FreeP vs. Food: Bagel Edition

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Welcome to FreeP versus Food: Bagel Edition. This weekend, we scouted out Boston’s lack of a bagel scene so you don’t have to. Listen to the podcast below, read our descriptions and listen to our “Bagel Bites” for some audible schmear. [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text][mediagrid cat=”25934″][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”107171″ img_size=”full” title=”Bagelsaurus, Porter Square”][vc_column_text]Honey rosemary cream cheese on pretzel bagel: It’s exactly what it tastes like. Rosemary isn’t so much an herb that lends itself to sweetening, but it isn’t a bad flavor by any means. One of those things you’ll want to try once and then get something reliably tastier next time around. We think the biggest disappointment is the bagel itself, though. While we hoped that the savory pretzel flavor would cut the honey sweetness, save for the one hint of it in the last bite, the pretzel was pretty tame and tasted like any old plain bagel.

Bagel Bites:

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”107173″ img_size=”full” title=”Finagle a Bagel, Copley Square”][vc_column_text]Egg and cheese on everything bagel: Yes, it’s a chain, but it’s a Boston chain. Since we were famished from the trek up the Porter T stop stairs, we were definitely hungry for anything, even the franchise’s average sandwich.  The sharp cheddar adds a good deal of depth that we wish something in the everything bagel would have added, but it’s averagely tasty. The kind of tasty you would pick up before your red-eye flight home for Christmas. We’d keep your snooty foodie expectations low.

Bagel Bites:

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”107175″ img_size=”full” title=”Pavement Coffeehouse, Newbury”][vc_column_text]Veggie Sunrise on multigrain bagel: Pavement’s bagel flagship is in Allston, but consistency is key to any successful business, so ideally this should be just as good. The bagel itself is tiny, which means it’s “artisan,” right? That, plus the egg, cheese, tomato and baby spinach. By the time we get to the end, we’ll be getting quail eggs and fig jam (we hope). Another hard bagel, which was pretty dry, dense and largely neutral. If anything, it’s a vehicle for the innards, which were much tastier than the bagel itself.

Bagel Bites:

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”107177″ img_size=”full” title=”Rhett’s, George Sherman Union”][vc_column_text]Pesto cream cheese on tomato basil bagel: A Boston University fixture as far as we know, Rhett’s gets rave reviews for its bagel menu. We think it’s the dining point bias. The word that comes to mind is “wet,” as in pejoratively moist, like raw and doughy. It gives it a yeasty flavor that’s tough to work around, even with the herby pop of basil. While the Bagel Crawl isn’t factoring in national chains, the better Dining Points bagel on campus is up the street under the College of Arts and Sciences.

Bagel Bites:

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”107178″ img_size=”full” title=”Kupel’s Bakery, Brookline”][vc_column_text]Plain chive cream cheese on black and white bagel: Neat-o bagel, as pumpernickel fans. Stringy bits of chive in the cream cheese? This place is legit. Everything is kinda maxed out, flavor wise, what with the bite of the onion and the fennel seed spice of the pumpernickel. Just a tasty, tasty bagel. Joe went back for more hours later. That’s all that needs to be said.

Bagel Bites:

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][/vc_column][/vc_row]