At some point, the world decided that the best bagels in the world are in New York. As with the pizza, the claim is that it has something to do with the water. I, however, think this does not do justice to the quality of cooking that goes into the production of these things. Obviously not all bagels and pizza in New York are good, so there is much more going on than meets the eye. In my own search for a tasty bagel, I was sent to Murray’s Bagels in Chelsea.

I ordered my usual: salt bagel with strawberry cream cheese. In a rush I chose to forego a toasting and figured I wouldn’t be missing much since the bagels seemed to be quite fresh. Turned out I was right. This was definitely a delicious bagel, and better than others I have had in New York. It was nice and dense on the inside and little bit crunchy on the outside, plus the mix of sweet and salty is always a win in my book.

Not all bagels are created equal, even in New York, but Murray’s is a bagel worth eating.

To many people, the bagel is the king of breakfast. It’s like an evolution of toast, similar, yet greatly superior. And the best of those who love the bagel bow down to the salt bagel, the king of all bagels. It adds a perfect amount of flavor that goes great with cream cheese, especially strawberry cream cheese. But why strawberry cream cheese? Well, combining the sweet of the cream cheese with the salt of the bagel creates a perfect balance unparalleled by any other food in the world. Ever.

But is the salt bagel perfect? No, far from it. While bagels are delicious, they have one major flaw. That flaw is obvious to anyone who has ever attempted to shmear cream cheese across the surface of the bagel. The hole. This hole sucks up perfectly good cream cheese, rendering the bagel an imperfect medium for shmearing. Enter the Salt Stick. The Salt Stick is the salt bagel perfected. It is little more than an unrolled salt bagel, but that unraveling opens up a world of delight. The Salt Stick can be cut open, toasted and shmeared perfectly without concern over loss of cream cheese. Alternatively, it can be easily dipped into cream cheese, saving the lucky consumer from the effort of shmearing in the first place.

But where can you find the Salt Stick? Certainly not in LA. In fact, for a city with such a huge Jewish population, there is a surprising lack of good bagels at all. Few things bother me more than cutting open a bagel and discovering massive air pockets and a doughy interior. Bagels were not meant to be this way. Bagels are meant to be dense and not just a glorified English Muffin with a hole. To the best of my knowledge, the Salt Stick hardly exists beyond the borders of the Detroit area in Michigan. Local bagel places like Detroit Bagel and New York Bagel are always stocked with Salt Sticks. It is there that the Salt Stick flourishes, waiting for an opportunity to shmear its perfection across all the land. And it is there that I have to return to consume the Salt Stick.

EDIT: Overland Cafe has become The Overland, which is basically the same, but somehow cooler.

Often packed and with a line out the door, Overland Cafe sits in the Palms neighborhood just down the street from me. One of their biggest draws, in my mind, is their champagne brunch, featuring all-you-can-drink champagne for 5 bucks until 2:00 pm on weekends. This price doesn’t include the orange juice required to make mimosas, but is still a pretty good deal. Unfortunately, that is just about the only thing that is a good deal there.

Prices for regular breakfast food rarely drop below the ten dollar range, which is pricey considering my typical breakfast of an English muffin with butter costs me about 50 cents. Of course, I don’t hope to find breakfast for that price, but I would have like to have found something cheaper than my 10 dollar breakfast sandwich.

This greasy little bagel-wich came with eggs, bacon and cheese. Despite the price, this was a great combination of breakfast food that turned out to be pretty tasty. It also wasn’t skimpy, being loaded with all three of those delicious breakfast foods. The grease factor was definitely nice, as was the fruit that came with it. Plus, I got the honor of watching my girlfriend get drunk on champagne before noon.

So here’s the deal. Overland Cafe food is overpriced, but pretty tasty. If you need to eat breakfast out, you’ll be happy with Overland Cafe as long as you plan on dropping at least 10 bucks per person. Also, be sure to have someone else drive you, because that champagne will render you incapable of putting your foot to the gas.