Bagelberry

NAME: Bagelberry
LOCATION: 3113 30th Ave. Astoria, NY 11102
PRICE: $4.75

Dear New York,

If you are reading this, you are the bagel elite and I have waited far too long to give you another journey into the realm of bagel glory. I apologize for the wait but today I preach the good word, the word of Bagelberry.

Astoria residents tend to fall back on Brooklyn Bagel for their daily bagel consumption. They are doing themselves a great disservice by not venturing a few blocks away to Bagelberry. Today I took that walk and was rewarded with an excellent bagel.

The bagel itself is smaller than Brooklyn Bagel's massive dough mountains. Chewy and soft on top, wonderfully crispy on the bottom without being burnt at all. The everything is covered with lots of salt and garlic and just enough poppy seeds for a wonderful flavor.

The vegetable cream cheese at Bagelberry was a nice surprise. While it contains the regular finely chopped bits of carrot and bell pepper, it also has a nice little surprise: pickle! Ok, I could be wrong, the pieces are super small but it looks like a pickle, and tastes like a pickle, so it's probably a pickle. This adds the the right amount of peculiar tanginess to give this cream cheese a wonderfully unique taste. And unlike other bagel shops, they don't load it on. They put just enough to cover all sides without trying to give you a creamy heart attack before lunch time.

Added bonus: the coffee is totally good. It's not a fancy cup of coffee but it is a very tasty cup of bagel shop coffee. Nutty and flavorful.

You can bet I will be going out of my way to visit Bagelberry more often and you should too!

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Tal Bagels

NAME: Tal Bagels
LOCATION: 333 E 86th St
PRICE: $5.17

Today's journey was to Tal Bagel on the Upper East Side. I've read a lot of positive reviews of this supposed bagel haven and while it is not a failure, it is far from a triumph.

Upon first glance the selection of cream cheeses was inviting. I ordered up my standard everything with veggie cream cheese. The bagel itself is a complicated story. Slightly crispy, nicely chewy, a perfect smattering of everything bits (with an emphasis on the garlic) but EXTREMELY dry. If I had to give out an award for "driest bagel in NYC" it would instantly go to Tal Bagels. Like eating the ashes of a dead relative in the deceiving disguise of a delicious bagel.

The cream cheese was good but not amazing. Certainly not as good as they make it look in the display case. Apparently the proprietors here are masters of illusion. Leaning slightly more toward the sticky end of things and not enough toward the creamy. That said, there were a healthy dose of veggies inside and the taste was not unpleasant.

The coffee was bad. Super dark and watery. I honestly don't want to waste my time describing it further.

Despite my somewhat negative review, the bagel was tasty. If you are in the area and need a quick bagel fix and aren't to discerning then you wont be upset by Tal Bagels. Just. please, don't go out of your way to visit.

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Absolute Bagels

NAME: Absolute Bagels
LOCATION: 2788 Broadway New York, NY 10025
PRICE: $4.50

Today I traveled far outside of my neighborhood cocoon to the exotic neighborhood of Manhattan Valley (if that is really what it is called) to visit Absolute Bagels. I am happy to report that it was well worth the trip from my native Astoria.

Absolute Bagels is one of the most unassuming bagel havens in NYC, or to put it simply, it's a hole-in-the-wall. Walk in and you are greeted by a wall of bagels encased in plexiglass. They all look so good it was hard to make my decision. I stayed resolute and ordered my standard everything bagel, vegetable cream cheese, and a small coffee.

The bagel is small, like a mini bagel and a regular bagel got together and created a new breed of medium sized bagels. Despite it's small stature, the bagel was delicious and chewy with a slight amount of crispiness on the bottom. I actually wish the bagel was a little crispier like Ess-a Bagel but that is a small complaint to be sure. As you can see there were plenty of "everything bits" to give the bagel a healthy dose of flavor.

The cream cheese was excellent. It was creamy, coated the bagel nicely, and had a wonderful, milky flavor. The veggies were chopped small so there wasn't any crunchy carrot bits and even better, there were no discernible onions to taste. Their cream cheese selection was vast and impressive. Everything from plain to bacon cheddar flavor and all of the fruit flavors looked amazing (and even had some sort of fruit glaze coating).

The downside, and I am noticing a trend here, is that the coffee sucked. I didn't even finish it. Watery and flavorless - though clearly caffeinated as even half a cup gave me a jolt.

If you live in the area or want to make a bagel trek definitely check out Absolute Bagels. Just avoid the coffee.

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Ess-a Bagel

NAME: Ess-a Bagel
LOCATION: 831 3rd Ave. New York, NY 10022
PRICE: $5.14

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be introduced to this gem of a bagel shop by a seasoned New Yorker. In terms of pure aesthetics, Ess-a has the nicest interior of any of the bagel peddlers I have visited thus far. There is a large seating area filled with marble table tops where you can sit and enjoy your bagel. The line to get a bagel stretched about 20 people long in front of me but moved fairly quickly and we had no problem finding a seat despite the crowd.

