Can I get a good Hoboken bagel at... O'Bagel
They pass the knock test but do they pass the taste test?
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.
After graduating from Syracuse University, I returned home to New Jersey as a 22-year-old schnook who didn’t know what he didn’t know. Thankfully, I was able to convince someone to hire me and I started working in a very cool office space above Chelsea Market. The problem is that I was living with my mom at the time and she lived in Princeton, which, if you’re not familiar, is not all that close to Manhattan, at least in New Jersey terms.
And so, I would get on the Dinky train (R.I.P.) from Princeton to Princeton Junction, transfer to the NJ Transit train, get off at Newark and transfer to a PATH train, and take that to 14th Street before walking three and a half city blocks to my job. And then I would turn around at 6:00 and do it all in reverse. Each door-to-door trip took about two hours, leaving me little time for anything else.
After four or five months of this, I was a husk. I needed to close the gap between myself and my office or risk losing my sanity altogether. Living in NYC was out of the question, so my attention turned to Hoboken. Right across the river from Manhattan, it seemed like the ideal spot to set up shop. After lucking into a roommate request in a sweet apartment on 9th and Washington, I was in.
I loved my time in Hoboken. I’m not sure how people would describe it today but when I lived there between 2000 and 2002, it was where college graduates who weren’t quite ready to enter the real world could thrive. A neighborhood consisting mostly of bars, restaurants, pizza joints, bodegas, and bagel shops; it was everything a growing 22-year-old could ever need. Not to mention that my commute went from two hours to about 40 minutes. You couldn’t beat that.
I had the chance to revisit Hoboken during my NYC trip and I was surprised with how much the city had maintained its charm. I’d heard horror stories of condo high-rises and gentrification, and sure enough those things have happened, but somehow it still maintains the slower-paced urban neighborhood vibe that made it so appealing, especially the further away you get from the PATH station. Oh, and Farside Tavern was still there, thank goodness.
I didn’t just pop by to see how my old haunt was holding up. I was there on business as well. I knew that I had to make some time to check out a certain bagel place that’s taken over TikTok feeds nationwide.
The first I’d heard of O’Bagel was one of their “knock test” TikTok videos. In the video, someone takes one of their bagels fresh out of the oven, knocks on it to demonstrate how well-cooked and crispy the exterior is, and then cracks it open to reveal a pillowy interior and a plume of steam.
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The guy doing the knocking in the videos is often owner Sam El-Hassan, who opened the first O’Bagel in Stirling, NJ around 2000. The name is a play on his wife’s last name and “chosen for good luck as our business is all about our loyal commitment to family, community and serving the finest food quality,” per their website. By 2003, they had two other locations in Basking Ridge. And in 2016, they opened the Hoboken location that seemed to take the local bagelmaker to the next level. They also recently added a location in New Brunswick and a “ghost kitchen” for deliveries in Essex and Passaic counties.
With a true showman’s personality and a mastery of the media cycle, El-Hassan appears to have created New Jersey’s next bagel empire. But for all the hype, viral videos, and big announcements, how good are the bagels?
Let’s find out.
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
The O’Bagel hype was confirmed when I showed up around 10:00 a.m. on a Monday and saw a line out the door. It wasn’t a long line, per se, but it never let up. Coupled with the full tables outside, there was a consistent buzz in and outside the shop at all times.
Outside, they were clearly going for the Instagram aesthetic, featuring a wall of flowers that appears to be the decoration du jour for businesses that want to end up on your social media feed. Inside, the place was sweltering. It was a pretty hot day outside, but I started pouring sweat while waiting inside. I’m not entirely sure how the staff was sticking with it, but they persevered in the name of bagelry.
The shop itself was a mixture of old-school vibes and chain-in-the-making modernization. The “Hot Bagels” sign outside was an instant nostalgia fix. The cramped interior, steamy temperature, and constant commotion behind the counter made me feel at home. There was definitely a focus on sandwiches with quirky names and a collection of breakfast burritos as well.
Most bagels ran you $1.50 with a few of the specialty bagels (jalapeno cheddar, french toast) going for $3.50. Regular cream cheese added $3.25 to the order while flavored cream cheeses go for $4.75. An egg & cheese on a bagel went for a reasonable $4.25, which will always make me think of Rubinstein’s $10 version before I pass out.
UPON FIRST GLANCE
These bagels are big and they’re square. Presumably, they pack them together tight on the tray to cook as many as possible at one time. It ends up creating a pretty boxy bagel shape. As we’ll come to see in coming reviews, this isn’t unique, and they might have been inspired to do so by some of the New York shops.
It’s not bad by any means, as it’s also very clear these are hand-rolled. I imagine it makes it pretty easy to turn these bagels into sturdy sandwich vehicles. Just takes a little getting used to, visually.
TOP
Pressing down on the top of the plain bagel, I was met with a lot of crispiness and crinkles. I also really liked the golden brown exterior that came and went across the top with the curls of the hand-rolled dough. It portended a lot of textural opportunities thanks to the crevices and caverns found within. I did note that the sides were a bit soft, which made sense given how their bagels must be packed together while baking.
The everything bagel was a little more uniform on top in terms of look, feel, and golden brown coloring. It was also very crispy and crackling on touch, and some of those cracks were visible. The seasoning hand was pretty weak, with a smattering of sesame seeds. I did note a little bit of salt.
BOTTOM
The plain bagel featured a firm bottom with lots of really “knockable” spots. I could sense there was going to be some good crunch coming from here. Those soft sides bled into some areas around the edges of the bottom, but it seemed like it would provide some interesting textural differences.
The bottom of the everything bagel was very similar, featuring mostly firm, crisp areas with a few soft spots. Seems that’s just part of their process.
INSIDE/BITE
Biting into the plain bagel, I did indeed get that crunch I was hoping for, though not quite as much as I was expecting. That might have been because the exterior shell was fairly small and most of the bagel was made up of the extremely fluffy interior. Big and doughy, each bite required a bit of effort. It was impressive to get such as mix of textures on most bites, with some crunchiness coupled with a pillowy interior. It also had a great classic bagel smell on the inside. Admittedly, there were a few spots where the bagel was a little too doughy, and they seemed to coincide with the spots that didn’t get cooked as much. All in all, however, this was a really good bagel.
As for the everything bagel with scallion cream cheese, I found a lot of the same textural wins. The bite was pretty crispy. The bagel offered a lot of crunch. The interior was still fluffy and offered a nice balance to the exterior. The cream cheese was extremely good. Very scallion-y and it tasted very fresh. The big drawback was that the size of the bagel made it nearly impossible for me to eat very much of it, especially after enjoying the plain. I couldn’t imagine eating both of these bagels and then accomplishing anything the rest of the day.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Is It Good Enough For The Goys?
While O’Bagel might be a bit showy and social media-focused for the classic bagel connoisseur, they certainly back it up. So if the goyim are finding out about this place on TikTok and Instagram and feel the need to stop by, at least we know they’ll go home satisfied and spreading the word about a solid bagel.
Is It Good Enough For Northeastern Jews?
Without offering too much in the way of spoilers, I think that New York Jews who consider Ess-a-bagel their favorite will find a kindred spirit here. There are a lot of similarities and the way that this bagel balances all aspects of the eating experience bodes well. It definitely crosses over into gut-bomb territory quickly, so that’s worth keeping in mind, but if you’re hungry in Hoboken, I think you’ll find satisfaction here.
MY NEW YORK AREA BAGEL RANKINGS (10/3/23)
O’Bagel (Hoboken)
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