H&H v. Tal

[Fat Guy]

I always thought the UWS was more expensive because there was less inventory than the UES, which for the most part has larger, taller buildings.  And because the UES is filled with arrogant rich people and post-college frat parties.  But that's just an observation.

Median household income is a bit higher on the UES than on the UWS (for everybody; not specifically for Jews). Here are the statistics from the 2000 Census:

http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/dcp/pdf/census/sf3incp301.pdf

The number of large buildings (those with more than 50 units) is slightly higher on the Upper East Side than on the Upper West Side, but the difference is nothing I'd call significant. Population density is also pretty similar. Here's the table of housing units and their sizes:

http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/dcp/pdf/census/sf3huh301.pdf

To assist in reading both of the above, the Upper East Side is Manhattan Community District 8, and the Upper West Side is Manhattan Community District 7.

(Edited to clarify language)

[Pan]

So far, no-one's mentioned the bagel place on Broadway around 107 St. I'm guessing it's still there. I haven't been there in some time but always liked their bagels, and many people compared their softer and probably more flavorful bagels favorably to H&H. And they were a lot cheaper.

[Jason Perlow]

The bagels are hung? 

in hopes that st. nicholas

No, no. You got the wrong guy.

http://www.leenite.org/jonisland/hharry/hhintro.wav

http://www.leenite.org/jonisland/hharry/hhsong.wav

http://www.leenite.org/jonisland/hharry/hh_xmas1.htm

[herbacidal]

The bagels are hung? 

in hopes that st. nicholas

No, no. You got the wrong guy.

http://www.leenite.org/jonisland/hharry/hhintro.wav

http://www.leenite.org/jonisland/hharry/hhsong.wav

http://www.leenite.org/jonisland/hharry/hh_xmas1.htm

being overly presumptous now, aren't you?

there's enough non-jews that are true bagel lovers.

santa claus is a cultural icon, not religious.

wait, you're right, i referenced st. nick, not santa.

in that respect, i think we're both wrong, but you're closer to being right.

[Fat Guy]

So far, no-one's mentioned the bagel place on Broadway around 107 St. I'm guessing it's still there. I haven't been there in some time but always liked their bagels, and many people compared their softer and probably more flavorful bagels favorably to H&H. And they were a lot cheaper.

I'm glad you mentioned what a ripoff the UWS H&H is. The price creep over the years there has been just incredible -- last time I checked, the bagels there were nearly three times as expensive as the better bagels sold at Zabar's (which I believe are made by Columbia Hot Bagels).

On Broadway between 107th and 108th, I believe you're referring to Absolute Bagels.

[jordyny]

The bagels at ess a bagel are huge. Sorry about the spelling error.

[menton1]

Ed Levine was on the radio today with a sneak preview of his Bagel reviews in the NY Times next Wed. He didn't name any names, but said there are still a lot of good bagels out there. And with the proliferation of Atkins, bagels are slightly out of favor with the hoi polloi now.

[bloviatrix]

There's a new place that opened called Bagel Basket (B'way & 89th). We've only had bagels from them once, but they were pretty good.

Edited December 28, 2003 by bloviatrix (log)

[coughy]

I agree with jordyny that Ess-a-Bagel is the best. There is a store on 1st and 21st as well.

[jhlurie]

Okay, both you East side and West side Jews are snobs. My relatives got bounced right to the Bronx and Queens respectively. Okay, I'll be honest, I'm not sure exactly where my Great-grandparents landed off the boat, but they'd all abandoned Manhattan by the 1920's.

My most recent (er... 20 year old) clear memories of Queens bagels (and I'm talking Whitestone and Flushing--you know... the ghetto --not the hoity-toity areas like Great Neck) was that they were always the firm chewy kind, and that's what I ate for my whole childhood. I have to wonder how and when things changed, because plenty of people my age and my approximate ethnic background (never mind the goyim) just don't get it.

