The Best Bagel I've Had In NYC Comes From This Local Spot

Bagels are not difficult to find around New York City. On top of that, the consensus is that NYC's tap water actually makes its bagels better. Most of them aren't bad, though some are definitely average — the dough or the fillings can be frustratingly chewy or stale. 

You notice when you're eating a really good bagel. I've been lucky as of late, because I'm around the East Village frequently, and Tompkins Square Bagels — just a block north of Tompkins Square Park — has some of my favorites. If you're around Manhattan often, then Tompkins Square Bagels is hardly obscure. It has four locations now, mostly near-ish East Village (though there is one on the Upper East Side). They can get crowded depending on when you get there, especially the location by Union Square.

The bagels themselves span the usual varieties from plain to everything bagels, and the texture is perfect: sturdy, but not difficult to bite into. They're rolled, kettle-boiled, and baked onsite, and they taste fresh. Some folks insist that you should never order a bagel toasted because it'll muck up a bagel that doesn't need it — the fresh-tasting bagels from Tompkins Square usually don't need to be toasted. Even though the shop has lots of fancy bagel sandwiches on its menu — a shoutout to the Weezer, which is a bacon, egg, and cheddar with chorizo and cream cheese — I tend to enjoy straightforward orders: a simple bagel with plain cream cheese or sometimes a BLT on an everything bagel for lunch. All are reasonably priced for NYC.

A great bagel has some flavor, but it's still mild enough to bring out the flavor of whatever you put inside. At Tompkins Square, you'll find a very wide selection of cream cheese flavors (or schmears), including tofu-based spreads. These fascinated me when I was younger — I would sometimes experiment with cream cheese flavors like apple cinnamon or pumpkin just to see what they tasted like. On a plain bagel, both work surprisingly well, although I would hesitate to mix them with the sesame seeds, onion, garlic, and everything else in everything bagel seasoning. As I get older, though, the idea of the more out there birthday cake or wasabi cream cheeses intimidates me a little.

However, the regular cream cheese spread is nearly perfect and also made in-house. Cheap cream cheeses, like those little to-go containers of Philadelphia cream cheese, tend to smear in stiff chunks. Tompkins Square's cream cheese is smoother; its texture is actually creamy, and you might even have a hot cream cheese blob or two drip into the wrapper. The people preparing your order tend to be fairly generous with how much cream cheese you get as well, although the bagels certainly aren't overloaded with schmear. Whatever you decide to try, everything I've gotten has tasted fresh, and the insides of an egg and cheese bagel are just as smooth and delicious as a bagel with cream cheese.