Bagels Archives - hungry and fit

We have just arrived back from a nice 5-day vacation on the magical East Coast! We went out to visit Chris’ family (he’s from New Jersey/New York) and also see some friends. We had planned to prepare posts for each day ahead of time…but obviously that didn’t work. We have a little pathetic excuse, that there was no wifi we were able to get onto in the house…but still, sorry! I hope this post of deliciousness and friends will help you forgive us. It will be picture-heavy and text-light.

It was an early start to the Wednesday of us flying out–6:30am flight called for a 3:15am wake-up. We drove the car over to the airport and had a nice smooth ride, stopping briefly in Minneapolis before arriving at Newark. Since everyone who could pick us up were working, we decided to take it slow and just take public transportation back to Chris’ town, Midland Park, New Jersey. We got to the train station, his mum picked us up and we had an early first dinner of some good Chinese food. Two hours and a chiropractic appointment later, we had another dinner with his brother at a great thin-crust pizza. We finished that night off with some great Van Dyk’s ice cream and played video games all night with a good friend, Po.

Po & Chris, ice cream buds

On Thursday, we wake up bright and early (not getting much more than 5 hours sleep…who sleeps on vacation, right?) and pack in the car with Chris’ mum to visit Chris’ sister in Pennsylvania, right outside of Philadelphia. And grabbed delicious bagel sandwiches on the way! It was a great day of relaxation, visiting Chris’ niece, adorable puppy, spending quality family time, and watching movies like Hotel Transylvania and Puss in Boots. We didn’t get home until around midnight and collapsed right to sleep.

Chris and his niece on a walk

Puppppyyyyyy

On Friday, it was another early-wake-up day for us because we were visiting the city–New York! We had a great day seeing lots of friends from college. We found our way to my friend Mary Kate via bus and had a great breakfast with her before she headed into her super awesome 60 Minutes work. Then we took the good old 1 train uptown to the college where we met, Manhattan College. We got to meet up with some friends who still are attending, some who drove in for the day just to see us, and our old bosses. Chris got to fit in a leg workout while I hung out with my old JustPeace (a social justice club I led) club while they held an event. I got to see Kathleen and Hilary here.

Times Square, crazy to be back

Yum

hi!

Roomates 4 lyfe

My boss (Lois), Kathleen, and I

Quad livin’

Sweaty buds

After that (still Friday), we grabbed Kathleen and kidnapped her back downtown where we forced her to see The Grandmaster (review coming soon), which was pretty epic at one of our favorite indie theatres at Lincoln Center. We walked around Central Park for a bit before walking down to the famous Halal Cart which came from humble beginnings but is now 3 carts deep. We chowed down on some platters and then met up with Allan to go to the Yankee game. It was a lot of fun and we got great seats! Pretty good game too–2 of Chris’ favorite players hit homers. We then got a ride back to New Jersey, had some ice cream, then went to sleep.

Central Park walk

Chowing on Halal–thanks for the pic, Kathleen

DROOL.

Yankee game

On Saturday, we actually slept in! All the way until 9am! I know–crazy. While we waited for our friend, Allan, to wake up, we went and visited Abma’s Farm for some baked goods and sheep humor. After that, and he still wasn’t up, we went to the local Wildlife Conservatory which has beautiful paths and only animals that need rehabilitation. We finally met Allan, Jane Kim (a friend of Chris’) and her boyfriend at a new place in town for “brunch” (…at 12:30pm). Although we were wary about prices and reviews, it turned out to be delicious and a great time! We walked around town afterwards, got some boba, and hung out at the Ridgewood Park. We then grabbed a Tony’s Pizza to eat the next day (because they would be closed on Sunday). Later that night, Chris’ whole family went out to hibachi and it was delicious! Then after, we of course got more ice cream and went to sleep.

This sheep had the deepest voice ever…creepy

Beautiful nature walk

My delicious breakfast burrito at brunch

Friends

Best pizza I’ve ever had

Hibachi!

We have another late morning wake-up on Sunday, this time around 8:30. I decide to go for a easy-paced run in the morning while we get started on the day. We basically spent the entire day visiting Chris’ many aunts and uncles–it was really nice to meet all of them as I hadn’t met many before. That night we met up with Pablo and Brit (Chris’ close friends) and we drove 15 miles to go to East, a restaurant with sushi on a conveyor belt. Delicious! We then watched Here Comes the Boom (surprisingly awesome movie) and, of course, got some more ice cream.

Nom nom nom

Now it’s Monday, and we’re wondering how this vacation is already over! However…our flight wasn’t until 7pm so we had a good amount of time to spend with friends before we took off. We had a nice breakfast with Pablo and Brit that morning while we waited for Allan and Po to roll out of bed. I got way too much food…brie-stuffed french toast, eggs, home fries, and toast! We then meet up with everyone else and to everyone’s disappointment, Chris coerces us to go see the Percy Jackson movie. Okay maybe not coerced, but reactions were definitely amusing. After that movie, we all piled into cars and rushed to Mitsuwa (which will be getting its own post), which is a magical place that makes you feel like you’ve stepped into Japan. Once we gobble down some delicious food, Allan is nice enough to take us down to JFK in Labor Day traffic. We owe him a big one.

