Consolidated "Bagels" thread
 

As a native New Yorker now living in the South, I find it very difficult to get good bagels anywhere outside the NYC area. By "good" I primarily mean chewy, with (optional) strong-flavored, plentiful toppings such as garlic, onion, or salt. Every bagel I've had here in Richmond has the consistency of white bread or a kaiser roll with a hole in it.

I've been to 48 states in my lifetime but have only found two bagel bakers in the entire country, not including NY/NJ/CT, that make true New York-style bagels.

The two places on my list with good NY-style bagels outside NY are:

Bodo's Bagels, Charlottesville, Virginia - all boiled the old-fashioned way, fresh in store, with a good variety of toppings/flavors

Marty's New York Bagel Deli, Anchorage, Alaska - yes, Alaska of all places. Found this gem in an Alaska visitor's guide and checked it out just this past week while in Anchorage. Bagels are a bit on the small side, but have the correct consistency and are also boiled in store. Brought a baker's dozen home to Virginia to eat.

There are bound to be others, and that's where your input comes in! Let us know where you get your bagel fix outside NYC.

I read this thread with knowing empathy. I live in Washington DC and it is a sin what they claim is a bagel here, your bread with a hole in it description is spot on!

My boyfriend and I keep saying that someone would make a fortune with a local chain in DC to fill the cravings of transplants for real bagels.

Two local places:

Hot Jumbo Bagel*
307 E. 5th Street
Austin, TX

*not sure if they are still in business, but this is (was) definitely the real deal.

New York Deli**
712 Round Rock Avenue
Round Rock, TX

**haven't tried this one personally, but everyone I know raves about it.

Sincerely,


William R. Sanders
Customer Service Coordinator
Starwood Preferred Services

[email protected]

Sigh. Unfortunately this one is now closed.

Man, that's too bad. That was a great place to get real New York Style bagels. :(

Guess I'll have to venture up to Round Rock when I get a hankering for them now.

Sincerely,


William R. Sanders
Customer Service Coordinator
Starwood Preferred Services

[email protected]

How about Noah's New York Style Bagels in Seattle? I think they deffinately have the best outside of NYC. They have three locations that I can think of off the top of my head.

One on Broadway in Capitol Hill.
One on Queen Ann Ave. in Queen Ann
and One in University Village in the QFC.

Brooklyn Bagel Bakery
2217 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90057

Close to downtown. Great place to stop on the way from The Music Center.
IMHO, the best bagels in L.A.
If you can't get downtown, they are also sold at Nate'N Al's Deli in Beverly Hills.

I prefer Fairfax Avenue in LA, with lots of choices, such as Canter's Deli. Pretty competitive with NY, and even open 24 hours.

Montreal beats NYC hands down: http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthrea...ghlight=bagels

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Just have H & H FedEx some to you. They keep nicely in the freezer and are better, even after time in the air, than most "local substitutes."

I cannot compare them to real NY bagels, but I think the best in the Chicago area are from:

New York Bagel and Bialy
4714 W. Touhy
Lincolnwood, IL

I think they have another location on Dempster in Skokie, but I don't see an address. I have found that their traditional bagels are the best -- slightly hard outside, but dense & chewy inside. But I would avoid the trendy yuppie ones that they also sell. They definitely use the real cooking method as you can see the vats for boiling and the ovens for baking. No steam injection ovens that create the nasty "round bread with a hole in the middle" type of bagel.

That was my experience when I lived below the Mason-Dixon in Maryland. What they called "bagel" were rolls with a hole in the middle. :rolleyes: Good luck in finding a TRUE bagel. :)

Chicago -- Lakeview
 

Speaking as one who always has a dozen bagels as my carry-on on any NYC return flight, The Bagel on Broadway used to be my Chicago bagel of choice.

Miki, you poor, deprived soul to think Noah's is a good bagel. I weep for you.

As to the original poster, I agree with a previous suggestion to have H&H FedEx them to you. I think H&H is a bit overrated (there are better bagels in NYC) but you won;t find anything close to H&H outside the Tri-State.

How very telling that day-old bagels delivered via FedEx are better than anything fresh made outside of New York....not surprising at all.

^ Bodo's Bagels are goooood. Some friends who were attending UVA for college took me there and they were to die for. So good.

In the Atlanta area, the Palace Bakery located in the Toco Hills shopping center (just northeast of the city limits of Atlanta) has the best bagels I've found in the area.

To be perfectly fair, though, the attached restaurant has a local following but is pretty awful for anything other than their bagels. Your best bet is to get a sackfull of bagels from the bakery counter to go.

Believe it or not, until a few years ago bagels were unknown in Israel!

Today, there are several places where you can get acceptable bagels but the best are at Tal Bagels in Tel Aviv. They also have great shmears to put on them, including excellent chopped liver.

Just before I moved away from Marin County, California, a New York guy opened a small deli in San Rafael. Not only did he fly in his pastrami from a smokehouse in Brooklyn, he had "real" New York City water shipped in to use in makling his bagels. He claimed that it was the unique mineral content of the water that made the difference. I remember that the bagels were expensive, but good....

