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| - I stopped by here at 6:15 this morning to grab a bagel before catching a bus downtown to board the train. While Bruegger's downtown may be more convenient to the train station, this place is more convenient to my apt., and I prefer the bagels here. That said, it'd been awhile since I'd had a bagel from here.
Having heard good things about the bagel sandwiches here, I intended to order the nova lox sandwich. When I ordered a "bagel with lox," the employee at the counter thought I meant the bagel with lox cream cheese. Upon asking her if it had cream cheese in addition to lox and how much it cost, she clarified that it had cream cheese with lox, and that it was $2.95, whereas the lox bagel sandwich cost $7. Given the substantial price difference, and that I wasn't looking for a super-heavy breakfast, I decided to go with the former on a wheat everything bagel. Since there was nobody else there, it only took about 5 min. from the time that I ordered to the time that I left with the bagel.
After having caught a bus downtown and boarded the train, I proceeded to eat the bagel. Although it had been toasted, it wasn't warm anymore when I unwrapped it--but that was to be expected. The bagel itself was chewier and more rubbery than I'd like, to the point that I found it laborious to bite off pieces, which may have been at least partially due to the fact that I didn't eat it right away. The lox cream cheese, on the other hand, was great--based on my experience with Breugger's, I'd expected lox-flavored cream cheese, or perhaps cream cheese with tiny pieces of lox in it, but it had substantial chunks of lox. In light of this, I didn't regret my decision to forego the lox bagel sandwich.
Overall, I stand by my preference for the Bagel Factory over Bruegger's, despite the uneven quality of this particular bagel. I've never ordered anything other than bagels here, so I can't comment on the quality of the other items. Service has always been friendly and efficient, which I appreciate, given that my main occasion for stopping by is occasions such as today, when I have to catch an early morning train or flight.
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