Friday, May 02, 2008

I nearly forgot!

In all of my rantings and ravings lately, I almost forgot the single most important food related development in my life in the last six months!

I found bagels!!!

Kafe K (sadly, they don't appear to have a real website) in Champaign, a few short blocks from where I sit right now, serves honest to goodness east coast style water bagels, with many different choices of schmears, including my favorite, peanut butter.

I am one happy camper.

5 comments:

Miss E said...

At some point I think I need to have an east coaster set up a bagel taste test for me, with a "real" east coast bagel and a "fake" bagel. I don't know that I could tell the difference.

Steve said...

I had half a dozen esoteric answers, but then I found this that I think explains it a bit more clearly. The absence of egg not only makes them weeeeegan, but also makes for a chewier bagel, with a crust. So often the frozen bagels, or ones from places like Panera, are just soft the whole way through. In reality, only the inside should be soft.

And that's the difference. So ask your local bagelmaker if they use egg in their bagel dough- if they don't, then you've got yourself a real bagel. :)

Cycho Librarian said...

We've got a real bagel place right down the street, also with the appropriate fixings. But pizza's a different matter. I have yet to find real pizza in the midwest.

Andrea... said...

What about a Montreal bagel? Are they different? Because those are life-changing... I tell ya...

Steve said...

I don't know- I've never had a Montreal bagel! Maybe we need to organize a cross continent bagel swap. DC, Illinois, Ohio, Canada- I wonder what LA bagels are like? Hmmm...

cycho- I suppose it depends on what you consider to be real pizza. Around here, and this sort of shocked me given the proximity to Chicago, people seem fixated on thin crust pizzas.