Rishab Aiyer Ghosh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Tue, 2008-09-30 at 18:21 +0530, Srini Ramakrishnan wrote: >> FWIW, by way of an interesting plot twist, an alien love that I've >> picked up which is now very dear to me is bagels and cream cheese. >> Toasted with plain low-fat if the bagel is cinnamon raisin, scallion >> cream cheese otherwise. > > perhaps perry will disagree but i think the world's best > bagels-and-cream-cheese is at 'bagels on the square' on father demos > square in manhattan, metro w4th. the cream cheeses are in tubs like an > ice cream store in as many flavours, and you can't sit down - but you > can take out and sit on a bench in washington sq park, watching the > random musicians and walking dogs.
I used to prefer a small place called "Columbia Bagels" but they closed when the building their store was in was torn down. Last I checked, Ess-A-Bagel was pretty good, might currently hold the crown. Murray's is also pretty good, on some days I prefer them. Lots of people prefer H&H Bagels, but I don't like their product much -- too fluffy and sweet for me. I've had a hard time finding decent bagels outside of New York -- generally what people sell are toroids made of bread that generally resemble bagels in appearance but not in texture or flavor. This is surprising, because making decent bagels is fairly simple -- it appears people just don't follow the recipe at all, which requires that you boil the bagels prior to baking them. One endangered species of bread product around here is the bialy, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bialy), which is a third cousin of the bagel and shares only a name starting in "b" and the property of being round. Even bad bialies are impossible to find outside of New York, and good ones are impossible squared. For a real treat, if you're in New York late on a Saturday night (it has to be long after dark or they won't be open because of their sabbath), wander over to Kossar's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kossar's_Bialys) for an even more exotic treat, hot bialies right out of the oven. The Kossar's experience is somewhat like this: you wander up to the storefront around 1am on a Saturday/Sunday night. The interior is a brightly lit commercial bakery, not a conventional store at all, with people busily moving around baking racks, the contents of which are destined for stores around the city to be sold Sunday morning. You wander in and at one corner a rumpled and slightly irritated man who's job is clearly not doing retail sales will take your order, take your money, and throw the bialies into a bag. Start eating some immediately upon walking out -- they're best hot. Perry
