Can I get a good New York bagel at... Ess-a-Bagel

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 ensure I review any specific bagels (or want to let me know why I’m wrong), you can email me at seanmatthewkeeley@gmail.com.

If you’ve followed my bagel journey through New York City, you probably know that I came away somewhat disappointed. While I remain a believer that the best bagels can be found in the Tri-State area, I was shocked to eat so many bad ones during my trip. I came to realize that the names that had dominated the bagel scene for so long had traded in authenticity and quality for expansion and profit, which in turn devalued the NYC bagel scene.

I’ll be back East soon enough and I already have a list of bagel places to make sure I hit (Absolute Bagels, PopUp Bagels, Bagels-4-U), though I welcome any other options as well. While I’ve been thrilled to eat a surprisingly high number of good bagels here in the Pacific Northwest, I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to identify a few more East Coast spots to confirm my assumptions.

All of that said, let’s take a look at the final bagel place left from my trip to review: Ess-a-Bagel.

If you’re like me, you might have assumed that the name “Ess-a-Bagel” derived from someone’s relative’s pronunciation of “It’s a bagel.” The reality is pretty close to that. “Eat” in Yiddish is “Esn" (and in German, it’s “Essen”), so it essentially means “Eat a bagel,” which is good advice.

As for why it doesn’t translate one-to-one, well, there’s a simple answer.

"My husband doesn't speak either language, but he just said it out loud one day and it stuck," co-founder Florence Wilpon told NBC New York.

Florence, her husband Gene Wilpon, and her brother Aaron Wenzelberg opened the original Ess-a-Bagel on 21st Street and 1st Avenue in 1976. Due to the family’s Austrian heritage, they initially intended to get into the doughnut business but switched it up to bagels. Thanks to a happy accident involving over-proofing, they ended up creating a bagel “large enough to fill a dinner plate,” and decided to lean into that, making the bigger bagel their signature.

In 1993, they opened a second location at 831 Third Avenue in midtown Manhattan. When Florence passed away in 2013, her sister Muriel and niece Melanie took over ownership.

In 2015, a battle with their landlord forced the original location to close, though they soon reopened nearby at 324 First Avenue in StuyTown. Just a few months ago, they opened a third store at 108 West 32nd Street near Penn Station. And there’s also an outpost in Time Out Market in Brooklyn.

Things got a little confusing in my research about Ess-a-Bagel beyond that. I realized that there are distinct websites for all of their locations (essabagel.com, ess-a-bagel.com, ess-a-bagel32.com) featuring different menus and even different prices, leading me to believe there was some kind of corporate split at some point. However, they all share an Instagram account and there’s no mention of any kind of differentiation in ownership, so I’m just chalking it up to a very weird digital strategy concocted by someone who doesn’t understand how the internet works.

Confusing online presence aside, when people ask where to find the best bagel in New York, Ess-a-Bagel remains one of the oft-mentioned answers. While some of their contemporaries have morphed into chains and newcomers challenge for the crown, it remains obvious that you can’t have that conversation until you’ve sampled these larger-than-life bread circles.

So let’s do that.

And if you want to know how I define a good bagel, you can find that here.

WHAT I ORDERED

• Plain bagel as-is

• Everything bagel with scallion cream cheese.

THE EXPERIENCE

On this particular day, I had just made my visit to Murray’s and I had some extra time to kill. So I booked it over to Ess-a-Bagel at 324 1st Ave., which I had been told was the “good one.” You could tell it’s a newer retail space, so it doesn’t quite have the old-school appetizing store feel, but they certainly pack the place with just about every deli food item you can think of, including the Mountains of Schmears that you never see out here on the West Coast. Ah, nostalgia.

Also, for the record, no one here asked me if I wanted my bagel toasted. Respect.

UPON FIRST GLANCE

Look on my bagel, ye Mighty, and despair!

I had heard Ess-a-Bagel bagels were large but SWEET MOSES these things are friggin’ enormous. To paraphrase So I Married An Axe Murderer, “It’s a virtual planetoid, has its own weather system… It’s like Sputnik, spherical but quite pointy at parts!”

