Of Brubeck and Bagels.....

Montreal Days 4 and 5:

Saturday Day 4:

Saturday was spent going for brunch at Boccacino's. They have a lovely huge patio/terrasse on McGill College. It is just at the bottom of "the mountain" and down the road from the entrance to McGill University gates. We had no plans other than to walk around today and then head out later that evening to the much anticipated concert that was closing the Jazz Festival this year...Mr. Dave Brubeck.
The show took place at Place des Arts. After dinner we hailed a cab and sat helpless in a horrible Montreal traffic jam because the cab driver turned up a street that would only lead us to a major traffic jam and thousands of peds walking around to the free stages. He got as about a block from Place des Arts and then said "perhaps you should just walk from here as I can't move in this traffic" If he had not knocked $2 off his fare I was going to lose it. You would think the cab drivers would know which roads were closed and which ones would be congested due to Jazz Festival. The concert started at 8pm and JB and I quickly started running the gauntlet zipping in and out of hundreds of people milling about looking for a good spot for the free stages outside of Place des Arts. Once inside the building we had to find the concert hall. Place des Arts is a pretty big place. Again we had to zip in and out of slow walking lollygaggers! I had both our tickets in my hand and with JB close behind me I shoved them into the ushers hands and she quickly yelled after me, in French, to go upstairs to the right. When we reached the top of the stairs the bell started chiming alerting everyone to get in to their seats. Another escalator ride up to the mezzanine and into our seats at 8pm on the nose. We then sat and sat and sat and the crowd started clapping that slow deliberate clap that means "get this freakin' show started"

The show opened with the winners for "best new jazz artists" for the Festival. They were a group of lads from Toronto, can't remember their name as I was still feeling a bit dazed from our "gauntlet run" getting to the concert hall in time. They played two of their compositions and then we waited a bit before the President of the festival came out to introduce Mr. Brubeck and his band. When Brubeck came out on stage the entire audience erupted in cheers and stood up. Brubek is now 86 years old and still touring. He shuffled over to his piano with a typical old man 86 year old shuffle walk that all old men have but when he began to play it was Brubeck in his prime. The concert was great and his band were wonderful. When he started the familiar opening for his classic jazz hit "Take Five" there was a roar from the crowd that was as loud as any rock concert I have been to. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to see a jazz pianist of this caliber live. When the concert finished the crowd would not stop applauding. Brubeck came back out with his band and he and his sax player, who was quite the comedian throughout the show, started playing Brahms lullaby which made everyone laugh and prompted the audience to start singing "lullaby and good night......" when that ended they started up a great version of Ellingtons "A Train"... it was a great show to finish off the festival.


Sunday Day 5: a bagel is a bagel is a bagel....or is it?

I had two goals today. Get bagels and attempt to get some smoked meat from Schwartz. Schwartz now have their smoked meat available vacuum packed so you can travel home with the wonderful smoked meat of Montreal. We stopped in the Mont Royal-St Urbain area to have brunch at Eggspectation and then headed a couple of blocks down to St. Viateur Street. Now, there is great debate among bagel lovers. Fairmont Bagels vs St. Viateur Bagels. There is even greater debate among bagel lovers over New York vs Montreal vs Toronto bagels. I say Montreal wins hands down! I for one always go to St. Viateur when I am in Montreal. I find that I prefer their bagels to Fairmonts. I usually drive to Montreal for the purpose of having the car to provide us with the extra space for 3 or 4 dozen bagels from St. Viateur. It's pretty hard to get 4 dozen bagels on Air Canada these days. St. Viateur is open 24 hours a day and all they make are bagels. I am sure they know who the Torontonians are as they smile at you when you step up to the counter and say "3 dozen sesame seed bagels and 1 dozen poppy seed please" there are smiles from the other customers in the line up because they know you are taking those bagels home to Toronto and I am sure they are thinking "that's another winning vote for Montreal" . Photo is of me last summer outside of St. Viateur with my 3 dozen sesame seed bagels.

Bagel quest completed we now headed down St. Urbain street and across below Duluth street to get over to St. Laurent to Schwartz for the smoked meat. Yet another great debate in Montreal over Schwartz's or Ben's...personally I prefer Schwartz's. The smoked meat has more flavour and is jucier. There is big rivalry over who "invented" the Montreal smoked meat first. Ben's takes claim but Schwartz says no way.

Schwartz's was opened in 1928 and remains in the same location since it opened. Trust me, I don't think they have redecorated since 1928 either! It is another time capsule like Ben's.
Photo is a typical line up for
Schwartz's which I was not expecting to see at 11:45am on a Sunday. My heart sank when we approached Schwartz's and I saw in the distance a major line up outside. JB and I decided we could pass on the smoked meat this time around as we will probably be back in Montreal at least once or twice by next summer anyway. We wanted to avoid the traffic and crowds that would be starting up for the World Cup final.



Sans our viande fumee, we headed back up to Sherbrooke Street and took Sherbrooke west until we hit a sign that said "highway 20". Highway #20 is part of the Trans Canada Highway which links 10 Provinces across Canada. When you hit Ontario it becomes Highway 401. Within an hour we were at the Quebec-Ontario border and heading home. I reached into the back of the car and into the big bag of warm baked bagels on the floor of the backseat and grabbed a warm sesame seed bagel and started munching away and sighing. The car smelled wonderful all the way home......