and the talent that resides there.
The food is complex yet delicious just as the place is elegant yet very friendly. Not to mention a world-class dose of jazz you get if you are willing to decend downstairs into a cellar-like-European style basement…We will be back again, than again, and again…