[Jason Perlow]

My most recent (er... 20 year old) clear memories of Queens bagels (and I'm talking Whitestone and Flushing--you know... the ghetto --not the hoity-toity areas like Great Neck)

Growing up on the border of Nassau County and with most of my family living in Queens we always got our bagels from places in Little Neck, Douglaston or Hollis Hills. Union Turnpike was the Bagel capital of the world. Back in the day I remember these bagels being boiled, they were chewy, dense, and they were more well done then most bagels are today. As far as I am concerned they kicked the crap out of any bagels in NYC today, even the "good" ones.

[Fat Guy]

Jon and Jason, thanks for introducing some descriptive adjectives into the conversation. "Firm" and "chewy" are two critical aspects of a good bagel. To call a soft and tender bagel "good" is pretty much a logical impossiblity under traditional bagel standards. Such a bread product may look like a bagel, it may be called a bagel, it may taste good on its own terms, and it may even be a bagel under a liberal definition, but it is not an acceptable traditional bagel.

Without any need to look beyond those criteria, which are the most important, Tal bagels are better than H&H bagels because Tal bagels are firmer and chewier than H&H bagels (though neither is firm or chewy enough).

My personal standard for adequate firmness and chewiness is that, at the conclusion of eating one bagel, my jaw should be tired, and eating two bagels in a row should cause actual pain.

Denseness is also a requirement. A light bagel is not traditionally acceptable. It's just bread.

H&H bagels are also too sweet. While malt is traditionally used in bagel making, bagels are not supposed to be affirmatively sweet. H&H bagels are nearly desserts.

Size is relevant, not because a bagel has to be small but because a smaller bagel is more desirable from a crust-to-interior ratio. A bagel's crust is its most desirable part. The whole point of "proofing" (boiling) bagels before baking is to develop this unique crust. That being said, large bagels can be delicious, as the ones at Bagel Nosh used to be.

By the way, I agree that when we all were growing up (the 1970s), the bagels on Long Island and in Westchester (and also in Brooklyn and Queens) tended to be better than those in Manhattan. That's because those areas were behind the times in the collapse of their bagel industries -- Manhattan was much more cutting edge. Today, the bagels mostly suck in those places too.

[jhlurie]

Another test: If you drop your bagel on the table from a height of... let's say... a foot... how loud is the "thunk" it makes when it hits?'

Hint: You should be able to hear it from the next room.

[Fat Guy]

Now, of course, denseness, chewiness, and firmness -- not to mention all this talk of Temporomandibular Joint Disorder and the "thunk" test -- don't necessarily say "Awesome bread, dude!" to the average dweller of Planet Earth. Which is probably why bagels, as interpreted everywhere outside of the significant Jewish communities of North America, have always been none of the above.

And I suppose the assimilation of bagel tastes has followed the assimilation of Jewish culture and tastes in general (one imagines Seinfeld would not favor traditional bagels: "I think I left my teeth in this bagel. What's up with these bagels, they're stealing my teeth. This is a teeth-stealing bagel. A real teeth-stealer."), with the primary unassimilated group -- the Hasidim -- not really pulling their weight in terms of preserving the old recipes because on the whole they don't prioritize food quality in their lives.

Moreover, it is generally true that dense, firm, chewy, heavy, TMJ-inducing bread is not a good thing. A good bagel walks a tightrope: it possesses just enough of each of these characteristics to be a bagel, yet it doesn't possess enough of any of these characteristics to suck. Even then, proper bagels are an acquired taste -- one I fear will never be reacquired by enough people to matter.

[Jason Perlow]

By the way, I agree that when we all were growing up (the 1970s), the bagels on Long Island and in Westchester (and also in Brooklyn and Queens) tended to be better than those in Manhattan. That's because those areas were behind the times in the collapse of their bagel industries -- Manhattan was much more cutting edge. Today, the bagels mostly suck in those places too.

Pretty much all the Queens/Brooklyn places that once made very good bagels in the 70's now suck because they switched to the high-volume steaming process versus the old-style boiling process. That combined with aversion to crust doneness destroyed the artisinal bagel store.

