Salty Cheese & Mort Subite in Moncton New Brunswick

Last year I won a night’s stay at a Rodd hotel because they liked this picture I tweeted during a social media contest they were running:

Congrats to @larakillian! She is a #RoddVacations contest winner. She took this great shot of a foggy Halifax Harbour pic.twitter.com/J4u2IOeou7
— Rodd Vacations (@RoddVacations) August 23, 2013

At the time I didn’t know they would pick which hotel I could have a free night’s stay at! It turned out to be Moncton, New Brunswick. Still, they gave me until mid-October 2014 to use it, so that was generous.

Moncton is about a 2.5 hour drive from Halifax. We lucked out with the loveliest fall weather! Foliage was looking good with lots of orange and yellow, plus a few bright spots of red. It might have been the peak for the year.

When we arrived in Moncton we got checked in and found our room. The hotel has an outstanding location right at the start of the Main Street and right on the river. The room we were given however, had 2 standard beds squeezed into barely enough room, a missing mini-bar fridge, and a view of a brick wall. A call to the front desk turned into a quick upgrade to a larger room with a king size bed, a larger bathroom, and a view of Main Street. We knew we’d be out of the room most of the time so the view wasn’t too important, and the room was quite comfortable. With a working fridge, which is a plus!

We headed off to meet friends at the Laundromat Espresso Bar, a funky neighbourhood cafe and watering hole with fridges full of bottles beer from all over. The favourite was the Mort Subite. A little sour and a lot fruity, very easy to drink.

And when we heard about the fromage sale (salty cheese), we had to give that a try.

Worth it - but good to share with friends and definitely not a daily treat!

→ (Read Lara’s Yelp review of the Laundromat Espresso Bar)

I had scoped out a downtown Thai/Vietnamese restaurant on Yelp, but our friends spoke highly of another Vietnamese option, Red Satay, down the street from the Laundromat Bar. Read Lara’s Yelp review of Red Satay. I’m glad we listened to them - on a quiet street with few people about we stepped into a small space crammed with tables and knew from the number of bodies in the room that this is a local gem.

→ (Read Lara’s Yelp review of Red Satay)

After getting stuffed with cheap fresh delicious Vietnamese food we headed back to the hotel to rest it off for a bit.

Once we’d recovered from dinner we headed out to see what the Saturday night life was like and see if we could find some live music.

We bypassed the popular and crowded Tide & Boar “gastropub” for the Old Triangle, which had a free cover band playing and was packed out. Jeff took this awesome Vine of the taps at the bar.

We enjoyed some sing-along songs, and had a drink or two. It was a great cross-section of the local community, all ages in there.

Read about the rest of our Moncton trip here: Wild Boar Poutine & the Tidal Bore in Moncton New Brunswick.