Field Trip Friday II

I've been looking forward to this week's Field Trip Friday all week. It was last weekend when I decided on the objective: Best Bagels in NYC. WHO-HOO! I couldn't have thought of a better Field Trip Friday if I spent a google years thinking. So, the objective was clear. In order to narrow my search, I went to a foodie's best friend - Zagat's Gourmet Marketplace. I took the top five rated bagel places in Manhattan (there were some top rated ones in Brooklyn and Queens, so I can't really say best bagels in NYC, really it's best bagels in Manhattan). With the objective and locations picked I plotted out my route. Five subway rides and about a mile of walking (I planned in some walking on purpose, I enjoy it) to reach the five best bagel establishments. A morning of pure glory in my mind.

The five contenders: Murray's, Kossar's, Absolute, Ess-a-Bagel, and H&H. H&H is the hometown favorite in our household because it's really close to us, so that was going to be my baseline. I also decided that I would get an everything bagel at each store, since that's my favorite kind, and I would get a feeling for how well the toppings were managed. I planned to pick up a bagel at all the locations then come home and do my tastings.

8:40 am I headed out and walked to H&H (I wanted to go early enough so that the bagels would be pretty darn fresh). It was another cold windy Field Trip Friday, in fact I came home with wind burn on my face, although it was a very small price to pay for this exciting adventure. I then took the subway up to 110th and hit Absolute, headed down towards midtown and walked to Ess-a-bagel. H&H is pretty much a "grab a bagel" place, complete with saw dust on the floor (they don't put cream cheese on your bagel for you or anything). Absolute was slightly more organized and you could order coffee and cream cheese, etc.... Ess-a-bagel was just as you would expect in the east fifties. Cute sign out front, inside a mass of people, bagel sandwiches, schmears, etc... that you could order. I did appreciate, however, that you could avoid the line if you were just getting plain bagels. Whew!

I headed back to the subway and headed towards Union Square to Murray's. Definitely the best bagel atmosphere. A nice combination of H&H and Ess-a, pretty barren and homely inside. They'd put schmears on, but not much else (which is good, I'm a purist when it comes to bagel stores). However, they did have tofu cream cheese which is completely blasphemous, but I guess if you're vegetarian then you should be able to enjoy bagels as well. Finally, I headed down to Kossar's in the East Village. When you walked in, it was like you were walking into the kitchen. There were trays of bagels on carts, with a small cash register to the left. I liked the look of it. Kossar's was the highest rated by Zagats and also were known for their bialys. The bialys are round, with no hole and flavoring in the center. I did buy one so I could taste it, but I didn't include my opinion of it in my rankings. It kind of tasted like a really good bread without any crust, the cream cheese seemed a little out of place, but the center filling was delicious (I got garlic)!

I then headed downtown to do a little shopping (so as to not favor the bagel purchased last which would have been the freshest, I needed to put some time between the last purchase and my tasting, that or an excuse to go shopping). Around noon I headed back home, hit the grocery store and got home around 1 PM.

And on to the tasting....

First let me say that all the bagels were very very very good. Infinitely better than most bagels in the midwest. The differences that I have noted below are very small differences between the different bagels, I had to draw a very fine line to come up with my favorite. I would happily eat any of these bagels any day of the week.

Kossar's was slightly too crusty for my taste, there was a pretty thick crust on it, but the flavor was right on.
Murray's had a good crust and a great chew, but I found the flavor a little bit too oniony. The everything flavor was overpowered by onion.
Ess-a-bagel was HUGE! And the toppings were on the bottom of the bagel, which I thought was pretty interesting, but didn't seem to serve any purpose. It didn't have as much flavor as I would have liked.
Absolute had a great chew and a pretty good crust and it was more salty than the others, which I really really liked. It was a bit lighter in density than some of the others.
H&H, I'll have to say that the H&H bagel was my favorite in terms of the crust and chew. Perhaps I was biased because it's the one I always have, but it is fantastic. I like the dense chewy goodness. However, it was the most expensive at $1 (the rest were $.75) which I think is a little conceited of H&H. It's not like they're paying for their "decor."

What I realized, however, is that I may not be the "NY bagel lover" that I have always professed that I was. The H&H bagel barely had a crust, it was mostly chew, which I really love (similar to Detroit or NY Bagel in Michigan). The other four bagels definitely had a crust, which I think is a bit more "NY" than the H&H bagel. So I feel as though I need some "NY growing up" to do.

I did decide however to eat the whole Absolute bagel (I now have four other bagels with a sliver cut out of it). I really liked the flavor and the density and I am definitely beginning to like the crust. So for the real deal, I think I liked Absolute the best. Best Field Trip Friday, ever.