Linni Eats the Upper West Side

Here's the thing. I know a lot about bagels.

If you're new to the blog, that's all you need to know. If you're a returning customer, expecting feasts crafted from a farmer's market bounty or certain verbose vegan rants, let me clue you in.

In January of 2010, I rode an enormous whim——roughly 747-sized——across the country to a place that eats just a touch different than southern California: Boston.

Now, New Englanders aren't still donning Pilgrim attire. They don't scarf turkeys with natives or gulp down clam chowder on the daily. That said, there's only one vegan pizza joint in the greater Boston area. For a girl fresh off the plane from L.A., that was about as staggering as if I'd been greeted at Logan Airport by John Adams himself.

I'm sounding pretty pretentious right now, huh? Well, the two years I've spent here have beaten a lot of that out of me. After becoming a work horse at a bagel shop and slinging artisan cheese at the Harvard Farmer's Market, veganism has become nothing more than a hobby I occasionally pick up for nostalgia's sake.

My pretentious urges now get funneled into cheese competitiveness and bagel snobbery. Shortly after developing these neuroses, the latter brought me to Absolute Bagels on Manhattan's Upper West Side. I'm not the biggest fan of the Big Apple, and I was sick of hearing customers from New York wear their bagel superiority on their sleeve (as they are wont to do with most things). I had to evaluate this hype machine myself. And according to Yelpers and local publications, Absolute was the place to beat.

They had all the staples, but I forced myself to ignore the sultry, dark pumpernickels in favor of a classic everything, with scallion cream cheese and tomato slices. And a last-minute salt bagel with plain. Both untoasted.

Do you see that tomato slice? I can't think of any reason for New York City to have better produce than Boston, geographically, but I suppose I can begrudgingly admit for a moment that their food standards a little higher. And...I guess that could mean better tomatoes. Whatever.

These bagels were coming out of the oven before my eyes, which boosted my confidence in ordering them sans toast (I've been told this is the only way, by many an ornery Manhattanite). Their cream cheese selection boasted impressive selections like olive, bacon, & strawberry (although I feel like New Yorkers at my shop in Boston forego these frills to insist on old standards like chive). Their tofu spreads, also surprisingly varied in flavors, were so thick, they put Boston's runny nonsense to shame.

I mean, look at that. If I was still adhering to strict vegan protocol, I might not have eaten that, just out of distrust.

So there you have it. Our Boston bagels are great——big, crusty on the outside when toasted and pillowy soft on the inside. The NY variety didn't have that crust, didn't exactly have a hole in the middle, and was certainly smaller, but was a dream to gnaw on, just sliced raw. I preferred the latter, but they both have great things going for them. Which is more than I can say for the cities they hail from.