Cinnamon Girl: The Cinnamon Raisin Bagel, Toasted with Cream Cheese at David's Bagels in New York, New York, USA

If one were to walk into David's Bagels blindfolded, and hence without reading the sign declaring that it is called David's Bagels, the function of the shop would be immediately apparent. As one walks through the door and especially as one advances toward the back of the store to order a bagel, the heat begins to pound down on you. I imagine that this is even the more welcome when one gets a bagel in the harsh New York winters, but even in prelude to summer that we were experiencing when I visited David's Bagels, I don't want this to be viewed as a critique of the eatery, but rather as a reflection that this was one of the last sites of New York that I took in after living there for nearly a year.

When I dined at The Bagel Store on Metropolitan Avenue in Brooklyn, I came to the store equipped with a list of favorite selections that people on various web sites had mentioned regarding this eatery, and also the suggestions of a couple of my closest friends. I began to wonder if I'd ever move on to the next bagel store, or if I would get caught up trying the famous French toast bagel, toasted with syrup, toasted with butter, untoasted with butter, the onion bagel, toasted with veggie cream cheese and tomato, the toasted sesame with chicken salad, lettuce, tomato and Swiss, the toasted plain bagel with bologna, cheese and mayo, the everything bagel, toasted with regular cream cheese, untoasted with cream cheese. For the sake of fairness and breadth of coverage, I decided, as my previous entry suggests to review the everything bagel, toasted with regular cream cheese and then move on to the next contender for the best bagel in New York. But I found myself in line without a comprehensive list of blogger favorites and I suppose I experienced something somewhat similar to bagel nihilism. In that moment, no bagel had any more value than any other, and since there was nothing to narrow my focus, it was as if all bagels lost value.

Luckily, I was accompanied by my trusty sidekick and roommate at the time, Fiona, and it turned out that she was a cinnamon girl --- she ordered the cinnamon raisin bagel, toasted with cream cheese , and when it came to be my turn to order I simply said, "Make that two."

David's Bagels seems much better prepared than the Bagel Store for the eventuality of high volume of customers. There is something like an assembly line system where one orders, the order is processed, and then one proceeds to pay at a different location, to get additional things like coffee and other beverages, and in the time it takes to wait through the line and pay, ones bagel is usually finished. If not, there is a decent amount of seating, and one can begin to nurse ones Snapple, as it was in my case, and engage in conversation while waiting for them to call out your bagel. This seems much more efficient than the Bagel Store's system where the person who takes the order is then in charge of preparing the bagel and then assuring that it is paid for, and perhaps one never would have had to draw this comparison even as recent as a year ago. David's Bagels is adjacent to Union Square and the East Village where they obviously need to deal with high volumes of customers, but the Metropolitan Avenue location of the Bagel Store would only recently experience these rushes because the bagel loving white people from the East Village only recently migrated that far down the L Train corridor into Brooklyn.

The verdict: the bagel quality and preparation were right on par with The Bagel Store, which I previously explained to be magnificent. To me there is no difference in the quality of the bagels between these two stores. If I had to choose which store to go to in order to get my bagel, it would be based on proximity, and if I found myself equidistant between these two stores I might, like the hypothetical donkey of folklore, simply starve to death rather than make the choice. I don't think that would happen because I am not a donkey and also I believe the story of the donkey that would starve because he had no definition for his choice between two equidistant bales of hay to be a crock of donkey poo. I might just choose David's Bagels over the Bagel Store because it's better organized and has decent seating. I might choose the Bagel Store because it's so close to where a couple of the best friends a guy could ever have live in Williamsburg. But keep ye in mind, readers, every exclamation and rhapsodic flourish I gave to my bagel from the Bagel Store, you can understand as applying to David's Bagels.

I leave you with this quote from Hank Hill, an animated Texan who, in giving any applaud to something typical of New York culture, would be seen as something of a heritic in his community, and also to himself, but who said: "I had a bagel. And I liked it."

Everything In Its Right Place: The Everything Bagel, Toasted with Plain Cream Cheese, at the Bagel Store in Brooklyn, New York, USA

Long title, I know. One might say that the body of the blog is unnecessary. Of course, I would disagree. The title only gives you the what and where, accompanied by a song lyric, wittily chosen to accompany the food/experience. What the body gives you is the value judgment, the taste of the food. And also, hopefully, style.

In the battle over the best bagels in New York City, the heavy hitters, as I've been educated are H & H bagels, which I've had the opportunity to sample uncritically, and Fairway, whose bagels are still a mystery to me, but it is entirely likely that in such a clash of Titans the smaller, more out of the way bagel stores, are likely to get overlooked.

The Bagel Store has two locations: one at 754 Metropolitan Ave, adjacent to the Graham stop on the L train, and another at 247 Bedford Ave, approachable, of course, via the Bedford stop on the L train. Both locations have been shunned by certain individuals because of how disorderly they are. It happens that they are very small stores, and at busy times, like mornings, they can seem chaotic as the waters before the Hebrew God Yahweh conquered and quited them. This is not a concern for me. My quest is for the best bagel in New York City. Whether it be found in a king's castle or in a swineherd's barn is of no consequence to me. But for those of you who want to avoid the difficulties of a business that can be, at times, somewhat helter-skelter, or even quite higgledy-piggledy, not to mention at times topsy-turvy, who would like their morning plans to go off without a hitch, perhaps you might consider skipping The Bagel Store. But I wouldn't recommend it, because I know what you're missing out on.

The Everything Bagel, toasted, with plain cream cheese is a favorite of my friend Becky. She and my friend Elliot were the first to recommend The Bagel Store. The Everything Bagel at The Bagel Store is not your everyday Everything. It has more toppings than most Everythings, and thus it lives much closer to its name (would it have to include nothing to be a true everything? ---that sounds like a question for a philosopher from the Orient). In addition to the more-everything Everything, The Bagel Store liberally applies cream cheese, adding a light and delicious zest to the bagel. I prefer this greatly to the packets that one is supplied with, or even charged for, at other bagel stores. And before I forget, the bagel was cut into two pieces, wrapped, and served to me for only $1.75.

At the moment The Bagel Store ranks at the top of my bagel store list, with the Everything bagel, toasted, with plain cream cheese as my bagel of choice. But then again, this fact is nearly meaningless until there are other bagels and stores to compare it against. So, let this be a sort of cliffhanger for those of you who have chosen to read this blog. Keep tuning in and acquire empirical proof of the best local cuisine. And if the results entice you, like true science, the methodology is open to the people so that, if you have the opportunity, you can repeat the experiment yourself, and plunge into the world of local cuisine.