Can I find a good Redmond bagel at... Blazing Bagels
Are the bagels better at their flagship store on the Eastside?
Welcome to It’s A Shanda, one Northeastern Jew’s quest to find a decent bagel in Seattle (and beyond). If you’re interested in taking this journey with me, make sure you subscribe so you never miss a review. If you want to make sure I review any specific bagels (or want to let me know why I’m wrong), you can email me at seanmatthewkeeley@gmail.com.
After my Eastside visit to the Rubinstein Bagels in Redmond, reader Bill M. asked if I’d consider a trip to the Blazing Bagels spot there as well. It made me realize that I’d written it off due to my intense dislike of the Seattle version and that I was perhaps being a bit unfair.
Kitsch is defined as “art and design perceived as naïve imitation, overly eccentric, gratuitous, or of banal taste.” Something I’ve come to learn about myself is that I really don’t like kitsch. My experience is that, when deployed in a business context, it tends to exist to mask mediocrity and/or a lack of any real value. When I see kitsch, I assume that what’s waiting for me beyond it will not be worth the effort.
Blazing Bagels encapsulates this feeling for me. The stores have eccentric paintings and murals that say things like “Best Bagels East of New York.” The signage is full of dad jokes and hokey imagery. The (offensively named?) sandwiches include the “Frieda Finkelstein,” the “Samuel Slutzky,” and the “Sarah Schitts.” And on top of it all, their bagels are (in my experience) of the generic, factory-line variety that over-saturate the market.
“It’s exactly the kind of bagel that goyim eat and assume it’s what a good bagel is supposed to be,” I wrote in 2022.
All of which is to say that I had mentally written off the notion of going to any other Blazing Bagels for review (or general eating) purposes. However, visiting the Redmond location makes sense. For one, there’s a lot of wild history between BB and Redmond. And two, it’s their original location and remains their flagship store. Perhaps the bagels are just a little better here than at the satellite shops. That was the theory at least.
Let’s put the theory to the test.
And if you want to know how I define a good bagel, you can find that here.
WHAT I ORDERED
Plain bagel as-is ($2.75)
Everything bagel with chive cream cheese ($5.95)
THE EXPERIENCE
You know all that stuff I said about kitsch up there? That was how I felt BEFORE I visited the Blazing Bagels in Redmond. This place is a kitsch amusement park. There’s a wacky bagel bus out front. There are multiple signs full of dad jokes and corny sayings. There’s a giant mural on the wall where the directive was clearly “Just put everything Seattle in there.” The cavernous space is chocked full of bagel-related tchotchkes and merchandise. Everything is bright and big and ends in an exclamation point.
It’s just not my thing.
UPON FIRST GLANCE
As I was waiting for my order, I couldn’t help but notice the breadth of bagel options before me. I don’t know if I’d call it impressive, as a wide number of flavor options is usually a bad sign for a bagel place’s quality, but it sure was something to see it all laid out like that. I also noticed how shiny a lot of the bagels looked from afar.
TOP
The top of the plain bagel looks shiny and uniform. A light golden brown with a few darker spots, it was a bigger bagel with a sizable hole in the middle. There were slight texture points to be found but the bagel almost looked lacquered. The top was soft and crinkly to the touch, crackling when I pressed down slightly.
The everything bagel was also pretty big but was a darker golden brown than the plain. There was a strong seed hand that looked very onion and garlic forward. The top was crinkly to the touch thanks to the seeding.
BOTTOM
The bottom of the plain bagel had a slight Cornmeal Ring of Doom (CRoD). It was firm but not overly hard. The everything bagel also had a CRoD going on the bottom, which did not feature much seeding.
INSIDE/BITE
The plain bagel offered some crinkle on the rip and I got an actual bagel smell (just like in my Seattle review). There were wisps of crispness on the bite but they would come and go. I initially wrote down that the bagel flavor was “flat” but eventually landed on it being flavorless, though I would detect a malt tanginess from time to time. The bagel had a medium rebound after each bite. The interior was dense but lacked fluffiness. As Gertrude Stein might say, “There’s no there there.”
Do the places that slather goopy cream cheese on their toasted bagels actually eat them? I find it hard to believe they would come away thinking this was the best solution. As such, the warmed bagel melts the schmear and makes the bagel's interior soggy. The lack of texture makes for an unenjoyable bite. To its credit, the cream cheese stayed relatively in place while eating, though I found the greenish hue off-putting, especially when it didn’t result in any chive flavor. That lack of schmear flavor, coupled with the lack of flavor from the everything seasoning (which did not include salt) made it feel like I was just eating a starch disc with some bland spread in the middle.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I don’t know if “freshness” is a quality I can really assign to Blazing Bagels, but I suppose there was a hint of it with the plain bagel compared to the one I ate in Seattle. But that is also me stretching to find anything nice to say about this.
Look, business appears to be booming for Blazing Bagels. They’ve got a promotion going with the Mariners. They’re the bagel of choice in several coffee shops around the Seattle area. Their bagels and sandwiches are all over the local supermarkets. They’re the biggest local bagel chain (for now). And as far as I can tell they have very solid footing with customers and their catering business. They’re doing just fine.
But man, it bums me out.
Is It Good Enough For The Goys?
Sigh. Apparently.
Is It Good Enough For Northeastern Jews?
MY SEATTLE BAGEL RANKINGS SO FAR (4/7/24)
Old Salt (Fremont]
Old Salt (Ballard)
Loxsmith (West Seattle)
Loxsmith (Beacon Hill)
Westman’s (Capitol Hill)
Westman’s (U District)
OUTSIDE SEATTLE BAGEL RANKINGS (4/7/24)
The Bagelry (Bellingham)
Howdy Bagel (Tacoma)
Coquette Bake Shop (Bainbridge Island)
Rubinstein Bagels (Redmond)
Good Bagels Cafe (Anacortes)
Mustard Seed Baking Co. (Stanwood)
Blazing Bagels (Redmond)
Otherside Bagel Co. (Bellingham)
Whidbey Island Bagel Factory (Mt. Vernon)
Woodinville Bagel Bakery (Woodinville)
Big Apple Bagels (Bellevue)
Thanks for actually reading this far. If you enjoyed my Seattle bagel review and want to read more of them, make sure you’re subscribed to It’s A Shanda. Know someone in the Greater Seattle Area (or beyond) who would appreciate way-too-detailed reviews of local bagels? Forward the link their way.
Oof, and it still lands middle of the pack in the “outside Seattle” rankings. Looking pretty dire beyond the city limits.