[Fat Guy]

Yep. Steaming has replaced boiling in too many places. Bagels are indeed too often undercooked (one trick you can use, if you can find a bagel place that is baking while you're there, is to ask for a dozen to be made well-done). In addition, many places now use machines to cut the bagels into their shapes rather than twisting them by hand, a change that produces an inferior texture. And I think the flour being used today by most bagel bakeries just isn't formulated the same as the old stuff -- I bet a place attempting to emulate an old-style bagel would have to do its own blending of different flours or find a place that can follow bagel-appropriate specifications.

[slkinsey]

Any decent, traditional bagelries in the City left?

[jhlurie]

Might be one in the outer boroughs somewhere. Or god forbid New Jersey!

[Jason Perlow]

I seem to remember Cliffside Bagels on Anderson Ave in Cliffside Park NJ still using the boiling process a few years ago but I havent had their stuff in a while.

[slkinsey]

Lenny's on 98th and Broadway boils, AFAIK. But, needless to say there is more to a top-rate bagel.

[bloviatrix]

Growing up on the border of Nassau County and with most of my family living in Queens we always got our bagels from places in Little Neck, Douglaston or Hollis Hills. Union Turnpike was the Bagel capital of the world.

Jason, do you remember the bagel place on the corner of Union Tpk and Chevy Chase (just east of the Hillcrest Jewish Center)? I'm not sure what the name was, except it said "Hot Bagels" on the outside of the shop. We would pick them up every time we visited my Aunt who lived nearby.

[Jason Perlow]

Growing up on the border of Nassau County and with most of my family living in Queens we always got our bagels from places in Little Neck, Douglaston or Hollis Hills. Union Turnpike was the Bagel capital of the world.

Jason, do you remember the bagel place on the corner of Union Tpk and Chevy Chase (just east of the Hillcrest Jewish Center)? I'm not sure what the name was, except it said "Hot Bagels" on the outside of the shop. We would pick them up every time we visited my Aunt who lived nearby.

My father grew up right across the street from the HJC. His dad was the orthodontist, Jack Perlow, who was the president of the Nassau County Dental Society during the early '70s and who was one of the group of people that bought the doors of the HJC.

I remember my grandfather getting bagels from that bagel store (the one near St John's, right?), going to services at the HJC and also the many times I ate at King Yum next door (which, BTW, is still an excellent chinese restaurant, is the oldest operating in the state, and makes the best eggrolls, spare ribs, and subgum wonton soup in the entire tri state area)

[Fat Guy]

Any decent, traditional bagelries in the City left?

There are tons of decent ones. Plenty of places still boil them, and some even still make them by hand. Columbia bagels (also sold at Zabar's) are decent, as are those from Tal, David's, Murray's, Pick-A-Bagel, and several others. Fairway and the Eli Zabar stores also make decent boiled bagels.

I'm not aware, however, of a truly first-rate bagelry in Manhattan. Texturally, the most textbook-correct bagels come from the Bagelry chain. I'd say that by textbook standards these are the best bagels I've had around town lately (though there seems to have been some fragmentation of the chain; the one on 96th and Madison near me now has some other name, but the bagels taste the same and the ownership seems not to have changed). The one problem with them is that they're bland. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but there's something missing from or wrong with the dough that keeps these bagels out of the truly first-rate category.

I'm looking forward to Ed Levine's piece on bagels in this Wednesday's New York Times, because I'm sure he has invested the time in tracking down all the minor neighborhood places that fly under the radar; and I'm sure he has combed the boroughs as well. There should be a month of Sundays worth of discoveries there.

[Pumpkin Lover]

I saw Columbia Hot Bagels mentioned a few times (Broadway, near 110th).

COLUMBIA HOT BAGELZ RULEZ.

There is no better post-drinking snack than a CHB. And, I believe that they will be closing in spring 2004 due to building renovations, so if you can, get 'em now. (If you're interested in reading about the renovations of that building, I think that my college paper, Spectator, has some articles about it. Do a search of "Columbia Hot Bagels").

And, I've had bialys at Kossar's before, but I can't remember if they make bagels or not. That's some damn good bread right there.

[Fat Guy]

Kossar's does make bagels, but they're not particularly good in my opinion. Kossar's bialys are, of course, definitive. But the bialy is in even worse shape than the bagel right now -- that's a whole 'nother, even more depressing thread.