It was delicious! I bought it at a place that makes Montreal style bagels which I often refer to as real bagels because any other kind of bagel isn’t really a bagel 
Bagels are probably one of the few foods I am particular about so if a bagel isn’t Montreal style then I’m not interested.
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What is the difference between the Montreal bagel and one perhaps from New York, other than city of origin?
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Montreal bagels are way worse.
(ducks, flees, but is correct)
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I’ve never had a New York bagel so I’m not sure. Has anyone here had both and can elaborate?
All I know is that in Ottawa we can get Montreal style bagels or the grocery store varietal. I have two bagel dealers here and one of them is within walking distance from home so that is the place I tend to go to more often. (Although they didn’t have any chopped liver when I was there over the Christmas holidays - arg!) The brand name ones we get at the grocery store are more breadlike in consistency however the Montreal style ones are more dense. I grew up in Montreal and back then we could get Montreal style bagels on practically every street corner in town. When I first moved to Ottawa, Montreal style bagels were not available here. A well-meaning yet misguided colleague at my first job told me that if I’m from Montreal and I like bagels then maybe I would like Druxy’s - a popular bagel chain at the time. (Druxy’s was like the Subway equivalent of bagels.) I ate there once and the bagel was horrible - nothing like what I got at home! Thankfully it’s only a two hour drive from Montreal to Ottawa so when I would go home to visit my parents I would pick up some real bagels to take back to Ottawa with me. The colleague that told me about Druxy’s had lived in Ottawa all her life - I’m not sure if she had ever been to Montreal - and I don’t think she had ever had a Montreal style bagel. To be fair, I think she was just trying to be helpful.
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The NYC bagel is bigger, less sweet, and less chewy. People from NYC who don’t like Mtl bagels usually find Mtl bagels too sweet and weirdly sweet.
What’s common in your own neck of the woods can make some styles of bagel become your personal ideal Bagel.
I like both types. I don’t discriminate.
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Yes! That’s how I came to my opinion, above. Montreal bagels are very sweet, and thus unsuitable for savory toppings like lox. They also have a weird textures, somewhere between spongy and chewy. I tried two when I was in Montreal, and a third at a place in Manhattan that makes them. None of them impressed me.
I grew up eating NY (and NJ) bagels, so those are “correct.” Obviously there are good and bad NY bagels, but on balance, they are the superior version.
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I see NYC and Mtl bagels as different schools of Bagel.
I crave Montreal bagels more, but I also can find them more easily in Toronto (Montreal style made in Toronto as well as Sr Viateur at the store). Toronto also has its own lesser known style, which are sold at places like Kiva’s and Bagelworld.
I like Nova and cream cheese on good Mtl bagels as much as I like them on good NYC bagels.
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Not a fan of Montreal bagels, too dense and sweet for me, in Toronto I’m a big fan of Gryfes bagels or a similar style(fluffier/doughier/softer)
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I honestly don’t think I’ve ever had a Montreal bagel, but growing up in northern NJ, Imagonna be a NY-style bagel girl always!
I only wish that bagels weren’t so damn big nowadays, even ones you get in local bakeries. But that’s a horse of a different color.
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The size of bagels these days is ludicrous. I only eat the top anyway (cuz that’s where the good stuff is 
), and slice off maybe a 1/4 or 1/3 of the whole thing. More ‘crust’ / topping to chewy dough ratio for this German.
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I like them both, but I will say the best bagel I have ever had (NY, MTL, or even the poofy LA ones) was at the Fairmont in Montreal.
Even if you’re a die hard NY bagel devotee, you owe yourself at least one visit to the Fairmont.
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When I visited Mtl with 5 Chowhounds in 2013, we visited both Fairmount and St Viateur the same morning. We must have bought 8 dozen from each place. They were still warm.
We ate some that morning, others the next day toasted. Brought some back for people in Toronto.
I liked both bakeries’ bagels. I think some of the group thought one brand was better fresh and the other was better as a day old. I can’t remember which they liked better fresh.
I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart if they weren’t marked.
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That’s interesting. The great Fairmont vs. St. Viateur debate has been ongoing since the beginning of time and I always wondered if there was an actual difference in taste. I only went to one of them when I first started working but I can’t remember which one. I am embarased to admit I can count on the fingers on one hand the numbers of time I have been to the main. I used to buy my bagels from a bagel shop in the Faubourg Ste. Catherine but it’s closed now. I frequent two bagel shops in Ottawa and although I’ve never done a side-by-side taste test I’m pretty sure I would never been able to tell the difference in taste.
Been there. Done that. Not doing it again. Montreal bagels are weirdly sweet. No thank you.
Don’t get me started on donair sauce, either. (Not a Montreal thing, but a Nova Scotia thing.) Also disgustingly sweet. Whoever came up with the idea of putting a sugary sauce on shwarma meat…I can’t even.
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Google recipe results are split between using evaporated milk - sounds different but ok - and sweetened condensed milk, which would be a hell no for me.
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My first Montreal bagels were also from the bakery inside the Fauberg on Ste Catherine. I visited regularly on visits to Montreal until it closed.
I visit the Main (St Laurent Ave, for people who aren’t familiar. Historically, it was the main street that divided English -speaking Montreal and French -speaking Montreal) , every time I visit Montreal. I don’t always make it up to Mile End, but I always make it as far as the Plateau. 
I usually visit St Viateur rather than Fairmount, if I want to buy bagels when I’m Montreal.
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I love Halifax Donairs.
The Maritimes use a lot of evaporated milk, as do the Prairies.
I think most halifax donair sauce recipes call for evaporated canned milk, not condensed. Condensed is too syrupy and it’s expensive compared to Evaporated Milk.
Halifax Donairs are cheap fast food, made with the processed type of gyro meat, not freshly stacked donair meat.
Halifax Donairs are in the same food group as poutine. Something unhealthy, loaded with fat and salt, that some people crave, a food that is often enjoyed after the bar or after a few drinks.
While Turkish donair or Middle Eastern shawarma can be a greasy salt bomb after the bar, both seem more like a cheap, affordable dinner on the go to me, or maybe even a sensible dinner from a restaurant that uses less salt and better quality meat, whereas the Halifax Donair is a form of junk food to me.
Some Haligonians discussing the sauce ingredients.
https://www.reddit.com/r/halifax/comments/pf6qhx/donair_sauce_recipe_suggestions_please
Some people do use Eagle Brand condensed milk, to create a thicker sauce.
Both recipes here:
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I have only been to St Viateur in Montreal. They are cooked over a fire. Some of them get charred, and they are all at least a little bit smoky. The shape of Montreal bagels are like a rope lasso with a thin bread surrounding a big hole. The dough is sweetened.
I like the ones that get charred. Don’t need toppings, just eat them warm as is, right from the fire. They are thin enough that you don’t need to cut them in half, and in fact I find it awkward to do so.
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To me, it’s like the Canuk equivalent of a maple bacon donut.
That said, I love them both. Sometimes back-to-back.
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The donut would put me into a coma.
I’m not crazy about maple bacon donuts. I’m more of an Apple Fritter, Honey Dip, French Cruller, Maple Dip, Chocolate Dip, Sour Cream, or Cherry Stick kind of girl.
