SPOTLIGHT : THE HOLE THING : How Bagels From Seven Local Shops Stack Up

Bagels are hot these days, but they have been on my table since the McCarthy era.

Saturdays during the ‘50s, my mother’s sister Frances, secretary to a fish broker, supplied our family with deli-sized platters of smoked fish. The platters were movable feasts: lox, sable, whitefish and sturgeon--briny, buttery fish cut into thick slices and hefty chunks--alongside huge scoops of whipped cream cheese. Frances also brought around two dozen chewy, doughy bagels, to her the minimum daily requirement for families of five.

In that era, bagels came in two varieties, water and egg. Water bagels were eggshell white, with a hard, crisp outer crust. Egg bagels, which I didn’t much fancy, had a softer texture and a pale orange sheen, the color of melted Creamsicles.

Before the onion bagel, there was the bialy, an unboiled flatbread named for Bialystock, a once predominantly Jewish city in eastern Poland. The bagel may also have a Polish pedigree. It is reputed to have originated circa 1683, when a Polish baker created one to pay tribute to his king, Jan Sobiesky. How the word bagel became part of our language is sketchy. We know that beugel is an old Austrian word for stirrup and that beugen is Middle High German for “to bend.”

The best bagels were--and still are--hand rolled, by bakers skilled at pinching together elongated strips of dough. Punching or stamping a hole in the dough was chicanery to a purist; steaming the dough instead of boiling it, a common way to mass produce the buns that pass for bagels today, would have been unthinkable.

And we didn’t eat bagels because they were low in fat. In my childhood, bagels were a convenient way to hold fatty, salty foods, functioning as a cone does for ice cream.

Today, it’s different. Convenient complex carbos with around 150 to 200 calories each, bagels are fuel for runners, triathletes, business people on the go. Some brands claim to be nonfat, others can have around five grams (plain varieties) or more (trendy versions with indulgent ingredients). The modern bagel comes with chocolate chips, cranberries, jalapen~os, and such exotic substances as sun-dried tomato baked into the dough.

Feh , as my Yiddish-speaking grandmother would have said in disgust.

Should you find yourself in Los Angeles or Santa Monica, I highly recommend Brooklyn Bagel, Noah’s Bagels and New York Bagels, or one of the many small Jewish bakeries in the Fairfax district. In Orange County, it’s a breeze to find hot, fresh bagels at any number of outlets, including the numerous Western Bagel franchises that have been operating in places like Tustin since as far back as 1946.

There’s a good baker’s dozen of bagel companies in the area now, with more on the way. The Karcher family, of Carl’s Jr. fame, plans to open 20 Chesapeake Bagel franchises in Orange and Riverside counties in the coming months. Recently, we sampled a few fruits of the current bagel mania in an informal panel tasting that was admittedly more free-form than scientific.

We visited seven different bagel outlets during one long morning and brought back samples from each to our Costa Mesa offices. In gathering the bagels, I realized that uniformity among samples would be impossible. Costa Mesa’s Sunflour Bakery, for in stance, makes bagels in varieties such as nine-grain, three-seed and sunflower seed, but not traditional ones such as water, egg and garlic. Trader Joe’s, posing a different problem, buys bagels from more than one commercial bakery, making it hard for a consumer to date the stock.

The tasting was mildly controversial too. A member of the panel pointed out that one of our rating criteria, chewiness, was not something he relished.

“What if I don’t like chewy bagels?” he asked.

In the end, bagels were given a composite score reflecting crispness, chewiness and, most important (50% of the score), overall quality. All bagels were tasted untoasted, without toppings.

The results, based on a maximum score of 40 points:

1. I Love Bagels, 28.6.

2. Shirley’s Bagels, 28.4.

3. Baltimore Bagel, 28.

4. The Bagel Bistro, 24.4.

5. East Coast Bagels, 23.2.

6. Sunflour Bakery, 22.4.

7. Trader Joe’s, 11.8.

Now for a look at each of these shops, and what to expect from them.

I Love Bagels

Bagels tasted: water, egg, garlic.

When I Love Bagels, a reasonably priced South County chain, won our informal tasting, there was a measure of Old World justice to the choice. Unbeknown to most of our tasters, this is the only O.C. bagel outlet where it is possible to get a hand-rolled bagel--the mini-bagels made daily in the chain’s Mission Viejo store. Don’t call this sentimentality. The minis are too small to fit in the company’s bagel machine.

Owner Howard Amster makes a mean bialy for 75 cents and sells eccentric flavors such as date nut, super cinnamon raisin and Cheddar jalapen~o--30 varieties in all. The water bagel here has a thick outer skin, which suggests it is boiled longer than most of the competition. (The longer you boil dough, the more it shrinks and hardens on the outside.) Amster also stocks his stores with knishes, deli meats, pickled herring and other noshes, to go along with the obligatory flavored cream cheeses and Nova lox.

29885 Crown Valley, Laguna Niguel. (714) 831-3300. Open 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday. Also in Dana Point and Mission Viejo. Bagels: 45 cents each, 13 for $4.99.

Shirley’s Bagels

Bagels tasted: pumpernickel, jalapen~o, poppy seed.

Shirley’s Bagels, “the bagel maven’s choice,” are made by a native New Yorker named Shirley Merriman. They, too, have a nice outer crust and a high level of gluten. Owner Merriman insists that her product is “the best bagel in Orange County.”

