Last Sunday Janice and I participated in an culinary event I will not soon forget; Kaffeeklatsch at Laloux.

Kaffeeklastch is an event created by Michelle Marek, pastry chef at Laloux. For a small fixed fee we got the choice of a pastry and a petit four, with coffee from Cafe Myriade. In the past all of the pastries at Kaffeeklatsch were made by Marek, but this time Stéphanie Labelle of Pâtisserie Rhubarbe also provide some incredible treats for us to try.

I don’t usually do restaurant reviews; I’m too busy eating to take pictures. These pastries were so pretty I had to take some pictures of them. The light at Laloux is incredible. The bistro has huge windows along the sides and front that stream light through in such a pretty way.

Because of nut allergies, our choices were limited, but we were still very pleased. Janice chose the Religieuse à la Rhubarbe (above) while I had the Tarte à la Rhubarbe (below). Religieuse are similar to cream puffs, but stacked. In this case they were filled with a rhubarb cream and came with a rhubarb compote. The cream was the perfect sweet/tart combination, and the compote added an extra kick of rhubarb. Labelle’s pastry is also incredible; it’s not like a typical choux pastry. I’d love to know how she makes it. My mom and discussed a few options, some experimenting will be done.

The Tarte was also wonderful. It had a frangipane like filling, which complimented the rhubarb  very nicely. Again there was a great sweet tart balance. I’m going to try to replicate this myself too, although I doubt I can come close to this.

The pastries were followed by petit fours. Janice order rum balls, while I had the chocolate raspberry linzer cookie. Since these were petit we didn’t share them, but I can tell you the linzer was very good; it had a hint of cinnamon. Janice really enjoyed the rum ball.

We were there with a few other Montreal foodies, including Mayssam, Katerine, and Andrea. After watching them order everything (I mean everything) on the menu, we decided a little more pastry wouldn’t hurt. So we split the Sachertorte. Sachertorte is an Austrian chocolate torte. The slice I had was dense and moist, and Marek did an incredible job.

If that wasn’t enough, we took more pastries to go. We both chose the strudel and religieuse. Unfortunately, the strudel is full of walnuts so I didn’t get to try it, but my parents loved it.

All in all it was a wonderful Sunday afternoon. I’m already dreaming of the next Kaffeeklatsch!