Owner Sam Kaplan is one smart cookie starting it off right with something PEACHY!!!!
Peachy reviews Manhattan restaurants.
Period.
MANHATTAN.
Sometimes she'll go to Boston, Washington, or even airports to eat and there are waiting lists in major cities we care about that we have on the "to do" list.
You really have to be something special to be around here and not be in Manhattan for us to feature you, and we were impressed with our first Sam Kaplan experience.
The brand dates back to its convenience store origins in 1977, and it will soon have three brick and mortar locations, another in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan.
Their venues number up to 23 with commercial kitchens considered as they kill it in catering.
They have 30 types of bagels and we have aspirations of trying many!
Sam tells us they have more variety than any other bagel shop in the country.
It started off PEACHY, quite literally, with a Peach Mango refresher with genuine chunks of mango in it and we loved that the straw suited the occasion perfectly and you could drink those mango bits too.
The GreenPoint Special, and of course Bagel Point is in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, is a knockout in presentation and flavor and it's evident that Sam is in it to win it. Nova lox, plain cream cheese, tomato, onion and capers are a nod to classic New York bagels at their finest and note all bagels we had were super fresh and that is how we wanted them: not toasted. Anyone can toast bagels and make them great. You have to actually be great to have wonderful fresh bagels, and Bagel Point has them.
Sometimes we get to a venue and see a tiny arrangement of vegetables and someone calls it a salad. No. THESE are salads and they are exactly what you should be eating so you can have a much longer life of eating bagels! Above, please meet the Bagel Point Salad: grilled chicken, dried cranberries, walnuts, bleu cheese, grapes and sesame ginger dressing. Below, please meet the Greek Salad (and we liked this one better because it reminds us of AMMOS OUR FAVORITE) which is thrillingly filled with Romaine, tomatoes, red onions, cucumbers, feta cheese, grape leaves, lemon juice, olive oil and red wine vinegar. The combination and clear results are superior:
In both cases they put the dressing on the side for our most picky editor.
Note the Omelette Selection is robust, and all omelettes are served with homefries or hashbrowns and a mini bagel or whole wheat toast (but who on earth would not pick the bagel!?!?).
All Eggs are organic.
We tried the Western Omelette which automatically comes with ham, pepper and onion. Turkey ham is used here, and there is no pork. In general we hadn't realized that and this might be our first turkey ham experience ever, and we would suggest you add cheese most definitely-we hadn't asked for it and hadn't had a western omelette without cheese automatically ever. The traditional Bagel Point way is certainly more healthful if you are into that.
Most definitely the pinnacle of your bagel experience here is the standalone bagels, which with the Peachy drink were our favorite. Meet from top left: Plain, Everything, Garlic, Onion, Sesame and Poppy going clockwise: all of these flavors are the ones Peachy chose. The freshness and savory elements in tandem are stellar!
One of the most impressive highlights was the Rosemary Focaccia Bread Panini with Chicken Parm!!! It was total perfection and convinced us they do go beyond the bagel here.
Angel Lucero, Roller, and Sam show us how talented they are!
Cragel is a new word to us!
They have trademarked the Cragel we understand and it is 50/50 Croissant and Bagel and 100 percent delicious according to the turkey bacon cheddar cragel we tried.
Bagel Point impressed us on our first trip and we believe we will have some very exciting news for you in the future, especially in the best part of town: THE UPPER EAST SIDE!!!!!!!!!
