Pre-tennis bagels @ 5 & Dime, Melbourne

It's pretty accurate to say that M and I are both bagel lovers, he due to his love of bread and his 1% Semitic blood and I due to my fond and lingering memories of eating the most delicious bagels while picnicking on Primrose Hill in London.

I'm still yet to find a bagel as good as those ones, which were soft and moist but also genuinely chewy and just ridiculously tasty. Pair that with some roast garlic hummus from Waitrose and you're laughing (although Brandon Flowers prefers Sainbury's). I had tried a 5&Dime bagel before because they apparently supply Bowery's bagels. However, I've only ever had a pumpernickel version at Bowery so was keen to try 5&Dime's other bagels.

Wandering down one one morning before we took the 70 tram to Melbourne Park, we dropped by the 5&Dime flagship in Katherine Place. I went for the onion with cream cheese, capers, tomato and gherkins while M opted for an 'everything' with a plain cream cheese schmear. I thought mine was so-so but I must confess that i found it a bit dense and dry in comparison to my PH bagels (which were sourced by my Jewish-Canadian girlfriends from a Polish bakery). It's strange because 5&Dime claim their bagel is very authentic and M rates their donut shaped bread as right up there with the ones he had in NYC. If that's the case, I must prefer an inauthentic bagel.