Bagels

June 6, 2008

Since I recently posted about my search for good Pizza after moving here from New York, I also need to post about Bagels.

There are a lot of bagel shops around here, and they’re all quite different. Many are good, but don’t serve what I would call bagels. For example, Einstein Bros. serves round baked doughy things with holes in the middle that they call bagels, but they’re not (in my book anyway). Bagels need to be boiled, which gives them the hard, shiny outer shell. If they’re baked or steamed, they come out quite differently.

In any case, here’s where to find good bagels around home:

1. KSB Bagel Cafe in South Reston. Best bagels around. Quite a hike from our house though, so we only go there once every few weeks, and we buy a half dozen or so.
2. Manhattan Bagel chain. Very good. There was one really close to us in Reston until a couple years ago when it closed. Very sad.
3. Panera Bread chain. Pretty good.
4. Einstein Bros. chain. Taste good, but very different from bagels… very doughy. Unfortunately they put carroway seeds on their everything bagels.
5. Bagel Cafe, nearby in Herndon, Kathie likes them but I find their bagels to be too bready.

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