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Is there a decent bialy to be had in this town?
sharkfin is after the Polish-Jewish yeasty rolls, which come with onions and sometimes poppy seeds or garlic pressed into an indented bellybutton near the center. Sound like a bagel, minus the hole in the middle? Almost, but unlike a bagel, a bialy should be baked instead of boiled, and it has a thinner, crisper crust.
Some of us do know the difference. "Berkeley Bagel's bialys are NOT bialys," says rccola, explaining that they are mere bagels with onions on top. We are not fooled, Berkeley Bagel, we are not fooled. (Although chemchef thinks they're actually pretty decent.)
hyperbowler says The Cheese Board sells a California-fied version of a bialy made with sourdough starter, olive oil, and sea salt. Still, it's a legit bialy, hyperbowler says. And they often sell out before lunchtime, so get in line early or risk disaster.
Should those options fail, the devoted might turn to Mimi Sheraton's The Bialy Eaters for a history lesson, or to Rose Levy Beranbaum's recipe, described here.
The Cheese Board Collective [East Bay]
1504 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley
510-549-3183
Discuss: Bialys in San Francisco Area
Anyone remember the Bialistock Bakery on 16th Ave. and 47th St. in Brooklyn? Heaven on Earth for five cents (in 1958, that is).
There's no good bagel in th Bay Area, so it's unlikely there's a good Bialy.
As for bagels, the best bagels are in Montreal and London. Both places have their own style of bagel, completely different from the NY bagel, and both are so distinct that they are not susceptible to a gradual dilution into something nowehere near as good, like the NY bagel.
While Izzy's Brooklyn Bagels in Palo Alto has been ruining their previuosly decent bagels by fluffing them up, their bialys are rather good.
The Cheese Board makes good ones, I don't know the schedule. Maybe one or more of the Arizmendis too. (Now if SFBA could only come up with a good bagel maker!)
I believe the true bialy is now only available in the "minds" of older Jewish people. Even Kossar's on the Lower East Side of New York, the #1 original Bialy Store and the best has dropped in quality, in my opinion.
While the store itself retains the original look and ambiance, the owners are not the originals and they have shamelessly dropped in quality and taste so that it feels like your just...+READ
I believe the true bialy is now only available in the "minds" of older Jewish people. Even Kossar's on the Lower East Side of New York, the #1 original Bialy Store and the best has dropped in quality, in my opinion.
While the store itself retains the original look and ambiance, the owners are not the originals and they have shamelessly dropped in quality and taste so that it feels like your just eating a warm, out of the oven, piece of awful cardboard.
The best thing about Kossar's Bialy was the the amount of garlic, onion, oil mixture placed in the center depression it perfumed the rest of the bread to perfection.
I suppose the new owners wanted to save money so they place barely a half of a teaspoon of the garlic/onion mix. What you get is something that is bland and uninteresting. The bialy might appear like it's the "one" but, believe me, I've had the originals and they were delicious and this wanna be replica? it just isn't.
Once you've eaten the real deal Bialy, that little masterpiece stays in your mind forever!
As impossible as it is to find a righteous bagel in New York or New Jersey made the true and right way, it is equally impossible to find the real deal bialy.
As the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge are iconic New York structures, so too were bagels and bialies. New York was really all about the bagels and Bialys anyway alas, only the bridge and building remain but the "TRUE" and bagel and bialy are lost to time.-COLLAPSE