Bagels

I enjoy bagels and we have a few places in Knoxville that provide fresh bagels daily but they are chains. They are pretty good if you catch them early in the morning but they get old pretty quick.

They are nothing like I get in NYC.

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

Hi,

Like so many other foods,as people move around the country,they bring their food and recipes with them. New Yorkers(bagel capitol of US)move and some open a bagel company..thus we spread good bagels to another location. 35 years ago when my Italian parents moved to Phoenix..it was hard to find a great Italian pizza...Then a guy who had moved from Bayonne New Jersey opened a pizzeria and the lines formed outside his place! And it spread of course,since imitation is the best form of flattery! So I'm not surprised we are finding great New York style bagels across roadfood america. If you can't find one...wait...a bagel maker from New York may be coming to your neighborhood soon!
leethebard

quote:

Originally posted by wanderingjew

quote:

Originally posted by Luvstoeat

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Originally posted by Msradell

I have found no place with a good bagel outside of New York.

Spoken like a true New Yorker........

He's not a true New Yorker, he's from Rochester, that's like saying someone from effingham Illinois is a true Chicogoan.

Oh, and and there are no Jewish people in Rochester, trust me on that one!

In 1976, at the University of Buffalo, my roommate was from Rochester. He claimed to have never knowingly met a Jewish individual before coming to the univiersity, and did not know what a bagel was. (we cured him of those difficiencies in a jiffy)

Bagels outside of NYC have always been disappointing. In my opinion, Einstein's are the only national chain that are edible. We have a place just outside Houston, Texas in Sugar Land called Bagel Express that makes outstanding bagels. They're not the size of most NY bagels but they taste almost as good.

Water bagels - In order to get the correct texture and taste, you need to boil the bagel before baking it. That's the only way to get a legitimate bagel! That was the problem (labor and equipment and extra store space) for these horrible chains like Einsteins to overcome.

Legitimate bagel places have what's called a trunion kettle on the premises...You'll see it right near the rotating deck ovens that they use to bake the bagels. These kettles operate on gas or electric and use lots of utilities ($$$) and take up valuable retail space. They also require a floor drain and that costs big bucks. Can we say serious plumbing, gas or electrical lines, etc. Then, you need someone who knows how to operate one and how to boil the bagel dough....more skillful workers and more time.

So, what these guys like Einstein's founders did back in the early 80's was go to the oven manufacturers at that time like Blodgett and have them build deck ovens that sprayed a mist of water across the tops of their bagels. All they had to do was install a water line into the the rear of the deck oven; But no drain lines were needed and no floors had to be torn up and no complicated plumbing plans had to be drawn up. Very smart and so very sad....

Then they came up with a genius idea...Let's give the public a huge bagel that looked like a roll with a hole. They steered clear of the real bagel competiton and opened in areas outside of NYC. It worked! Same thing happened with Domino's and Papa John's. They came up with a conveyorized oven so they no longer had to train people to "throw a pie." Today, in areas outside of NYC and other big cities, they don't even know what NYC pizza or a bagels really tastes like.

There are excellent legitimate bagel makers as far away as Seattle at the Pike Street Market. They boil their bagels first before baking them. It is not the water..It's the process. Pittsburgh had a good bagel maker..House of Bagels. Pembroke Pines, Florida had a great one that burned down - Friedman's. In Hallendale, Fl there's the Sage. Lake Worth has one, too. Nope it's not the water..It's laziness on the part of these pretenders, who claim they are selling you a bagel when it's just a roll with a hole.

But, for those of us unable to get a legitimate fresh water bagel, like I said..try Ray's Famous Frozen Bagels...Put's Enstein's to shame.

One of the best bagels I ever had was in Longwood, FL circa 1976. I lived by and worked in the Altamonte Mall. On Saturday mornings I would drive a few miles east to a little bagel shop that was located on 236.

The bagels were displayed in wicker baskets behind the glass sneeze guard on the counter. I would stick my hand past the sneeze guard and feel the heat rising from the freshly boiled and baked bagels. I would choose the warmest, usually the plain or the sesame.

This was before the fruit flavored bagels, even before the "everything" bagels. I usually ate them plain or with a schmeer of cream cheese. I could not afford lox in those days.

To this day I still only eat a bagel where I know it has been boiled and then only in the morning when it is still warm. And I still eat them mostly plain. After all, it is about the bagel, not the cream cheese.