Even farther away from NYC...
 

Don't laugh but... really far away from NYC you can get some almost decent bagels in Germany at Bagel Brothers (Hannover, Hamburg, Leipzig and probably some others). Not NY bagels, but bagels...and I've waited 20 years for them here! They even have ETs, although the waitress don't even know what ET means (for the non-NYers, EveryThing). Can't tell you how many times I stank up my luggage and 1/2 the plane with the garlic bagels we carried from NY to Europe.

Is Hoboken far enough outside NYC...

A place called "The Bagel Smashery" has good pressed bagels (I love the garlic:)

http://www.bagelsmashery.com/history.html

There's also UPtown Bagels in Hoboken, which has two or three locations. Bagels are good, but service can be surly.

Who's H&H? Do you have contact info or a website?

Living in Hawaii has lots of advantages, but access to NYC deli food isn't one of them.

Other decent bagel places in Atlanta include Goldberg's Bagels (2 locations - Roswell Road / Wieuca Road & West Paces Ferry / Highway 41) and Bagelicious (the "other" Roswell Road in E. Cobb).

RLG - too bad you don't live in HNL...I could bring some ATL bagels to you later this week... :(

Looks interesting.

You wouldn't happend to have a good source for bialys would you?

The midtown H&H has 'em

http://www.hhmidtownbagelseast.com/

and Kossar's on Grand

http://www.kossarsbialys.com/

Yuck! I've got to say, you and wahooflyer have lost your taste buds! I'm a native NY'er and live in C'Ville and Bodo's is just terrible. I mean, they're okay when their right out of the oven, but in 20 minutes, they've already begin to turn too hard. Plus, their much too small to compare to NY bagels. My parents brought down a big bag of 'em from Queens last weekend, so I was able to compare.

Honestly ... Bodo's is for Virginians, not ex-pats from NY. :)

Kossar's bialys are very good (not that one has a lot of bialy options, even in NY), and I think their bagels are better than H&H (smaller, less sweet, less fluffy).

So, you've got decent bagels in Germany but I can't get a NY style bagel in Washington DC in the same time zone??

They (Noah's) are also sold in Costco (at least in California).

I don't care if they don't meet some NYC'ers standard, they taste fine.

that of course is the most important thing, I do add more credibility to NYC'ers advice/beliefs on a FEW food items, bagels being one of them. Unless of course if they have not been to Montreal and maintain NYC has the best bagels. :p

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Canadians make the best bagels ... if you're looking for something to use as a hockey puck. :)

Bagels by Bell/B&S Bialy unquestionably has the best bagels and bialies on the planet*, and are a local institution in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn.

They used to have two storefronts on Flatlands Avenue, which is one of the main retail shopping districts in Canarsie, but now they are located in a factory building in an industrial area of Canarsie.

They are also one of the main suppliers of bagels and bialies in the New York City area.

The bagels and bialies are so hot and fresh that they will steam up the windows of an automobile on a hot summer day!

However, don’t take my word for it. Judge for yourself...

*I still have not yet tried the bagels in Montréal...

Also several locations in Portland and definitely in SFO near the 70s gates. They good but not quite up to snuff, IMO. Still, they'll do in a pinch.

Brooklyn Bagels on Wilson Blvd in Courthouse/Arlington does a pretty good job, IMHO.

Good call. I used to live a few blocks from there.... and I have to admit, they're bagels were decent. Though, I once got into an argument with the owner when I wasn't given a "baker's dozen" (in NYC, you get an extra bagel when you order 12). :)

Don't be so harsh about Bodo's. :D

Sure, they're not as good as most bagels from NYC, and they do go stale very quickly, but they're far better than most of the bread that passes for "bagels" elsewhere in Virginia. :p

What ever happened to bagels .... and where have onion platzels gone?
 

I was brought up in the East-end of London and from recollection there was a few bagel places that made bagels 24 hours a day within a mile of each other. Over time .... they dwindled and there's now just the place left in Brick Lane.

What has happened to real bagels and ...... onion platzels?

I think of those days a lot. I could demand the slightly charred bagels .... straight out of the oven ... at 3am in the morning after a night out.

But now .... there's a complete generation or two that thinks the stuff that's produced now are real bagels. And how can anything from a plastic bag bought in a supermarket be called a "bagel"? But they're not. And if they have never tasted them ... then what hope someone is going to open a real bagel bakery?

They're not quite the same as a bagel bakery (missing malt, for starters), but I've managed to make some tasty ones from this recipe.

Nice to see someone else making them ...... it's a good recipe - thanks.

They never seem to be the same at home. I think the missing ingredient is that these old ovens use to be wood fired and that was what made the flavour and the charring so moreish. I also wonder whether they used a sourdough starter rather than fresh yeast each day. Also as the boiling adds a touch more rise then kills ... I wonder whether they should have a longer second raise before they go into the water than they say in the recipes.