Having just submitted my votes and seen what they corresponded to, I'm not terribly surprised by my top three. I am very surprised by the bottom half of my rankings, though. I'll wait until the results are posted at 4:00 to say more, but there were some in the bottom three that I would have expected to be in the top five.
Our 1-4 were Hey Bagel, Bean's Bagels, Oxbow, and Little Market, so not too far out of line with the rest of the voters. The surprise for us was that we really didn't like Aaron's, Old Salt, or Loxsmith. We ranked Aaron's below Eltana and Kelly Cannoli, even, but maybe we just got a really bad sample from there. Our tasting notes for the surprises:
Aaron's: "Large. Feels promising in the skin, decent seed coverage, slightly sweet smell. Faintly firm dinner roll texture. Bland, but at least some salt in mix. Moldy aftertaste, gross." If it hadn't been for the moldy aftertaste it would have been a couple places up, though, so we should probably give that one a second chance; maybe there was just a randomly bad ferment or something.
Old Salt: "Smells like a hot dog bun, very squishy. Very light for size. Great resistance from the skin, but nothing inside. Don’t care for the flavor."
Loxsmith: "Solid seed hand, good color and knock, seems kind of dense. Kind of herb-y smell, maybe garlic? Looks great, disappointing bite. No resistance, no chew. Good garlic flavor if that’s what you’re after. Not a bagel."
Old Salt and Loxsmith _looked_ great, so we might have ranked them lower than we would have if we weren't expecting much better from them.
Oh, and Grateful Bread, which came in #3, we had in the lower half of our rankings: "Pale and squishy, light seed. Very little spring back, almost no flavor. Might as well be Safeway. Good for a supermarket bagel, though. Maybe a little salt in the mix or glaze?" Since "good, for a supermarket bagel" is what I think a lot of Seattle folks are actually looking for, I can understand why it placed so highly, even if I don't agree.
My wife and I have both been eating from Bagel Oasis for over 30 years, and she also spent time in Bellingham with The Bagelry, so we have pretty similar tastes and preferences here. I think we probably would have put Bagel Oasis at #2 or maybe #3 if it had been included in the lineup (and I went out and got a few from them after the blind tasting was done, to confirm).
Having just submitted my votes and seen what they corresponded to, I'm not terribly surprised by my top three. I am very surprised by the bottom half of my rankings, though. I'll wait until the results are posted at 4:00 to say more, but there were some in the bottom three that I would have expected to be in the top five.
Will be fascinated to hear more!
Our 1-4 were Hey Bagel, Bean's Bagels, Oxbow, and Little Market, so not too far out of line with the rest of the voters. The surprise for us was that we really didn't like Aaron's, Old Salt, or Loxsmith. We ranked Aaron's below Eltana and Kelly Cannoli, even, but maybe we just got a really bad sample from there. Our tasting notes for the surprises:
Aaron's: "Large. Feels promising in the skin, decent seed coverage, slightly sweet smell. Faintly firm dinner roll texture. Bland, but at least some salt in mix. Moldy aftertaste, gross." If it hadn't been for the moldy aftertaste it would have been a couple places up, though, so we should probably give that one a second chance; maybe there was just a randomly bad ferment or something.
Old Salt: "Smells like a hot dog bun, very squishy. Very light for size. Great resistance from the skin, but nothing inside. Don’t care for the flavor."
Loxsmith: "Solid seed hand, good color and knock, seems kind of dense. Kind of herb-y smell, maybe garlic? Looks great, disappointing bite. No resistance, no chew. Good garlic flavor if that’s what you’re after. Not a bagel."
Old Salt and Loxsmith _looked_ great, so we might have ranked them lower than we would have if we weren't expecting much better from them.
Oh, and Grateful Bread, which came in #3, we had in the lower half of our rankings: "Pale and squishy, light seed. Very little spring back, almost no flavor. Might as well be Safeway. Good for a supermarket bagel, though. Maybe a little salt in the mix or glaze?" Since "good, for a supermarket bagel" is what I think a lot of Seattle folks are actually looking for, I can understand why it placed so highly, even if I don't agree.
My wife and I have both been eating from Bagel Oasis for over 30 years, and she also spent time in Bellingham with The Bagelry, so we have pretty similar tastes and preferences here. I think we probably would have put Bagel Oasis at #2 or maybe #3 if it had been included in the lineup (and I went out and got a few from them after the blind tasting was done, to confirm).