For those of you who are familiar with bagels, this could be a very divisive post: New York City vs. Montreal. But this is no simple battle of H&H vs. St-Viateur (each city’s most famous bagel maker, respectively), nor is my very favorite bagel from either of those two places. Unfortunately, it’s not from Zürich either, where I live. So on my transatlantic travels, I often bring back bags of bagels in my suitcase. Into the freezer pre-sliced (a must), they toast perfectly and taste almost like fresh. So where do I go for the best bagel ? Great Neck.

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“I would take the trolley car over the Brooklyn Bridge, get off at Essex Street and visit my grandmother on Eldridge Street.  She would put two pennies in a brown paper bag with a string on it, and drop it out of her window to me from the 3rd floor.   I’d take the bag and walk down the block to get a kasha knish.”

I love hearing stories told by my grandmother of her childhood in Brooklyn and on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.  The streets during those years have certainly transformed since then, with the growth of trendy neighborhoods, apartment buildings,  stylish stores, restaurants and bars.  But thankfully a few of the original food shops remain, including two on East Houston Street – Russ & Daughters Appetizers and Yonah Schimmel’s Knishery.  The latter is where my grandmother’s two pennies were always well spent.

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