Everything bagel from What A Bagel

For this holiday season, I decided to go on a mission to try out as many bagel shops as possible. I kicked off my mission in Toronto at What A Bagel at their Spadina Ave location based on recommendations from a couple of friends.

I went with my friend Ed Yao, a fellow ex-Montrealer. Ed picked up a half dozen different bagels. I kind of liked their set-up where you can just pick and choose on your own which bagels you want instead of ordering at the counter. As a side note, at this point, I had forgotten to take out any Canadian cash and I had to ask if I could use a credit card to pay for an 85 cent bagel, which they surprisingly agreed to (but I still felt bad and ridiculous).

I went with my go-to order of an everything bagel, pictured above. The bagel had a fluffy texture and a good mouthfeel. I enjoyed the poppy seeds a lot, but felt like the bagel was severely lacking in any garlic or onion. When I looked at the seasoning, I can only really identify poppy and sesame. The dominant flavour was poppy. The bagel was only seasoned on one side, which I’ve begun to notice is a real phenomenon and I’m totally against it. Bagels need seasoning on both sides (otherwise I would just get a plain bagel)!

I asked Ed what he thought about his bagels and he first stated that he liked Montreal’s Saint-Viateur bagels a lot (who doesn’t?), so he felt the batch from What A Bagel were “meh” and weren’t sweet.

I would rate What A Bagel’s everything bagel a 3 out of 5. It’s a pretty good snack for 85 cents.

Thanks to Ed for joining me on my first leg of my Canadian bagel tour and for reminding me to take pictures!