The cinnamon crunch bagel from [url=http://www.panerabread.com/index.php]Panera** is a bit of heaven on Earth. Untoasted, with a thin layer of cream cheese. Mmmmmmmmmm.
Sheri
You’re all heathens in need of a taste bud transplant.
Cinnamon? Raisin? Blueberry? OFF WITH YOUR TONGUES!
The only real bagels are poppy seed or sesame seed, from St-Viateur, Fairmont, or that place in the Faubourg in Montreal.
Barbarian-No offense, but I think your obvious lack of taste stems from the poppy seeds clouding your brain. 
Hehehe…
mmmmmm…raisins…
bella–who won’t go into what blueberry bagels look like
[sub]::coughcoughswirledsewagecough::[/sub]
When I married my nice Jewish boy from Sheepshead Bay, we had a lot of things to reconcile. The Catholic/Jewish thing, the Midwest/New Yawk thing, the house/apartment thing.
And then, of course, there were the bagels.
I used to enjoy a nice cinnamon raisin bagel with lox and lite vegetable cream cheese.
Now, we get our bagels fedexed from H&H (along with the hand-sliced smoked sturgeon from Zabar’s). Said bagels are plain, or salt or onion.
Compromise is important to a working relationship. Why, imagine my surprise when I found that my loss in the bagel battle was actually rather… pleasant. Re-education and cultural diversity for everyone!
If it ain’t hard and chewy, it’s a roll with a hole, not a bagel.
Bagels are made to be salty/savory. Sweet bagels are just wrong. (exception made for that french toast bagel because it’s so wrong it’s right. Almost a pastry.) Ditto for fruity cream cheese…
Now that was just cold and uncalled for!! Not to mention untrue!
Swirled sewage, pssshaw! More like an accurate picture of the heavens, swirling around a bagelly center, to provide lovingly fulfilling food for the soul. Beautiful deep sea colored blue nuggets of delightfulness to entice the tummy, swirling in its silent siren call to enchant the consumer.
There could be no sweeter thing!
I’m with you on this. A pox on the sweet bagels! Gimme a plain (or a nice Egg) Bagel with butter and I’m a happy man as well.
Toasted onun wit butta.
Have two Panera’s near me, and love the asiago bagel (Love the asiago focaccia even more, but the thread is bagels.) Plain, nothing on them.
Same with the cinnamon bagel, yum.
And a plain toasted bagel is always enjoyed.
A stale bagel, because you can throw it away without eating it.
Poppy or sesame with plain cream cheese, and lots of it!
Rule number 1: All bagels must be boiled (in the manufacturing process). If it’s not boiled, it’s not a bagel.
Rule number 2: Fruit in bagels are an abomination against God.
Rule number 3: Reread rule number 1. If the outside isn’t hard a crusty, it’s just round bread.
Rule number 4: Toasting, while a decadant practice, is acceptable if the bagel is over a day old. A fresh bagel should never be toasted – it’s naturally crunchy.
Rule number 5: A truly great bagel is one that’s still warm from the oven.
Rule number 6: Bagels and cream cheese are a marriage made in heaven. Butter is acceptable as a second-rate subtitute for the real thing.
Now that we’ve established the ground rules, I’m quite flexible. Poppy, sesame, or “everything” are quite acceptable, but, given the choice, I’d go with an onion bagel with veggie cream cheese, probably from Bruegger’s.
Realitychuck-You are OBVIOUSLY a fundamentalist, and you know you can’t spell fundamentalist without “mental”. Why I agree with the 6 Bagel Commandements for the most part, I totally disagree with Commandment number 2. I think your translation is wrong. See when you translate Ancient Greek to English you have to know the context in which it is spoken. You simplified the Commandment by saying “Fruit in bagels are an abomination against God.” When in all actuality the Ancient Greek reads like this: “Fruits in bagels are an abomination against God”.
Taken in its original context this was to mean that people who made love to bagels were an abomination. They fouled the sacred food. Fruit by the way was the ancients way of saying “strange person”, not the modern connotation of homosexual.
In order of preference: Cinnamon Raisin, Salt, and Plain. All with cream cheese slathered on them.