[Montreal] Montreal Bagel (St.Viateur, Fairmount Bagel)

Have you ever tried Montreal bagel?

If you didn't, you really should try it.

The real montreal bagel is unbelievablely good.

There are two famous bagles named after its original(?) cities' names.

One is New York (style) bagel and the other is Montreal (style) bagel.

New York style bagel is more puffy and risen bread style.

Montreal bagel is almost not risen, compared to the New York bagel.

When you see it, it looks even somewhat ugly and wrinkly, haha.

But, it's just sooooooooooooooo good.

The more you chew, the more flavour you get.

It's a little chewy. 

We stayed in Montreal 3 days in August to go to watch the quarter-finals and semi-finals of Rogers Cup (ATP masters 1000 series tennis tournament).

We visited two most famous bagel shops in Montreal, Fairmount Bagel and St. Viateur Bagel.

and compared them :) to see which one is better than the other.

What did we like more?

You will see at the end of this post :)

Photos are mixed between the ones I took at Fairmount and St. Viateur.

It already looks very old you know. :)

This first montreal bagel bakery opened in 1949.

If you enter, there is a queue and I heard it's always like that.

 There is almost no space inside. The bakery is not spacious already, 
and that not-so-spacious space is filled with piles and piles of bagel bags that are ready to be shipped.

That is why there is only one-line queue instead of two-line queue.

Anyway, Remi and I joined the queue.

Their items are like above.





They use wood-burn fire oven.

All of their bagels are popular.
But, it seems sesame bagel is Fairmount's bestseller.





Look at the dough.
It looks so much. But, it goes really quickly.


We bought a dozen bagels.
We brought smoked salmon and cream cheese to tennis match.





But, you don't have to, because they sell salmon and cream cheese too! at the "bagel shop"!!!





The baker, or rather dough specialist was rolling the dough with left hand 
and form a bagel with his right hand.
He was so fast.





Bagels that are once quickly boiled are placed on long shallow boards 





and pushed in the wood-burn oven.





When they are baked,
bagel boards are pulled out and





dumped on the pile of bagels.





They are warm and full of flavour.





When you order, they bag fresh bagels right then and there for you.

There always are people eating bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon that they just bought. :)

We brought the bagels to Uniprix Stadium and made smoked salmon sandwich 

for our lunch, while we were watching a quarterfinal match 

between Mardy Fish of the United States and Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland.

It was a good match even though it was not between superstars like Roger Federer, 

Rafael Nadal, or Novak Djokovic.

Remi was good and concentrated in the two matches in a row, as usual.
Pablo watched the matches about 5 games :( and played with little Lego figures.


But, we still bring him to all sport games we attend such as baseball, CFL games, tennis matches and hockey games.
Someday in a near future, hopefully, he will enjoy the entire games like his brother does.





The last day of our stay in Montreal,
we went to St. Laurent boulevard to buy
a dozen bagels from St. Viateur bagels.

This shop opened in 1957, a little bit later than Fairmount, but in the same era.

You can see sacks of flour~

Very similar formation of dough and dough specialist :)

Their items are much simpler.

Sesame, Poppy seed and plain.

You can see the inside of the even better here.

Freshly baked bagels just came out of oven.

St. Viateur also sells salmon and cream cheese.

They also sell eggs. I wonder why.

I should have asked.

They also deliver the bagels!

You can check if you can receive St. Viateur bagels from your home here:

http://www.stviateurbagel.com

Well, we liked both bagels.

But for us ,

St. Viateur bagel is the king of the Montreal bagel.

It has slightly better texture and flavour.

(I have to reiterate though. We like both Fairmount and St. Viateur bagels.)

As I couldn't take the smoked salmon sandwich photo at tennis matches,

I made again when we came back home.

I used all three different bagels.

Cut bagels in half, horizontally of course!

and spread cream cheese on them.

Place salmons~

If a slice of salmon is too long, you can twist the middle and make an angle (of 120 degrees)

over the bagel.

Scatter some capers

(This is an option. You don't need to.

I think caper and smoked salmon have synergy effect :))

and top the bagels with the other halves.

This is one simple + easy + yummy sandwich.

It's very filling as well.

I bring smoked bagel sandwiches to work as well.

Bon appetit!


Montreal Style Bagels