One of my favourite parts of being on the road for work is getting the opportunity to try new places to eat! One of the challenges, though, is finding good food. It’s so easy to fall back on an old standby when you’re away from home, tired and not too sure of where to go in a strange city.
The Keg, Boston Pizza, Milestones, Earl’s, The Cactus Club… all are chains that got their start here in Vancouver and have now spread across Canada and even the rest of North America. It may not be a unique experience but at least you have a pretty good idea of what you’ll be getting – a solid, pleasant meal that will leave you, at the very least, full and fueled.
My long time good friend, colleague and sometimes food photography protege, Hank. Even he couldn't resist photographing the bagels in the wood fired oven
There’s always that little fear factor of trying a new place in a new city – what if it’s not good? And there’s nothing worse than being exhausted and starving at 9pm on a weekday and sitting down somewhere new and getting a really lousy meal. Then you just wind up eating a can of Pringles from the mini-bar at 11pm to fill the void (actually, I’ve smartened up – I buy a big can as soon as I get into town in a new city… much cheaper and lasts the whole trip!)
what he was shooting while I was shooting him! *photo courtesy Hank Smith
And this is why food bloggers are wonderful! A few weeks before I left for a 8 days in Ottawa, I put the word out on twitter that I was looking for tasty, relatively budget conscious, casual places to eat. Preferably not a chain. And Ottawa food bloggers responded with a stream of suggestions and out of all the ones I tried, there wasn’t a bad one in the bunch!
Even the window was cute!
One that came up a few times was Continental Bagels. Located in Byward Market, they serve Montreal style bagels either on their own or in a variety of tasty sandwiches. Our hotel was within steps of the market and on our first morning we thought bagels would make a good, quick breakfast.
bagels, bacon, eggs and cheese... what's not to love??
We had fun watching the bagels being put into the wood burning oven and then being pulled out all hot and fresh and ready to eat. I had a plain bagel with cream cheese and Hank had the Continental Sandwich which was an egg, bacon, and cheese sandwich on a bagel of your choice
One of my favourite breakfasts - a bagel with cream cheese. Add a cup of tea and some OJ and I'm all good 🙂
We enjoyed them so much that we also went back the next day for a second quick breakfast. Hank stuck with the Continental and I had a cinnamon bagel with cream cheese again. We also bought a dozen fresh bagels to go for the rest of our crew (which included a native Montrealer who proclaimed them to be very good!) and they were a big hit with a group of hungry boys.
So for a quick tasty breakfast, especially if you’re on the run, I would say this is a can’t miss!
Wow, I’ll have to remember this place! We’re planning a weekend trip to Montreal this summer and I definitely want to check out some of the local restaurants. I love the bagels in the windows, very cute and memorable.
Having the bagels cooking in that on-site wood fired oven must produce the most wonderful aroma for everyone in the restaurant.
A wonderful story describing how it is to be new in a city and not being taken out or advised by the business partner.
So my lesson learnt was that I always asked my business partners on where to go, if they didn’t join. So I got also once a great advise on Isle of Man for a good sea food restaurant.