05.13.06

Jew Eat?

Posted in Jewish, Manhattan, Upper West Side at 4:28 am by Administrator

Some people are walking stereotypes.  I found one in the meat packing district the other day.  It was close to four in the morning, and I was one of countless empty cabs cruising past the Gansevoort Hotel.  A middle-aged couple hailed both me and the cab in front of me.  They kissed briefly, she got into the other cab, and he got into mine.

“I hate women,” he told me, before he even said where he was going.  He was a walking, talking ball of neuroses in thick-rimmed glasses.  Between the fidgety mannerisms and the thick Brooklyn Jewish accent, he might as well have been Woody Allen himself. 

“You seemed to like that one,” I told him once we were one our way up 10 Avenue for the Upper West Side.  He wasn’t really talking to me as much as thinking out loud.

“You know the older I get, the less I understand them. . . women,” he said.  I guess the unceremonial kiss goodnight in front of waiting yellow cabs was not the outcome he had been hoping for.  “I think I’m just going to use my 80-year old aunt Libby’s advice.  She always says I should just hire prostitutes,” he said with real sincerity in his voice.

“Do you want me to stop on 12th Ave and get you a hooker?” I asked.  He ignored me.  “You know what Aunt Libby always says?  She says, ‘Use a professional.  That’s what they’re there for.  It’s just a stroke.  Do it and get on with your life.”

With no traffic to speak of on the west side, we were at his house on 81st Street and West End in no time.  I asked him if there was anything good to eat in the neighborhood that was still open.  I knew what he was going to say before he said it.  “H & H Bagels is open all night.”  I was hoping he might break the stereotype and let me in on some great cuban sandwich or slice of pizza, but, of course, he stayed true to form.

I’ve been to H & H a million times before, because they make fresh bagels twenty four hours a day and sell them for 85 cents a pop.  I’d have to say they are my favorite bagels in New York.  What I didn’t know was the trick the smart people in the neighborhood use to figure out which ones are still hot.

The counter girl is usually just waking from a nap when I walk in, and when I ask her which bagel is freshest she always responds curtly, “They’re all fresh.”  But that is an impossibility, of course, and I only rarely actually pick the one that is still piping hot.

 

My nebishy fare let me in on the secret.  You have to put your hand up against the plastic case and feel for which ones are giving off heat.  Sounds simple, but I’d never thought of it.  That night, H & H must have made the everything bagel just before I walked in.  Everything is not my favorite, but I ordered one because its case was warm. 

(so chewy it ends up smooshed flat)

Squishy on the inside, perfectly chewy on the outside, and almost still wet from the boiling water, I felt like I was consuming the Platonic ideal of the everything bagel that I had heretofore believed only existed on a plane parallel to our own.  I don’t know if Aunt Libby knows what she’s talking about, but her nephew certainly does.

(Here are the ones I took home, still fresh 12 hours later for breakfast)

H & H Bagels, 80th Street and Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan

Check out www.famousfatdave.com for a laugh or to book an eating tour       

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