Hot Dish

The number of bagel stores in Dallas is mind-boggling. In the past few years, the bagel has burst out of its East Coast boundaries and overrun the restaurant landscape like kudzu. Pizza-flavored bagels, chocolate chip bagels, bagel pizzas, bagel sandwiches, bagel chips--you name it, it has been bageled. There are close to 50 bagel stores around Dallas, and certainly proximity is a primary reason for choosing your personal favorite bagel bakery, but ours is Einstein Bros. There are several locations; we frequent the one tucked into Preston Center behind Boston Chicken where the bagels are baked on the premises. I still prefer my bagel plain, with cream cheese, but Einstein Bros. serves 16 varieties of bagel, its own line of packaged schmears, and a menu of bagel sandwiches.

--Mary Brown Malouf

Einstein Bros., several locations