Muffuletta attempt in MTL - Dépanneur le Pick-up

No more teaching, no more turning point (though everyday is still meaningful), back to Montréal for good, at least for the time being. I'm use this space to jot down memorable food, travel, and life experiences. Useful for visitors or locals discovering those hole in the wall best kept secret in town places that serve the best (or worst) food and things to do.

Such is Le Pick-up, a small dépanneur/restaurant hidden away on Waverly and Alexandre. Z and I read an article about making summer sandwiches in La Presse, with the theme specifically on muffulettas, which originated in New Orleans at the beginning of the 20th century, when Sicilian farmers in the French Quarter walked into Central Grocery at lunch time, and wanted to buy the ingredients for a meal. But the provolone, olives, bread, and the meat are too much to handle at their little stand, such that instead of buying individual toppings, grocery owner decided to put everything in between two pieces of bread and call it a day.

My mouth still waters when I think back to New Orleans, when we bought two muffulettas, one the real deal and one for the olive-averse Z. He hates olives for some reason and was very iffy about the thought of biting into a sandwich that was made entirely of meat and olives.

The sandwich was THE BEST THING I'VE EVER HAD, the real muffuletta that is. Drizzled in olive oil, it was the richest, juiciest, tastiest, most delicious thing in the world! We ate our sandwiches as we drove out of the city on our 10 day road trip from New Mexico back to Montreal. We nearly had to stop the car in order to scream how delicious the sandwich was.

The second one, was not nearly the same thing! You can't replace the olives in the sandwich with mere olive oil and dijon mustard! For this reason, Z and I were both mad at him for some time. By the time we finished the sandwiches, we were just about crossing over the Louisiana border, and we knew we lost the chance of going back to Central Grocery for another 10 muffulettas forever...

So whenever I see the label muffuletta somewhere in a deli shop, I can't hold down the urge to try it out - how close is it to the real thing? Once I ordered a muffuletta at D'Ellie's sandwich shop in Sugarloaf ski resort in Maine, and was quite disappointed by the lack of abundant olives and olive oil. We ate our sandwiches after we cross-country skied for an hour. Unfortunately, my muffuletta gave me a bit more than just mere disappointment but an emergency en route back to the condo. Luckily, we weren't very far from the chalet bathrooms. The moral of the story here is: when in New England, stick to your simple, plain, Italian, ham, or turkey sandwiches - definitely some of the best in the country.

ANYWAYS, back to Montreal - how are we expected to find a muffuletta in this French North American city? Well, the article essentially gave the task of making a muffuletta sandwich to five different sandwich shops, and each designed their own recipe. We chose Dépanneur le Pick-up (7032 Waverly) because the article said that they had the most traditional flavour, and comes closest to the original muffuletta. Well, we can't wait for that!

Sunday was a dreary, stormy day. Our plan was to roam the street festival and eat some cheap street food for lunch. After reading about the sandwich shop. We drove halfway across the city, dodging pedestrians, cyclists, detour signs, constructions, and one-way streets, until we arrive at this little convenient store, decked with colorful picnic benches outside. I recognized the genre right away - hipster hang-out!

We sat at the counter and I was so excited that I nearly burst in happiness! The propriéteur unfortunately busted my bubble, "We don't serve muffuletta on weekends. It's a weekly special thing. On weekends, we serve our special brunch because it's a different crowd. But if you come back during the week, we'll definitely have it!"

Instead of returning back to our car, we sighed deeply, picked up our heads, and ordered a pulled-pork sandwich each. The last time I had a pulled-pork sandwich was last year in Alabama, right where the BBQ special came from. Again, I was so iffy about how this one would turn out that I had butterflies in my stomach.

As we watched the pre-made pork package burn on the grill, and commented surreptitiously about the dirty sauce bottles in front of us, I began to worry about our choice of food and place. Yes, they played alternative hipster music, and yes the servers are very friendly albeit a little weird, how is the food???

After 15 minutes of watching the meat cook, we were finally served our respective sandwiches, each on grilled rolls, with a delicious-looking creamy spread, topped with cole slaw and peppers. The sandwich itself, ahem, was... SO DELICIOUS! Neither one of us spoke during our meal, and both of us were thinking, "Not bad... I'm OK with not getting my muffuletta, even though I'm really angry about that right, but this sandwich is pretty damn good!" It was juicy (flowed out with each bite), tasty, and traditional. No fancy smack-ons to decorate the sandwich, just your plain simple pulled-pork.

"How was the sandwich? Do you forgive us for not having the muffuletta?" I sheepishly nodded. Damn! That was the best sandwich I've ever had in this city!

So, the moral of the story is, it's not easy to get your muffuletta here in Montreal, and if you do, be weary of its authenticity. However, there are plenty of good sandwiches, just have to seek them out. 6.25$ for an original pulled-pork? Not bad at all.