Our family of five is headed to the great province of Quebec for the month of July. We'll be spending a week or a bit more in each of: Quebec City, Montreal, and Gatineau (just across the river from Ottawa). We will probably dine out once every day or two, but hope to cook at home for breakfast and dinner most days, and maybe pack a picnic lunch for the other days. Geographically, we are staying within a couple of miles of the center of each city.
I was saddened to realize Aldi doesn't operate in Canada. I found the No Frills store, but they appear to be only in Ontario province. Is "Metro" a low cost store (I saw one near where we are staying).
To cross post from the farmer's market thread, any great values to be had at farmer's markets?
Which grocery stores are considered the least expensive in Quebec? Any tips on economizing on groceries? Are any of the local butchers or bakeries cost competitive to the cheapest grocery stores?
Are superwalmarts and supertargets in abundance? In the States, they usually have fairly low prices on everything but never run any great sales (which would suit us just fine for a month).
For reference, we don't care about organic, free range, sustainable, grass fed, etc. We aren't big on buying processed foods like tv dinners or hot pockets, but rather raw meat, fresh produce, dry pasta, pasta sauce in a jar, etc and cooking mostly from scratch (like spaghetti with meat and veggie sauce, fajitas, chicken and rice, etc). Breakfasts will be really simple like fresh fruits, yogurt, toast/bagels, coffee, cereal.