Finally, the bagel-to-go problem has been solved:

is that a Wawa bagel...looks like something they'd think up...If not bet I see one there soon!

My guess is that's a blank CD/DVD case...the one that 25 or 50 blanks come on.

Having lived and visited many different places and eaten bagels in all of them, I have to say that NYC bagels are the best. Maybe it's the water, I dunno, but nowhere else gets quite that taste. When I lived in Bucks County, PA, I used to go to a place called Irv's Bagels in Langhorne. I remember seeing what BaahBen called a trunion kettle in the back with bagels boiling until they floated. He (Irv?) would turn them with a paddle that looked like a pizza peel. And they were very good, but nowhere near the ones I remember eating with my folks on trips to the 2nd Avenue Deli. Even now, I go to a place called Bagel Central in Bangor, Maine and they have great bagels (and pretty amazing Jewish pastries, like I remember my grandmother's tasting), but their bagels are lighter, airier. The don't have that rich, dense chewiness that I remember the NY bagels having. Why is that, I wonder?

PS I'm with the other purists on the fruity, chocolatey bagels. To me, that's just wrong. But I know some really enjoy them (including my kids).

Shara,
Right on about the denser bagel..that's one aspect so many get wrong. I agree on fruity bagels. Never thought a bagel was a dessert Item. Almost any other topping is fine. I'm also fond of Spinach bagels.
leethebard

In NJ there a quite a few really good Bagel places. But I have one to avoid for sure! For Tuesday Bagel Breakfasts at work, someone different always bring s the bagels. One person buys them at Panera bread has no clue on how to make a good bagel. The only exception is what everyone clamours for the "Asaiago(sp) cheese bagel", which I don't think classifies as a bagel anyway. Very disapointing bagels, but I'm not surprised considering how disappointing they are at about all of their selections.

I agree about Panera bagels. I too love the asiago cheese "bagel" they make but those are not what I think of as bagels.

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Originally posted by amini1

My guess is that's a blank CD/DVD case...the one that 25 or 50 blanks come on.

Good Eye!......Looks like that to me also.....

You will all blanch. Over here in Japan, home of the weird flavoured everything, there is spinach, brown rice, seaweed and tea flavours. They are sold as bagels but are soft buns with holes. We did have H and H for awhile but I think they left.

Daniel's Bagels in NYC! Very good.
http://www.menupages.com/restaurantdetails.asp?areaid=0&neighborhoodid=0&cuisineid=8&restaurantid=2740

My husband is fond of a cinnamon-raisin bagel with a thick layer of peanut butter.

quote:

Originally posted by amini1

Bagels outside of NYC have always been disappointing. In my opinion, Einstein's are the only national chain that are edible. We have a place just outside Houston, Texas in Sugar Land called Bagel Express that makes outstanding bagels. They're not the size of most NY bagels but they taste almost as good.

With few choices in Dallas, I agree about Einstein's. Very good, indeed.
However, we have a wonderful Jewish deli in Dallas (Deli-News) that also serves wonderful bagels. I like whole wheat "scooped" and toasted with lite cream cheese.

hey,lots of places have spinach bagels here in the states,too

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Originally posted by twinwillow

However, we have a wonderful Jewish deli in Dallas (Deli-News) that also serves wonderful bagels. I like whole wheat "scooped" and toasted with lite cream cheese.

I just tried Deli-News on my last visit to Dallas. I took a friend there who is pretty active in the Dallas Jewish community and he did not much about it. I was in town for about 10 days and made two stops here. For those interested, the place is in a shopping center at the corner of Campbell and Preston (I think).

Knoxville has no decent bagels. Only the fast food places or chains that serve bagel wannabe's

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

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Originally posted by Sundancer7

Knoxville has no decent bagels. Only the fast food places or chains that serve bagel wannabe's

Well, Paul, H&H Bagels ships worldwide, but boy are they expensive!
CB

Having lived in NYC, and eaten many, many bagels, the only outside of NYC bagel that I have ever really liked, is Blocks right here in Columbus, OH. They do it right.
A question.... in Danbury, CT, there was/is a pretty good bagel place in a strip mall behind Danbury Fair(?) mall. Really good bagels & loaf cream cheese. There was a Barnes & Noble in the strip mall. Ring any bells?