June 28 2018. Montreal in All its Glory. Day 2

Quelle journée (What a day !). Thursday, June 28 (really Friday June 29 – as it is after midnight here)

Started out a bit later than planned (about 9:45); I was up pretty late trying to soak in the realities of the US Supreme Court situation.

We decided to head to one of the famous Montreal bagel places for breakfast, so hopped into a taxi to take us north to the Jewish neighborhood around St. Viateur Street where there is a well-known bagel place. While I don’t think there was ever a real Jewish ghetto in Montreal, the area along Boulevard St. –Laurent between McGill University and Mile End has a long history as a Jewish neighborhood and despite gentrification (which is very obvious) the area maintains a Jewish flavor, with a clear presence of Hasidim and orthodox Jews — along with hipsters!

We messed up a bit in that the address we had researched was actually for the bagel-making bakery, not the bagel café (which was a trek away)… so we wound up buying bagels (hot out of the oven) and then finding a coffee shop where we ate our bagels in a very hip coffee place. Best of both worlds. Montreal bagels are famous and very different from NY style bagels. New York-style bagels are soft, chewy and doughy. Montreal-style bagels are smaller, denser, sweeter, and sort of “crusty.” Both are boiled before baked, but supposedly the water that is used in each city makes the bagels taste different. (I know a bit about this since my mother’s second husband owned a kosher delicatessen in Brooklyn and he always said that no matter how hard California would try it could never make a really good bagel because of the water (???)

Apparently Montreal bagels are boiled in water that has honey added. But then the Montreal bagels are baked in a wood-burning oven which makes them crispy. OK.. I confess.. I’m a NYer but I really really like Montreal bagels.

Anyway, enough about bagels.. We then began our day-long trek to see the famous murals of Montreal (hundreds of them scattered throughout several different districts in the city). There are maps identifying where some of the famous ones are and then you just stumble on others. Some are really just good graffiti and others are very planned-out statements. They are large and seem to fill up every blank wall in these areas of the city. We headed south on Saint Laurent Street and then just meandered about town, savoring in every turn of the street, with each new mural siting.

We walked about 4.5 miles in our mural hike (and also stopped into a few great little boutiques) and then decided it was time for a late lunch – at Schwartz’s Deli – a 90-year old institution started by a Jewish immigrant from Romania. It’s not a kosher restaurant, but it’s “kosher style” and clearly frequented by every ethnic group in the city. At our shared table there was a young couple that ordered a small plate of the meat and the waiter was surprised until they explained that they really already had lunch but they were taking a walk and passed by and couldn’t control themselves to not stop in and have some of the famous brisket! Schwartz’s signature dish is a smoked meat sandwich served on rye bread with yellow mustard. It’s served as fatty, medium, or lean. Naturally, we accompanied our shared sandwich (couldn’t imagine having the whole thing alone) with half-sour pickles, cole slaw, and peppers on the side – and cream soda. The walls are covered with photos of famous people eating at Schwartz’s.

We also stopped at Kem Coba – a Vietnamese ice cream place. “Kem CoBa” means third auntie’s ice cream in Vietnamese. Flavors include La Latina: mango & dulce de leche – La Florida: orange & coconut – La New-Yorkaise: strawberry & cheesecake. I had one scoop of almond and Carol had honey orange flower. Yummy…

Then we were back on our mural hike… and made a purposeful detour to see the Leonard Cohen mural – 9 stories high.

After nearly 6 miles, we were getting a bit tired.. and it started to rain. So we hopped into a taxi to the hotel. By now it was close to 6 pm.  We agreed to meet at the rooftop bar at our hotel at 7, but as we went back to our rooms, we saw an air show (with synchronated planes) right outside our windows. Maybe it was tied to “Canada Days” which is this weekend.

We had our drinks on the rooftop which turns out to have really good 360-degree views. And then we headed to dinner at Hvor in the Griffintown neighborhood which is north and west of where we are staying. The name is Danish but the food is not. It’s a very contemporary, sleek space. We shared steak tartare which came with mustard greens and smoked egg yolk and horseradish. For the main courses we had trout filet which sat in a very light buttermilk sauce, with smoked eel; and lamb sirloin made with watermelon molasses, smoked apple butter and a feta garnish… Naturally we couldn’t really end the meal without dessert so we had the hazelnut clafoutis.

The restaurant prides itself on the fact that it grows all the vegetables and spices and even the honey for all of the dishes.. on their rooftop.. They asked if we’d like to see it and so we went up.. Unbelievable what they are growing in a small space on raised beds!  Even kiwis! Left quite satisfied.. and decided to take taxi to hotel. It was now about 11:00 pm…But about 5 minutes into the taxi ride we spotted some of the silent movies being projected onto walls throughout one neighborhood so we jumped out of the taxi to view some of the films – all of which had some kind of tie-in to Montreal and Montreal history.. Like finding the murals it was great to just keep stumbling on these films that were projected about 6 stories high..  Eventually we found our way back to the hotel.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Montreal. It’s supposed to be about 90 degrees. If that’s true – we will head to museums (my least favorite places) but they will be air-conditioned and might be interesting. In any case they will be cool. Tomorrow night we have tickets for the Ry Cooder performance at the Montreal Jazz Festival – opening night. We understand there will be all sorts of activities going on around that area so it should be fun.

That’s it for me – past bedtime!

Bonsoir…. Fern