It is hard to be overly picky about bagels unless you live in Manhattan. Crossing over to Jersey City immediately drops the quality. Venturing futher is just asking for trouble. I will happily eat the things that pass for bagels in the rest of the U.S., but one trip to the big city set the mark so high that I don’t try to for perfection elsewhere. The lowest mark I’ve sampled was set in Montreal where I thought a onion bagel bought straight from the bakery would be be lovely… but instead was a crumbly, bready disaster. Obviously the Québécois have different expectations of bagels than do New Yorkers.
It is hard to be overly picky about bagels unless you live in Manhattan. Crossing over to Jersey City immediately drops the quality. Venturing futher is just asking for trouble. I will happily eat the things that pass for bagels in the rest of the U.S., but one trip to the big city set the mark so high that I don’t try to for perfection elsewhere. The lowest mark I’ve sampled was set in Montreal where I thought a onion bagel bought straight from the bakery would be be lovely… but instead was a crumbly, bready disaster. Obviously the Québécois have different expectations of bagels than do New Yorkers.