AlwaysInformed: Yonah Schimmel’s Cheese Bagel

GutterGourmet — January 13, 2010

The Cheese Bagel from Yonah Schimmel’s.

There’s a Howard Johnson Express to the right of Yonah Schimmel’s Knishes, and Landmark Sunshine Cinema to the left, but the knishery seems to have made few concessions to the 20th, much less the 21st centuries. One, their use of the microwave, hasn’t been particularly kind to the classic potato knish (though their Kasha Knish is still best in class), it effects the delicate knish skin, makes the mound of potato filling mealy, and scorches the roof of your mouth. But there is an item at Yonah Schimmel’s that may be its redemption: the Cheese Bagel.

The Cheese Bagel ($4.00), which does not appear on the menu board above the counter, is a unique animal. There’s that old parable from India about the three blind men who examine different parts of an elephant without knowing what they’re touching, you know, the one where they violently disagree about what the animal is. Similarly, if three blind(folded) people were to order Yonah Schimmel’s Cheese Bagel and examine it, here is what they’d say:

“It’s not a bagel. It’s twisted like a pretzel”
“It’s soft and breaks easily. It’s a knish”
“It’s too thin to be a bagel or a knish, and the skin is blistered like a bialy.”

Upon tasting the soft sweet farmer’s cheese filling, any of them would have to declare, “you’re wrong, it’s a blintz.” In the end, they’d all have to come to the same conclusion: “Delicious.”