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| - How good could a bagel be, really? My friend and I asked ourselves this as we wandered out to St. Viateur at 10pm on a weeknight. We had had a late lunch and weren't up for spending a ton of dough (haha) on a big dinner so decided to seek out the famed bagel spots of Montreal. We are from Chicago, not a town know for bagels, but have both had bagels in NYC and many many "NYC-style" bagels (which I love) but man, they have NOTHING on the bagels we found at St. Viateur.
First of all, if you are staying in the old town or downtown, this is a metro ride and a several block walk away. Not at all hard to do, this is just not in the middle of the touristy parts of town. Second of all, there is nowhere to sit in the shop and enjoy a bagel. We found a bench down the block to shove bagels down our gullets though. Thirdly, the selection you have to choose from is whatever they happened to have just made- we had sesame and it was phenomenal- fresh from the oven.
Why are these bagels the best in the world? They have the perfect chew on the inside with just enough crunch on the outside. It reminds me of a perfect macaron- hard to perfect but heavenly when done right. All you need to dress one of these up is a "schmear" of cream cheese (sold in those little mini/individual tubs). I found a kiosk at the airport selling this brand of bagels so I took some home- not as good as the fresh from the oven ones but, when toasted, still miles apart from any bagel I could buy in Chicago. YUM!
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