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.

 

Quick lunch break bagel @ Bagel Works

So the place is called Bagel Works, but quite honestly their bagels don't.

This little place was buzzing on a Friday afternoon, and I had to wait quite a while to order and again to get my bagel. 

I went with a classic poppyseed bagel with cream cheese. A simple combination that is hard to screw up. Only thing was, Bagel Works managed to do it, and it was mostly down to their inputs.

The key to a good bagel place is good bagels, and Bagel Works doesn't have them. My bagel had the texture and consistency of a pana de casa, heavy, bready and dry. It was also sweet, like European cake sweet, not sickly but very strange. 5&Dime and Glicks bagels are not perfect, but they are bagels. Bagel Works has round bread rolls with holes in the centre that taste like cake. 

The cream cheese was also quite odd, more sweet than sour - where did they even buy it? I'd like to know for the next carrot cake I bake.

On the plus side (and their were some strong pluses) service was great (the staff were super friendly and efficient even despite the lunch rush), and I was offered a sample of delicious looking smoothie as I waited in line. The location is also good, close to the legal heart of the city.

However, I can't go so far as recommending it. Sorry Bagel Works - change your bagel supplier and win a new fan!