Dispatches from the New York bagel scene

And some intriguing thoughts on the newsletter moving forward...

Welcome to It’s A Shanda, one Northeastern Jew’s quest to find a decent bagel in Seattle (and beyond). Along with free bagel reviews every Sunday, we also offer bonus posts each Wednesday. If you’re already subscribed, I hope you’ll consider upgrading to a paid subscription! Thank you for reading.

I’m four New York/New Jersey bagels into my quixotic quest to eat as many starchy bread circles as I possibly can while here, and I’ve already learned so much.

I brought a mixture of excitement, trepidation, and fear with me to NYC this week. What if all the bagels I ate here were disappointing? What if every bagel I ate was better than every bagel in Seattle? What if I could no longer justify my stance that no city’s bagels are as good as New York's? What if the one bagel I didn’t eat was the one I should have?

Suffice it to say, that’s a lot of drama for someone walking around Manhattan eating carbs all day.

But I will say, I’ve already learned a lot. About NYC bagels. About Seattle bagels. About myself. And about some exciting things I want to do with the newsletter. I’m going to have a lot more to write about in the weeks ahead but in the meantime, I wanted to share a few musings and thoughts.

I don’t want to spoil too much but I’ve had four bagels so far. One of them I hated with the fire of a thousand suns. One of them I was generally disappointed by. One of them I was generally impressed with. And one of them was the best bagel I’ve eaten in my life. So we’re doing great. And there are at least two more bagels to eat…

Initially, my plan was to stuff all of my NY/NJ bagel reviews into one post and then write a recap of my entire trip before returning to the safety of the Seattle bagel scene. However, knowing that I’m coming home with at least six full bagel reviews, as well as a renewed sense of the American bagel in 2023, I think I’m going to shake things up a bit.

I know that there’s only so much I can do with It’s a Shanda if I only focus on Seattle. There are only so many bagels to eat in Western Washington and I’ve already eaten most of them (some twice!). At a certain point, I was going to have to consider branching out or risk making you read nine different versions of my Dingfelder’s disappointment.

So, this seems like the perfect time to widen It’s a Shanda’s reach. I’m still focused on trying to figure out where you can get a good bagel in Seattle. But I’m also interested in trying to figure out where you can get a good bagel, period.

Have no fear, I’m still going to focus on Seattle area reviews. I live there, it’s kind of part of the deal. But I will do my very best to find bagels worth reviewing whenever I travel (and perhaps travel just to review bagels). If I visit Portland, I’ll visit some bagel places while there and review them. I might have to take a trip to Canada to solve the mystery of Montreal-style bagels once and for all. And when I’m back in NYC, I’ll have a whole new list of bagels to hunt down and write up.

Like quite a few changes with this newsletter, this is happening sooner than I expected. But that’s a good thing. I’m ripping off the Band-Aid about expanding things and thinking a little bigger. I already spent too much time thinking about bagels, so I might as well write accordingly.

So, much more to come from this New York trip, including some surprising meditations on the state of the American bagel in 2023, but I just wanted to let you know that I’m very excited about where we go from here. And slightly concerned about how many bagels I’m going to have to eat in the near future.

Thanks for actually reading this far. Know someone in the Greater Seattle Area (or beyond) who would appreciate way-too-detailed reviews of bagels? Please forward the link their way.