As I noted in an earlier FB post, in a sorta do-over, the Washington Post decided to revisit its previous rankings of top bagel places in the Washington DC area. The paper previously ranked Pearls as the number 1 bagel shop. Wow. So it seemed right for them to revisit their clearly erroneous decision after the entire world complained. They said “we overlooked some of the best bagels in town.” So sad. What were they doing?
Anyway they did the do-over and, no surprise, Pearls dropped from number 1 to number 3. First place went to Brooklyn Bagels and second place went to Baked by Yael. Where’s my personal fav Bethesda? Not even in their top 5. Im looking for something sharp to stick in my eye right now.
I visited Baked by Yael, Pearls, Bagel Uprising, Brooklyn, and Bethesda Bagels. Of all of these places, this is the only one I brought home:
It’s not that the rest of the places were bad, just not as good as Bethesda. Anyway, my first stop was Pearls.
Pearls is a cute place and the staff are super friendly. If you can grab one of the few tables, great place for coffee. The bagels are ok, just ok, really designed for a bagel sandwich. That means they are mostly soft and pillowy. There is no discernible difference between Pearls and Bagel Uprising – bagels made for sandwiches. This is not a bagel shop for purists or bagel snobs. The everything bagel was good but the plain bagel was the best.
Baked by Yael was not what I expected. This place really is a bakery, not a bagel shop. Their cakepops looked yummy, but I passed. Ditto the panda toys.
The bagels were flavorful but a bit salty. I did like the flavor. The bagels were underproofed. The everything was overly coated in poppy. This should be illegal:
The bagels came oddly wrapped in tin foil and not cut in half but there it is. I thought all bagel places knew how to use bakery paper and cut a bagel in half. You can see these bagels are underproofed by these pics:
Overall the flavor was elevated, blisters and corn meal only on the bottom, discernible skin with a crunch I liked, but underproofing made them quite dense. I wouldn’t go out of my way for these and I’m a bit confused why the Post thinks they belong in the top 5.
Brooklyn Bagels was respectable enough. The bagels are large but not overly so. There was a thin skin but really no crunch. The flavor just …. neutral, nothing to write home or blog about lol. The toppings don’t really help because they are quite stingy. Here’s the everything bagel:
Here is the Onion bagel (with lox, capers, tomato and red onion):
I do agree with the Post that Brooklyn Bagels is better than Pearls and certainly better than Baked by Yael, but Brooklyn Bagels is absolutely not the best bagel in the DC area. That honor goes to Bethesda Bagels.
This is what a bagel shop should be. Proud display of a wide variety of bagels, stacks of flour bags on the floor and a massive boiling kettle of water with steam making the place feel like a rain forest.
How can you possibly get better than that? The bagels are flavorful, with a crunch skin on the outside, but soft enough on the inside with a nice balance of density and chewiness. Toppings top and bottom are generous. I do think their bagels are too large and they sell a mini bagel that’s too small, but I can deal with that problem.
The Baker's Dad 