Out and About in Montreal

Sorry for the lackadaisical posting. I have been here a few days and this is the first post. Hey, I'm on vacation! Traveling from Mexico to Montreal is quite easy--it is only five hours flying time from Mexico City. For today let me just do a few scattered remarks.

One of my first stops was Schwartz's Hebrew Delicatessen that I mentioned the other day. It is now owned by Celine Dion, but nothing has changed. The decor still dates back to the 1950s, the waiters are still both friendly and brusque and the food is exactly as it has always been. The first time I was there, some friends took me and I recall sitting down and looking around curiously. "What kind of food do they have here?" There was a menu on a paper placemat and another on the wall, but before I could read them a waiter came up and said, "We got smoked meat. You gotta sandwich, you gotta small plate, you gotta large plate. We got fries and a pickle." Yep, that's pretty much it, but they also have rib steak and a couple of other garnishes. Smoked meat is a Montreal original and, roughly speaking, it is what New York pastrami would be if it went to heaven. And here is what a smoked meat sandwich looks like:

The other great Montreal original is the bagel. There are two basic recipes for the bagel, the New York one and the Montreal one. The Montreal bagel has a bit of honey in it and is always baked in a wood-fired brick oven. Through a real stroke of luck I am staying right next to a St. Viateur Bagel cafe where they bake bagels onsite. Open from 6 am. This morning I picked up a half dozen, still warm as they were just out of the oven. They are always fresh as they bake all day long.

They are smaller and more irregularly shaped than the New York bagels. St. Viateur Bagel, named after the location of the original bakery, now has four locations plus three cafes where you can get fresh bagels but also coffee and sandwiches--as long as they come on a bagel.

I also visited a famous Greek restaurant, but as I am going back with a friend in a couple of days, I will comment then.

It is interesting to visit a place that was very important to me. This is where I did most of my formal, i.e. degree-related, study. After a couple of years at the University of Victoria and a year in private study in Spain, I decided to continue at McGill University where I did a Bachelor's degree in performance followed by a Diplôme de Concert, like a master's degree in performance. Many years later I came back and did all the seminars for a doctorate in musicology. Tomorrow I am having coffee with a musicology professor (and old friend) so I will have more to say then. But after looking at the booklet for the coming year, it looks as if McGill Music is bigger and better than ever!

Montreal has some remarkable things other than music and food. For example, the Anglican Cathedral on St. Catherine's Street quite close to McGill is sitting on top of a massive underground shopping complex. I wasn't there when it happened, but what they seem to have done is dig out three stories underneath the cathedral, which was supported on pillars during the process, and then simply built a shopping center underneath. Then they put the ground back so it looked the same except for two escalator entrances, one on each side:

Here is what you see when you go inside:

Dozens of stores all together and on top is the cathedral. All of this part of Montreal is a big underground mall connected to the McGill Metro station. If you have ever been to Montreal in February you will know exactly why they put so much underground!

I'm off to Schwartz's for lunch, but I will post again tomorrow. On Thursday and Friday the McGill Symphony are doing concerts so I will try to catch at least one and report back.

As an envoi, here is the McGill Symphony conducted by Alexis Hauser in a performance filmed two years ago. The piece is the Symphony No. 9 by Mahler.