I'm not going to beat around the bush. Ess-a bagel is the best bagel I have had in the NYC area so far. Delightfully crispy on the outside, warm and chewy on the inside. It is so big that it actually dwarfs the plate that it rests upon and filled me up for hours.

Unfortunately there were some drawbacks. The vegetable cream cheese was only "ok." It had a bit of a yellowish color that I have noticed at a few shops in town and was too heavy on the onions. The texture was nice however, and it stuck nicely and evenly to the bagel.

The coffee was incredibly watery and weak. If I returned I would not order it again.

Despite the drawbacks, the bagel itself was excellent and raises the bar for my quest substantially. Truly testament to the city's bagel-mania.

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Brooklyn Bagel

NAME: Brooklyn Bagel

LOCATION: 35-05 Broadway Astoria, NY 11106 (there are other locations around NYC as well)

PRICE: $4.60

As you can see I have already violated my control group by ordering a large coffee instead of a small. Never fear, the price I listed is for that of a bagel, veggie cream cheese, and a SMALL coffee.

Now, down to business. As you can probably even tell from the picture, Brooklyn Bagel is far superior to yesterday's "Bagel-who-shall-not-be-named." The bagel itself is fluffy, pleasantly chewy, large, and adorned with a generous speckling of all those tasty bits that make the "everything" on an everything bagel. The veggie spread is generously applied and coats each part of the bagel evenly. The spread is creamy, soft, and has just the right amount of veggies distributed though out.

The coffee comes out HOT, and by hot I mean lawsuit hot. Don't take that first sip for at least 15 minutes or you can bet your charred taste buds will not be able to taste the classy bagel you just ordered. Once cool, the coffee is dark, strong and pretty darn good (I drank the whole large without any hesitation). Best of all, it wasn't packed in the bag with my bagel, so there was no chance of ending up with an unintentionally coffee flavored bagel.

The staff at Brooklyn Bagel is a little rough around the edges. While they are very polite to the customer, you can constantly witness them being cranky and yelling at each other. Many of the workers have trouble understanding your order and usually have to ask 3 or 4 times to get it right.

Attention must also be brought to the sheer number of spreads and bagels they offer. From Nutella cream cheese to Tuscan Artichoke, to walnut raison, there is an impressive variety. I've tried the Tuscan artichoke on a separate occasion and it was quite excellent.

Also of note, while I didn't try it, they offer a French Toast flavored bagel on weekends that looks fairly amazing (the person behind the counter was trying to sell me on it pretty hard). I could see it being great with one of the fruit or nutella flavored cream cheeses. I may just try it next time I pop in.

While, admittedly, my bagel experience in NYC is limited (I have been to about 5 different bagel shops), Brooklyn Bagel currently holds the title of "Best overall bagel" for having a consistently tasty (though not the best there is) bagel, and offering a variety of delicious spreads.

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Mt. Olympus Bagel

NAME: Mt. Olympus Bagel

LOCATION: 3315 30th Ave. Astoria, NY 11103

PRICE: $3.42

disclaimer: The control group for my Great Bagel Adventure will be an everything bagel, untoasted with vegetable cream cheese and a small coffee, black. I make no apologies if you do not like this combo. This allows me to fairly compare quality of each establishment.

It is with great sadness that this is my first post for Bagel Quest. Apparently the Greek Gods ate shitty bagels because Mt. Olympus bites it hard in all areas. After my journey home, not only had the coffee soaked through the bagel due to poor packaging but the bagel was literally ice cold. The consistency was something akin to a frozen bagel from a supermarket: cold, hard, and flat (though make no mistake, this was not a flagel). The cream cheese was a wet plaster-like consistency that stuck to one side of the bagel and took significant scraping to apply to the other half.

As mentioned before, the coffee was poorly packed and had applied itself to the bottom of the bag (I'm surprised the bottom of the bag didn't bust open) and my bagel. Though the addition of coffee flavor to the bagel could only help in this situation. The coffee itself was non-offensive but nothing special at all. Weak, slightly watery, but not unpleasant tasting.

I will note that this was the cheapest bagel/coffee that I have had since arriving in the city and that the staff was cheery and polite but that does not make up for this car crash that calls itself a bagel. With all the bagel options in NYC, there is no reason to waste your time, money, and taste buds at Mt. Olympus.

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and so it begins.....

I recently moved to New York City from Los Angeles, CA where what is considered to be a bagel is really just regular bread in the shape of a bagel. I spent nearly eight years of my life bagel-less and alone, not realizing how much I was really missing out. Well I have seen the light (err.... dough?) and have made it my mission to explore the city through the eye of it's many bagel shops and hopefully help others in their Quest to find the PERFECT BAGEL.