Seriously, you could fit three Eltana bagels in one of these things.

Look, I’ve been known to take down multiple bagels in one meal plenty of times in my life. For the review sessions where I love the bagels, I’ve had no problem powering through both of them. But I looked at the two bagels I ordered for this review and could not fathom trying to finish both of them in one sitting. Just the idea of eating one of these behemoths whole made my heartburn flare up.

Also, that this monstrosity costs a mere $1.85 ($5.45 with scallion schmear) should make a few Seattle bagel shops hang their heads in shame.

TOP

From the top, you can see the bagel has an oblong, wonky shape. There’s only so much shaping you can do when hand-rolling a bagel this big. I expected this beast to be super-soft but the top actually featured some crispness. I even noted some crackly points and textural spots. The coloration was a mix of brown and golden brown, seemingly dependent on the height of the bagel.

With the everything bagel, the first thing I noticed was the very weak seed hand (though there would be a caveat to come). It almost looked like the seeds were an accident. The top was firm to the touch and I noticed the same textural and coloring differences across the gargantuan frame.

BOTTOM

The bottom of the plain bagel was soft to the touch but featured some nice color, blistering, and firmness. While it certainly wasn’t knockable, there appeared to be some interesting nooks and crannies to explore.

If you were wondering where all of the everything seasoning went, it’s all here on the bottom of the bagel. I’d never really seen that before where the seeds were found underneath. I thought perhaps it was some kind of mistake but looking at other people’s photos from Ess-a-Bagel seems to confirm they go with a “bottoms-up” approach to seeding. The bottom was also fairly soft like the plain bagel.

INSIDE/BITE

The plain bagel offered an easy, soft rip. I did notice some crinkle from the exterior but the inside was extremely fluffy. The interior featured a lovely classic bagel smell. I had to unhinge my jaw to get a good bite but the chew was surprisingly light with lots of crunchy bits. “Very eatable,” I wrote in my notes, though I was worried that if I ate the whole thing I’d end up with a huge gut bomb.

As for the everything bagel with scallion cream cheese, there was a very generous schmear application, which, coupled with the size of the bagel, made this a meal-and-a-half. I didn’t get as much crunch on this one compared to the plain, but the bagel offered some really good flavor overall thanks to the copious amount of seasoning on the bottom. There were huge scallion chunks in the cream cheese, which I appreciated. The schmear stayed in place while I ate, which is no small feat. The cream cheese wasn’t the most flavorful but the salt in the everything mix (AS GOD INTENDED) helped bring out the overall flavor.

FINAL THOUGHTS

While Ess-a-Bagel has expanded in recent years, it hasn’t abandoned the baking style and hand-rolled roots that got it where it is. That pays off as it’s one of the rare NYC bagel places that can live up to the nostalgic hype. I still can’t get over how large these bagels are, and that might be a turn-off for you. But I will say that they were very enjoyable to eat thanks to their fluffy interiors and texturally interesting exteriors. I’ve heard quality varies based on the Ess-a-Bagel location, so I’ll have to confirm that next time I’m in town.

Is It Good Enough For The Goys?

I’ve come across quite a few bagels that look and eat like rolls. I’d imagine this bagel is the Holy Grail for people who like that style, especially considering you get some actual crunch here. Certainly, I would send any goyim in the city here before I send them to any of the other “classic” NYC bagel spots.

Is It Good Enough For Northeastern Jews?

Ess-a-Bagel bagels don’t look like the ones I grew up eating, and they sure seem out of whack with what I would consider the standard size. But they met all the criteria I’m looking for, even if I’m not sure it’s a good idea to eat an entire bagel in one sitting. At least, if you order a dozen, you’ll have leftovers for the rest of the week, so that’s a nice bonus.

MY NEW YORK AREA BAGEL RANKINGS (12/10/23)

1. BO’s Bagels

2. Ess-a-Bagel

3. O’Bagel (Hoboken)

4. Murray’s Bagels

5. Russ & Daughters

6. H&H Bagels

7. Black Seed Bagels

You can find my most recent Seattle-area rankings here.

Thanks for actually reading this far. If you enjoyed my 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.