There are 24 types of bagels here, including healthful oat bran, a delicious corn rye and a spicy jalapen~o that was especially popular with our panel. Gourmet bagels such as cheesy onion and pizza are larger, more caloric and carry a price tag of $1.50. The Jamboree Road store has a deli, where you can order a wide variety of sandwiches, including brisket of beef, chopped liver and egg salad.

So much for that “no cholesterol” boast.

3601 Jamboree Road, Newport Beach. (714) 851-1920. Open 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. Also in Costa Mesa and Laguna Beach. Bagels: 65 cents each.

Baltimore Bagel

Bagels tasted: water, salt, poppy seed.

Booming Baltimore Bagel produced my favorite single bagel of the tasting, a terrifically tangy, hard-crusted salt variety. The flyer reminds you that these bagels (like most) are made without preservatives. That brings the adage “nothing is better than a fresh bagel or worse than an old one” to mind. You can always freeze them.

This slick, San Diego-based operation belongs to an entrepreneur named Richard Brau, who started the business in La Jolla 15 years ago with his wife, Rachel. Rachel is the one from Baltimore, it happens.

This is a good, crusty product. Dough is made at a commissary in San Diego, then finished in 500-degree ovens in the individual stores. Craisin is made with whole cranberries, and there’s whole wheat with bran for health freaks.

17655 Harvard Ave., Irvine. (714) 756-8903. Open 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. Also in Brea and Laguna Niguel. Bagels: 50 cents each.

Bagel Bistro

Bagels tasted: water, egg, garlic.

There isn’t a wealth of bagel bakeries in the Fullerton area, but this attractive cafe goes a long way toward making up for that. Bagel Bistro makes all its breads on the premises and even mixes its own cream cheese. Bagels here, as at most local bagel bakeries, are about four ounces; unusual varieties include raspberry, eight-grain and banana walnut.

The bagels were pleasant tasting but didn’t make a strong textural impression--a factor that hurt them in our taste test.

Anything, though, could be improved with some of the whipped cheeses this place offers. I can’t bring myself to schmear up a bagel with such varieties as walnut and raisin, vanilla or strawberry cream cheese, but I’ll vouch for the shop’s garlic and herb, bacon, Cheddar and chives, and whipped lite.

There are many good coffee drinks here too, as well as a small outdoor patio on which to pass part of a morning.

1000 E. Bastanchury Road, Fullerton. (714) 671-9427. Open 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Bagels: 49 and 59 cents each, $4.95 per dozen (except chocolate chip and cheese varieties).

East Coast Bagel

Bagels tasted: water, egg, garlic.

I like these bagels. I even eat them now and again, aside from this tasting, since one of the company stores is close to where I live. The panel did not like them quite as much as I do.

Nonetheless, these are good, chewy bagels (pumpernickel and rye are two of my favorites), and I’ll sometimes indulge myself with one of the sweet, sticky dough sticks they drizzle with cinnamon and sugar.

Pastrami sandwiches and bagel dogs are pretty good here, and I love a strange aberration they call the pletzel. This is a tasty alien species, a crisp, hard, flat and round cracker with no more than a hint of softness in the dough, topped with onion, garlic, sesame, poppy and other flavorful bits. Smear one up with the good house lox spread, and don’t break your teeth.

Center at Rancho Niguel, corner of Greenfield and Crown Valley, Laguna Niguel. (714) 831-5381. Open 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Also in Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita and Long Beach. Bagels: 50 and 60 cents each, 13 for $5.50.

Sunflour Bakery

Bagels tasted: nine-grain, three-seed, sunflower.

Craig Clayton’s wonderful Sunflour Bakery is a local treasure. The bakery produces nearly two dozen kinds of bread, delicious desserts such as chocolate crunch cake, mouth watering muffins . . . and bagels, of course. The bakery products are all-natural: no preservatives, no artificial substances. Because of that, Sunflour’s numerous commercial clients include Mother’s Market and Kitchen, Diedrich’s Coffee and Neiman Marcus.

But conventional bagels these are not.

They are a bit cottony in texture, as if they had been boiled less and baked at lower temperature than a few of the more serious bagels. I quite like the food co-op flavors, nutty, seedy breadstuffs you wouldn’t be surprised to find on a respectable college campus. One of our panelists even remarked, “This is my kind of bagel,” as she bit in. Harrummph. Runners.

Sunflour Bakery, 427 E. 17th St., Costa Mesa. (714) 646-1440. Open 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Closed Sundays. Bagels: 65 cents each.

Trader Joe’s

Bagels tasted: plain, sesame seed.

It isn’t really fair to compare the bagels at Trader Joe’s to those of retail outlet bakeries. For one thing, they are not likely to be hot from the oven, having been stocked en masse from various commercial dealers. One more point is the price. These bagels are often as cheap as 20 cents apiece, a good value if you don’t mind a cottony, unpleasant texture and a bland, honey-sweetened aftertaste. I’d eat them in a pinch, toasted.

All is not lost. Trader Joe’s is definitely your best bet for lox, salmon and low-priced, good-tasting packaged cream cheeses. Great alder wood-smoked salmon is cheaper here than in the Northwest. Lox here is fully half the price, with little or no loss of quality, of the stuff you find in many of the aforementioned bagel stores.

2500 Imperial Highway, Brea. (714) 257-1180. Open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Also in Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Laguna Hills, San Clemente and Long Beach. Bagels: half a dozen $1.09 and $1.19.