Brie-stuffed french toast. yup.

And that was our trip! We had a pleasant flight and watched Great Gatsby (review coming soon) to make the 4.5 hours go by quickly. We are still catching up on sleep, and apologize again for the lack of posts, but here we come on full throttle! I’m probably forgetting a lot in this post, but I did what I could from memory! Make sure you travel to stay hungry and fit!

Thunder storm below us

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BONUS KITTY PIC

Kathleen and I ^.^

So, I’m not actually talking about those delicious little treats that can be found in the frozen food aisle. We know as long as you toast them in the oven and steer clear of the microwave (best-worst invention ever) that they’ll be reliably delicious, in a very cheap sense. I’m talking about pizza and bagels, specifically in Boulder. This will be similar to the sushi post; another rant because I’m not comfortable/in-shape so no fitness posts quite yet.

Now I won’t say that New Jersey or even New York has the best sushi, although Masa is supposed to be top notch, but it does truly have, overall, the best bagels and pizza in the United States, and from what I’ve tasted, in the world. I’m not talking about gourmet style artisan pizza, for the record, I’m talking about a good old fashioned throw it in the oven family style pizza pie. Some people say it’s the water where we’re from, some people say it’s the dense population of Italian-Americans, and some people say its the climate. I don’t know what the secret is, but there most certainly is a difference. And that has become very apparent in Boulder.

New Jersey

When Alana first came to New York, she thought she had good pizza in the city, but I brought her to New Jersey and had her experience real pizza. She’s stubborn and proud (in a good way) but she easily admitted how good it was. Then we moved onto bagels, where North Jersey took it home again. No competition. So growing up with pizza and bagels all the time, I wanted to keep eating them in Boulder. Alana didn’t object because the ones she had in Jersey made her crave them all the time. Then we got to Boulder and tried…

Cosmos, Blackjack, and Abo’s… and for bagels we went to Moe’s (all of these were recommended by individuals who have lived in Boulder… for their whole lives)… this is how it breaks down. And for the record, Colorado Daily, you had an article last week that talked about Abo’s being New York Style Pizza… you clearly don’t know what it is and you should do some more research before you put it into circulation. Here, I can make a mistake, because no one reads this.

We’ll go from worst to best.

Moe’s – Overpriced in every sense. The bagels are much more expensive than back home, they’re literally half the size, maybe even a third, and they don’t have the proper texture. I saw that a New York Style Bagel Sandwich was nearly $8. It had tomato, onion, lox, cream cheese, and something else. I had never heard of that before… so there goes the authenticity. Even if it is authentic, it can’t be because people from New York would know! Plus, that sort of sandwich wouldn’t be more than $4 back home, and it’d be twice the size. Moe’s bagels are smaller and harder than Dunkin Donuts. We had the Italian and the Pesto, and they were little rocks. I can’t even put into words what it’s like to bite into a bagel back home, but it was the total opposite of this. I got an egg and cheese on the pesto bagel. The egg was one of those disgusting pre-made patties. This was just garbage. Alana disagreed but I gave this place a 0/5, no questions asked. I wouldn’t consider going back there again. But then again, there are several locations. They didn’t even have ketchup so I could drown the taste of that horrible sandwich. Her Italian bagel with cream cheese was better, but still not even good

Blackjack – Horrible Domino’s ripoff. Same style but worse taste and texture. We didn’t know it was like that so it was our mistake. If we want that kind of cheap late pizza we’ll never go back to Blackjack. Domino’s is the easy choice, same price and better quality. Delivery service was good though.

Abo’s – Again, that article was very off in calling this New York style. It’s not. The texture wasn’t bad either… the texture was in fact almost good enough to want to get again. It was the taste that killed it for me. It tasted like… absolutely nothing. Some of the blandest pizza I have ever had in my life. The sauce, the cheese, the dough… all bland. Plus, it was relatively expensive for the size of the pizza. Alana didn’t mind it, but she’s not as picky as I am with pizza. Delivery service was good, but at that price for that serving size and quality, wouldn’t get it again.

Cosmos– There is some real potential here. With the reasonably priced extra large pies, and a solid texture to the pizza, Cosmos is hands down the best we’ve had so far. The marinara is a bit spicy for me, I don’t think it’s the right move, but that’s the chef’s choice and I can’t do anything about it. Even with that spice, it’s still got the texture and flavor to buy again, which is what we did. We’ve already had it twice, and with a jar of spicy ranch in the fridge for Alana, we’ll definitely get it many more times.

Well that’s it for tonight. As we have more pizza and bagels in Boulder and the surrounding areas, I will make sure to update the blog with what we’ve found but until then this is what we’ll have to work with so I’ll be missing Jersey a bit more than normal.

P.S.- This may have sounded kind of harsh, we didn’t hear back from the jobs we wanted today and the darn bulb in the bedroom blew. We love you all! Thanks for reading

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