East Bay Bagels
It has been difficult to find a good bagel in the Bay Area until recently. In the last few months, two great bagel shops have popped up in Oakland.
Old Brooklyn Bagels & Deli on College Avenue in Rockridge serves bagels that taste much like a New York bagel. They boil and then bake their bagels which results in a crusty outside and a chewy inside. I have had their bagels with cream cheese and found them to satisfy my urge. This is my new “Go To” place for a bagel.
I recently heard about Beauty’s Bagel Shop on Telegraph Avenue in North Oakland close to Temescal.
Beauty’s serve Montreal-style bagels which are boiled in honey water and baked in a wood-fired oven.
Yelp reviews were reporting that there were thirty minute waits and worth waiting for. Thirty minutes for a bagel? I don’t think so. My friend and I were going to do a drive by earlier today. If there was a line outside, we would detour to Old Brooklyn. I think the earlier downpours discouraged people to go to Beauty’s so we had no wait.
My friend got the breakfast bagel with egg and cheddar on an onion bagel. As a sandwich this was quite tasty, especially the egg and cheese. I’m not sure I was that impressed with the bagel itself. The consistency was dense throughout.
Maybe I should have just ordered a bagel with cream cheese in order to test taste the bagel, but I was too intrigued by the After School Special. My everything bagel was filled with chopped liver, swiss cheese, iceberg lettuce & pickled onion. I felt the same way about my sandwich that I did for my friends. It was a very tasty sandwich.
Beauty’s Bagel Shop is a a hip new place and I will be back to try some other items. One day I will have a plain bagel with cream cheese, but I am also curious about the smoked trout bagel sandwich, fried chicken bagel sandwich, schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) to spread on a bagel, deviled eggs, coffee cake, soups, etc. I see more visits in my future. If there is a wait, I’ll just order to go or make my way back to Old Brooklyn Bagels & Deli.
