Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

You are lucky as NY does have the greatest bagels. I'm thinking H&H must be the place on the upper west side kind of near Zabar's? We went in there and were kind of disappointed with the PLACE, but ordered bagels to go and they were tasty.
Also: Sesame bagels MUST be toasted to bring out the seedy flavor.
We are lucky enough to have two from-scratch bagel places in our town that are not too terrible, but nothing like NYC. My favorite combo is: Toasted Everything Bagel (savory) with chive cream cheese and a slice of cheddar that starts to get soft because of the warmth of the toasty bagel. Yum.

I agree with not bashing Starbucks - because really, they are the ones who set the standard for a comfortable coffee shop environment with quality coffee, soothing music and lighting etc. The little guys are great, but they were weren't the original. Before Starbucks there were diners, but they didn't have the same culture we're talking about.
Also, even though I have a nice quiet house to work in on my desktop and in my studio, lately I have taken to going to the local coffee shop to work for a couple of hours in the afternoon. It's a fine balance between distraction and focus when it comes to working - but what I like best is the opportunity to observe people and listen to their interactions (a must for a writer!). I usually do this twice a week or so and feel comfortable being alone - earphones or not.

Also - on XM radio there is a station which you can only pick up on your computer (not your car) called "Hear Music" which is "the music of Starbucks". I LOVE to work at home with this playing - it does something to me psychologically...

Favorites: Barefoot Contessa and Giada (although I get tired of her describing every vegetable as "so sweet".)
UNfavorites - that weird Sandra Lee (oh my gosh, I can't believe she got a show when she doesn't actually cook and talks about her matchy-matchy kitchen and "tablescapes". But she's fun to hate.) and Emerill even though he'd a great cook, he's getting old and we're tired of his tricks.

Interesting. I've been blogging about restaurant meals for about two years...and I've never received an email or letter from restaurant management about any article. And yes, I am a nobody. However, this past summer about two weeks after I wrote a positive post about a product that I'd purchased, I received an email from a VP in their corporate headquarters thanking me for the positive publicity and asking for my shipping address so that they might send me a thank you gift. It arrived about a week later...more products totaling about $50. I never mentioned THAT in my blog.... This also happened when I wrote a positive review of a shop that I had visited and liked. I received an email, and then later a gift card for that shop. Again, I didn't write more about it. So when is it a "thank you gift" and when is it a "bribe"?

Also - I use food bloggers' restaurant reviews almost exclusively before I travel to decide where to make reservations. I especially like it when there are photos. I much prefer a "real person's" (like me) honest review over a professional food critic. Before my last trip to New York, I read through Amateur Gourmet and Gotham Gal's blogs to select my restaurant choices (rather than reading the NY Times reviews).

I'm thinking that you are probably not their target customer, Mr. Ed Levine, Food Critic of the New York Times. However, my teenage son apparently is their target customer because last summer in Seattle he sampled one and thought they were "really good!" So much so that a couple of days later (we were traveling in the Seattle area) he wanted to find another Starbucks for breakfast. Since he's not a coffee drinker, I thought this was kind of strange, but I agreed to go since I AM a coffee drinker. When he ordered the breakfast sandwich and the gal took one out of a back frig and stuck in in a microwave (why can't they at least panini it?), I thought it was a bit of "bait and switch", but my son still liked the taste. To him, it was an upgrade from Micky D's breakfast sandwich. To me, it does look something like airline food, but I didn't taste it. I do think Starbucks is mainly concerned with appealing to their younger customers than us old guys with more refined tastes. And we don't all live in NYC with a great deli around every corner. Where we live there is a Starbuck's around every corner instead.