World Wide Washi

wa = japanese
shi = paper

Au Papier Japonais may be North America's best, and only, all washi shop.

Washi, the handmade Japanese paper that fills Lorraine Pritchard's totally unique Montreal paper store has a tradition longer then the rolls and rolls of washi being displayed all over the cozy store.
You want the best washi your canadian dollar can buy? Head down to the Mile End area, the hippest, most low key of Montreal neighborhoods. Fairmont Street is full of fun, current shops, and Au Papier Japonaise seems to be the neighborhood's Queen Bee.





It's on of those places.

Lorraine's careful attention to detail has created an atmosphere of refined obsessiveness. If you are at all interested in paper - good paper - you better leave before your Amercain Express card catches fire as mine did upon exiting.
Not that her prices aren't great, they are. But the problem lies in the fact that there are too many things you might find yourself needing to have.

Washi, books about washi, calligraphy brushes, beautiful paper umbrellas, more washi, cool little knick knacks for any paper/washi geek, washi, and then in the next room, more washi. In the same way the Japanese love packaging and all it entails, Lorraine's shop is like a Japanese hostess gift; beautiful, well ordered, neat, and heaped with character.

The shop reminds the visitor of a living room fort made of paper (the kind you made as a kid) and you don't want to leave but stay all night under its soothing sheets .



So what is washi?

The Japanese have been making strong, exquisite paper for at least 1300 years. From the workshop pamphlet I picked up in the shop it says this: "In washi, fibre comes from three plants whose inner bark produces naturally longer fibres than trees, and which is laboriously extracted by hand to maintain its length. The three plants are kozo, mitsumata and gampi."

So now we know.

But to get to know washi even more intimately, Au Papier offers workshops from papermaking, to card making, to book binding, to full on painting classes. I just wish there were a satelite campus in California.
Check them out at www.aupapierjaponais.com

There is also a world wide Washi Summit held every year, which would be amazing to attend, I'm sure.



Don't call it rice paper.
It's washi!

The Franco Nippon Connection

A japonese bistro!
This is the kind of cross cultural eating experience that I always love.
Isakaya, a Japanese restaurant in a French Canadian city, provided my one and only Japanese meal in Montreal. Cheap(er), innovative, and unpretentious, but was it Japanese?

Walking north from dowtown up Rue DuParc, Isakaya is recommended as the only place to eat fresh fish in this area of Montreal. And the meal I had was possibly the weirdest thing I have ever eaten in a sushi restaurant.
Weird in a good way.

I had the "Salade deNouille Sarrasin avec Crevettes Matane" or 'Buckwheat noodle salad with fresh Matane shrimp.'
Buckwheat noodles are terrific and I don't eat nearly enough of them, but I will be trying harder from now on.
They took the buckwheat noodles (cold) and dressed them with seaweed strips, sprouts, avocado, tomatoes, (that's weird, right?), and those crispy kind of noodley crackers, and drizzled it all with a wonderful, savory, hollandaise-like sauce.
It's as if the chef looked into the fridge and said "What do we have in here for tonight's special?" - and boy was it great.
Odd, but great. It was definetly japanese, for the chef's innovative abilities alone.

The only complaint I had was that there wasn't enough. But maybe that's just the American in me, wanting more of what I want.

"Isakaya est un restaurant discret qui offre une cuisine Japonaise authentique" it said in the window.
Translation: Yummy Japanese food in Montreal.