In Defence of Montreal Bagels

The Montreal food world is in an uproar after a New York food writer and ex-New York Times food critic insulted Montreal-type bagels in a flippant and cavalier slam.

"Former New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton stirred up a ruckus on Twitter Thursday night after criticizing Montreal-style bagels, complaining that “it’s like chewing glass.”
It all started when a former Montrealer and current New York Times writer, Adam Gopnik, claimed that the best bagels are the wood-fired ones Montreal is famous for.
Sheraton chimed in, slammed our famous bagels and the reactions from Montrealers on Twitter are priceless." Link

The reaction on Twitter by Montreal natives was swift and vicious, as one might expect when an insult so deep and hurtful is gratuitously proffered.
I don't know Ms. Sheraton, but her credentials are impressive and so the tweet probably goes along the lines of a good troll, meant to elicit a lively reaction bringing with it the attached notoriety, publicity that every writer needs in order to sell books.

Could you imagine the reaction of New Yorkers if a Montreal travel writer mentioned in a column that the Statue of Liberty was decidedly ugly and obscene?

As for the bagels, I'll not get into the comparisons as food tastes vary and my mom taught me that if you can't say anything good, don't say anything at all.

But on second thought, I shall do just that, that is troll New York City food in order to assuage the rage and frustration of Montreal food lovers in response to the hurtful tweet.

Now I'm no expert like Ms. Shereton, but I do travel to New York City many times a year to visit family and eat out more often there, than in Montreal. I don't eat at the Michelin-starred restaurants that NYC boasts because these few establishments are unrepresentative and grossly over-priced and require a couple of hours at the table, an experience I eschew.

But when it comes to the rest of the food scene, Montreal is equal or better than NYC, where middle-priced restaurants in Montreal are just plain better than their counterparts in New York.

As for that sophisticated New York foodie, it is a sad myth. New Yorkers eat trash that Montrealers would never touch.

Let's start with the lower end, where disgusting food carts do a booming business selling gross looking mystery meats cooked up on an unsanitary looking grill by a guy who doesn't bother to wear a hat and who handles the money and the food bare-handed without a second thought.
The famous New York hot-dogs carts, serve over-boiled dogs directly out of a pool of dirty looking slimy hot water topped with globules of floating fat. Ugh!!
Other staples like frighteningly greyish shawarma accompanied by a warmish bottle of water or coke, are meals only a New Yorker could tolerate.
As for street food, NYC boasts just about the most disgusting offerings in THE WORLD and cannot compare to cities like LA or Miami, where street food is an art.

The famous hot dogs at the Papaya King are terrible and the service and attitude obscene.
Most of the offerings and toppings can best be described as slop. What Montrealer would actually want to eat the hot dog pictured here?

Now the world-famous Nathan's at Coney Island is just about the worst fast food restaurant I've ever eaten at.
I can understand tourists wanting to be a part of the famous Nathan's lore, but how locals can eat here is beyond the pale.
There isn't one item on the menu that is in the least bit palatable with a special mention of the waffle fries being the worst.

As for New York's best fast food burger joint, the Shake Shack, hamburgers are indeed delicious, but everything else sucks, especially the crinkle fries that are so dry that they taste like cardboard and require mounds of ketchup to get down.

There isn't a poutinerie in Montreal that doesn't beat the heck out of New York fast food joints for taste variety and value.

Now the reason I dwell on the New York food cart industry is that it is omnipresent. Every street corner has its version of these eyesores. It seems that half of New York eats at these shitholes, a sad testament to the New Yorker palate.

As for New York bagels which I promised not to critique,,,, well I lied.
The hallmark of a New York bagel is huge lead-like dough ball with a tiny hole in the middle so as to better carry the massive amount of fillings that are required to balance out the dryness. New York bagels are indistinguishable from any other plain bread product, with zero personality and zero oomph. Toasted, they taste like white bread..ugh.

