Could only get plain bagels 20 years ago in N. Westchester-Connecticut border. Things have changed. Good bagels now. Stew Leonards has a wonderful, inexpensive bagel (12 for $5) Good bialys, too. NYC bagels are not always what they're cracked up to be and I'm not happy to be spending 90 cents each for them. Costco bakery products are generally pretty good but their bagels.....just horrible! Sped54
Could only get plain bagels 20 years ago in N. Westchester-Connecticut border. Things have changed. Good bagels now. Stew Leonards has a wonderful, inexpensive bagel (12 for $5) Good bialys, too. NYC bagels are not always what they're cracked up to be and I'm not happy to be spending 90 cents each for them. Costco bakery products are generally pretty good but their bagels.....just horrible!
I've found that the "boiled then baked" requirement is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a great bagel. I've seen waaaaaaay too many places that claim they boil and bake their bagels that still can't put a good crunch on them.
Also, texture is only half the battle and I think it gets over emphasized because it's easier to discern for most people than flavor. Even in NYC the bagels can be rather flat, even among the oft-recommended luminaries like Ess A Bagel, H&H, and Kossar's.
We hooked up with a amateur Jewish bread baker here in Portland who had been making bagels, rye, challah, and pumperknickel and selling them at the Portland Farmer's Market. He uses a starter and a lot of malt in his recipe which gives it this great aroma and a nice tangy-sweet balance. They're smaller, denser, and crunchier than most of what you get in NY. And honestly, I think their texture is best after a rest of a few hours. They don't lose their crunch even after a day's rest in a paper bag. Oh, and they're all hand-rolled, boiled in malted water, and baked.
We've now got our down-stairs baking and prep kitchen done, so now it's just a matter of seeing if we can translate his old school, artisan technique into a 100 dozen a day.
Ed, email me in a couple weeks and I'll FedEx you a dozen.
When my wife and I lived in Detroit, we found a couple of great places -- on of them was imaginatively named "Detroit Bagel," and it served the real thing, the real way. Lines out the door, steam on the window -- the bagels were so hot, one could barely touch the bottom of the bag.
I always ordered one salt, one plain. No need to slice, toast or schmear. The bagels were perfect by themselves.
Unfortunately, we now live in Columbus, Ohio, which has some great restaurants but is seriously lacking in the bagel department.
Sigh.
It's true what annien says about it being a shondeh re: discussing this topic when the objects of desire are out of reach due to the holidays! I'm pretty sure my LI bagel haunt (Bagel Boss in Plainview) is closed till after Yom Kippur. While I agree with Ed, I have my own bagel ritual. I like a sesame or sourdough bagel (haven't found any good organic bagels...yet...and have no kitchen at the moment to bake my own though I have done non-organic in the past), cut in half, toasted, buttered (organic), schmear of cream cheese (organic) on each half, shredded nova on each side, chopped scallions or onions (organic & local when possible) on each side, and I'm a very happy camper. But I will say...buying warm good bagels late at night & not being able to wait...I'll rip pieces off one of them & scoop into a container of scallion or veg cream cheese purchased at the bagel store. It's all good! My boyfriend thinks I'm nuts but then again, he's a big honkin' wad of cream cheese kinda guy who'd be happy with sushi sized pieces of lox if he'd have the chutzpah (and cash) to ask for it at the counter :) .
sesame bagel, un-cut, un-toasted with chive cream cheese on the side. i like to break the bagel into chunks and dip into the cream cheese. strange, i know but that's how i love them :)
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Absolutely correct! Broken pieces of bagel are so much better than the mundane sliced bagels. We get that marvelous bagel crust on both sides of each chew.
I never knew untoasted bagels were so amazing until I moved to New York. As a girl from Ohio, I grew up with frozen Lender's (sorry). The light and crispy exterior and the chewy, almost stretchy, interior of a true bagel...it was an epiphany. The thought of making one into a sandwich is sacrilege -- and I'm a sandwich girl! A decent cream cheese "schmear" eaten open-faced is all you need.
I only have bagels on the weekends. I buy pumpernickel bagels from my local bagel shop (formerly Kimmel's, now Andy's), slice in half, don't toast, spread with a goodly amount of whipped chive cream cheese, and top with wild Alaskan smoked salmon. Two hard-boiled eggs and two mugs of Trader Joe's Italian roast, and I'm good to go.
I have to say, I too am curious about the English bagel which sounds delicious. It's funny that this intense bagel topic came up - I was supposed to be in NYC this weekend and we were planning on Murray's Bagels as soon as we got there. I'll just keep dreaming of them...
Ed, Ed, you fire up a city's worth of bagel lust on Rosh Hashonah, when Russ and Daughters is closed? A shondeh! But, even if you have to wait until Staurday (which you will, unless R&D is closed until after Yom Kippur) the good news is that they will make you a "classic" with hand-sliced fish of choice and I think the most expensive version is $14, for a sandwich you can eat half of at breakfast, half at lunch.
I agree with you completely and have been eating my bagels according to your rules my entire life. I will not eat just any bagel either. I would rather wait for the right one then waste calories on things that are bagels in name only.
On the left coast, we lived in sometimes isolated Humboldt County California .....we DID however have Los Bagels. Honestly, I could walk in and be transported. L.B. was started by a guy who missed real bagels, so you know they were good. I never heard anyone order a toasted bagel, didn't think it was done.
So..... an onion bagel, schmear (and you had to tell them or they went at it with a BIG blob), then it was topped with a pile of sweet sweet shredded carrots, minced black olives and just a few rounds of green onion. That was on each half and you HAD to eat it open faced. Big Sigh.
I haven't been in Humboldt for about 7 years now, I would hope they are still there and making good bagels........
Zapp
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