Vegas bagels just don’t compare

Chris Morris / Las Vegas Sun

By Brian Eckhouse

Wed, Apr 30, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Click here

In Vegas, no two bagels are alike (4-9-2003)
In Las Vegas, bagels are wholly satisfying (10-31-2001)
New York State of Mind: Is Las Vegas like the Big Apple? (10-31-1998)

Last year, 2,621 New Yorkers moved to Nevada. Clearly, they didn’t come for bagels.

Here, the Statue of Liberty is made of foam, and the bagels taste like they are.

The reasons range from the practical to the mystical. But most agree on the major cause: Lake Mead is more than suitable for recreation and hydropower, but the water it supplies for Las Vegas is so hard it smears glass and deprives bagels of their taste and composition. If natives could afford to shower in bottled water, they probably would.

The calcium content of water, says noted food chemist Shirley Corriher, determines the texture of bagels. Too much calcium hardens water — not desirable for all sorts of food, but particularly bagels. About 85 percent of the country has hard water, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, but this valley infamously has some of the roughest water nationwide.

“You can’t get a good bagel or pizza here, not like Manhattan,” acknowledges NYU grad Aysegul Weiss, who manages Weiss deli in Henderson. Weiss’ boils its own bagels, New York-style, and she says her deli offers the valley’s closest facsimile.

My grandfather warned me at a young age that if I left my native Long Island, pizza, matzo ball soup and bagels wouldn’t be nearly as good.

Ah, the prescient Jewish grandfather; aside from his preferred baseball team (the Yankees, regrettably), Pops is rarely wrong. Empirically, bagels made 120 miles outside New York City just aren’t the same, even if the cook happens to have been schooled there.

Elevation also is a deterrent in the preparation of bagels. The higher the elevation, the lower the boiling temperature of water, Corriher notes. “So things cooking in water don’t get as hot,” says the James Beard winner and author of “Cookwise.”

Las Vegas is 2,028 feet above sea level, whereas the tallest hill in New York City is 410 feet above sea level — and that’s in Staten Island, which isn’t known as the mecca of bagels. New York’s most famous bagelries are found in Brooklyn, Queens and the western half of Long Island.

In Summerlin, the Bagel Cafe is a favored breakfast joint of some former Easterners, but its bagels are closer in taste to the Einstein Bros. chain’s than to any I’ve sampled in greater New York. The bagels there are soft and swollen, but at least they still have holes, unlike at some valley establishments.

Vegas bagels, says tourist and Queens native Nora Mohammed, 21, “are chewy like they just came out of the freezer.” New York bagels, however, have an almost crispy exterior, with a tender, flavorful inside. They’re unmistakable.

The nostalgia for home never wanes, but perhaps the palate becomes less nuanced as the years pass, especially on the opposite side of the continent.

You move to the West Coast and quickly adopt “wellness” as a fundamental lifestyle. Then you try yoga and find yourself cutting back on carbs and fats as much as possible. Sushi and protein shakes become more frequent than bagels, so it should come as no surprise that a Kahn’s hot dog sold at Shea Stadium, once your home away from home, no longer appeals.

It took a year for me to find a satisfactory bagelry in the San Diego area, where I lived before moving to Vegas. A surfer-looking dude from New Jersey operates the joint there.

A friend from back East wasn’t as convinced as I was. “It was good bread,” he allowed with a sideways tilt of his head.

Faint praise, indeed.

Discussion: 10 comments so far…

By junjun

4/30/08 at 7:46 a.m.

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Well, you know what they say, "if its so much better in New York, then what the heck are you doing here?". LOL

JJ
www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
By Liberalterrian

4/30/08 at 11:28 a.m.

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Apparently Brian has not visited Harry's Bagelmania at 855 E Twain Ave. Simply put, the best bagels in town.
By exNYer

4/30/08 at 11:32 a.m.

Suggest removal

Why not try The Deli Den in the Northwest of town off of Durango and the 215 in the Kolh's shopping center which is equally as good if not better than Bagelmainia on the east side of town.
By Esco

4/30/08 at 11:34 a.m.

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Is JunJun really suggesting that Brian Eckhouse leave Las Vegas simply because of the bagels? I've got a much better idea: Brian should keep looking for good bagels in Las Vegas, and bagel bakers here should see if they can learn anything from New York.

Not helpful, JunJun.
By BenDover

4/30/08 at 2:01 p.m.

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Esco is right junjun, that's not a helpful suggestion. I mean really, what would the world be if you couldn't run into whiney New Yorkers everywhere who just couldn't wait to tell you how much better everything is in NYC.
By Esco

4/30/08 at 2:36 p.m.

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BenDover is right, JunJun, what would the world be if you couldn't run into hypersensitive people who can't wait to overreact to constructive criticism from New Yorkers? You know what they say: "If reading will expose you to whining from New Yorkers, then why don't you gouge your eyes out?"
By Jubans_ex_Landlord

4/30/08 at 4:15 p.m.

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This is almost as good as Eli Manning's oreo commercial.
By moethegrass

4/30/08 at 5:32 p.m.

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It's just that bagels were never meant to be made with water that has been re-cyled back into Lake Mead each time you flush the toilet.

Oh, don't tell me you didn't know that.

Unlike the rest of the country New Yorkers are more demanding. They don't accept the crappola most Americans gladly take up the kazoo. And then smile about it.
By TropWorker

5/1/08 at 3:53 p.m.

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If the bagel bakeries used "bottled water", the bagels would taste fine. There are a few bakeries in the valley that do this. Their pizza is also significantly better. For 25 cents a gallon, bottled water is the way to go for bagel & pizza businesses.
By absolut

5/1/08 at 5:55 p.m.

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what are their names, tropworker?