Montreal bagels are really two treats in one. Toasted they are light and delicious, where a dash of topping is all that required to bring out the best. A Montreal bagel, well-toasted or lightly toasted is sublime, whether topped by a dash of jam, cream cheese or classic European churned butter.
But the real culinary treat is when Montreal bagels are bought fresh out of the wood-fired oven (something that doesn't exist in New York.) The delicate bagels are placed in an open paper bag (so as to let the bagels cool slowly) which ultimately leads to the baker's dozen turning into twelve on the trip home. New Yorkers aren't sophisticated enough to fathom a Montreal bagel because, in New York, bagels have to be obscenely massive.
The only similar experience I can compare to a fresh-out-of-the-oven Montreal bagel is that which every Frenchman enjoys in France.
On a Paris holiday, I skipped the hotel and went across the street to a café that served freshly-baked baguette with outstanding European butter and a generous wedge of Camembert. Delicious!
This delicate bread experience is something New Yorkers are never able to comprehend because everything has to be over-sized, over-salted, over-spiced and over-stuffed.

The only redeeming factor in the bagel scene in New York is the famous but fading in popularity bialy, which when freshly baked is something special, but a product that doesn't toast well and so is an ethereal but fleeting experience at best.

As for the vaunted New York pizza scene, all I can say is pizza is pizza and most of us have our personal favourite type, be it regular, thin-crust, deep dish or Napoli style. The street version of New York pizza is that sloppy gooey mess of a slice that needs to be folded over in order to eat. Okay, but nothing to write home about.
You can find as good or better pizza in just about every single North American city.
At the top of the heap are the over-rated famous NYC pizza joints that live on reputation and so can charge an arm and a leg. Di Fara's is perhaps the most renowned, charging a whopping $38 ($50 Canadian) for a four topping extra-large.
Only an idiot New Yorker with more money than sense would pay that much considering that there are dozens of other pizza joints in the city making pizza as good or better for less than half the price.
But reputation is everything in New York, where over-paying is the rule, where money replaces taste as a criterion.

Take for example the famous Peter Luger steakhouse in Brooklyn where tourists flock and uniformed richnicks blow an exorbitant amount of money on steaks that are good, but no better than most fine steak-house across America. To boot the side dishes liked steamed broccoli are exorbitantly priced yet are pedestrian and uninspired. Bah!
If you are looking for a better place to blow big bucks on steak try M. Wells Steakhouse in the Bronx, which actually owns a Michelin star and is described by the famous Michelin guide "with its distinct French-Canadian culinary influence," It is of course run by Montreal expatriate chef Hugue Dufour.

Miami has a lively Cuban food culture, New Orleans has sublime cajun, Boston is seafood and LA and environs have a bold Mexican food environment. All delightful and original.
What is New York famous for?
Deli.
A lost food culture that is in its death throes. Where the once hundreds and hundreds of Jewish style delis populated just about every neighbourhood, New York is now reduced to about a dozen or two dinosaurs where innovation is a dirty word and where the same old, same old has less and less appeal.
The one bright light is the innovative and brass Mile End Deli in Borem Hill, where ex-Montrealers (who else) have brought traditional Montreal Jewish deli to New York with an updated and fresh approach.

King of the hill is the famous Katz's Deli on the lower east sides of "When Harry met Sally" fame. Sadly it is a dreary military-like mess hall atmosphere where sullen New Yorkers wolf down crappy food with nary a look left or right.
Katz's reminds me of BEN'S deli in Montreal, which while full of lore and a deep history suffered and ultimately closed because the food just wasn't that good.
On a late night, after-wedding nosh at Katz's our group was singularly unimpressed with the service and the food. My turkey sandwich was dry as a bone and the matzah-ball in my chicken soup was stone cold.
Unacceptable.

Probably the only deli of interest is Junior's, a massive old-style Jewish deli converted to Jack of all trades, where the food isn't anything special, but the experience delightful. Junior's safeguards the New York reputation of excess, where an egg salad sandwich is eight inches high and probably consists of a dozen eggs and a cup of mayonnaise. While the food isn't great, the people watching is. It is mesmerizing to see people put away so much food, an experience that will have you shaking your head.

I won't bother describing the rest of the food scene but will offer that Los Angeles, Miami and New Orleans all have a style and personality that is unique, fresh and exciting, something sadly lacking in New York.

As for middle-of-the-road restaurants, I've never had a meal in New York where I've commented that you can't get that in Montreal, but the opposite is true.
New York restaurants are generally uninspired, over-priced, over-crowded and staffed by an arrogant uninterested, rude and surly waitstaff.
It is, I suppose a badge of honour that New Yorkers wear with pride. Have at it.

As for Montreal bagels tasting like glass, all I can say is that New York bagels taste like shit.