Monday, September 6, 2010

Leo's Bagels - Financial District, NYC

I think I mentioned a couple of times in my past few posts that my primary school friend from Singapore visited us last weekend. We managed to squeeze in quite a lot of NYC sights within those two days. One of the first places that we brought her bright and early on Friday morning was the Financial District. After all, you cannot really say that you have visited NYC unless you have seen the NYSE, Wall St, the Charging Bull at Bowling Green and Battery Park (among other stuff, of course). I also gave her a list of 'must eats' whenever one visits NYC. Apart from the ever popular NYC pizza and hot dogs, bagels are way up there on that list. I don't know why NYC bagels are oh so good. Must be the water :D
Since we were in the Financial District, Kevin and I decided to take her to Leo's Bagels for breakfast (well, it was supposed to be breakfast but it ended up being brunch :P). Located in Hanover Square, Leo's Bagels seriously have the best bagels in Lower Manhattan. Huge, chewy and uber delicious, this self proclaimed "Bagels with Chutzpah" are freshly hand rolled everyday. No wonder there are always a steady stream of customers pouring in and out of this small cozy shop.
The interior of Leo's Bagels is really small. You can find their rather large menu on the wall as well as check out their home made salads, a variety of spreads and assortment of smoked fish inside the glass counter. Of course you can also smell freshly baked bagels from the kitchen as well as we check out their bagel selections in wire baskets on the right side of the shop. The lines can be pretty long at times but it's usually rather fast moving.
Look at the variety of spreads offered at Leo's. They range from regular cream cheese, flavored cream cheese (scallion, vegetable, sun dried tomatoes and roasted garlic, maple raisin walnut, kalamata olive, jalapeno, strawberry), organic tofu spreads, hummus to their popular "Toffuti" (Tofu Cream Cheese). You can even get spreads like butter, jelly, peanut butter and Nutella!
Also check out their home made salads as well as their selection of smoked fish and various types of cheeses. Among some of the salads offered are tuna (also available in low fat), whitefish, egg, baked salmon, herring, chicken, chopped chicken liver, shrimp, lobster and Waldorf. The Leo Salad is a popular choice among their customers. It consist of egg salad, Bermuda onions and smoked salmon. I was also very impressed with their huge selection of smoked fish. There are about 13 different types of smoked fish to choose from. Yummy stuff!
There are only limited sitting room available in Leo's. After ordering and getting our food, we couldn't decide it we should eat in or take our food elsewhere to eat. There is only one small counter with five seats available for dine in customers. We were pretty lucky that we managed to get seats, so we decided to just eat in. I guess most of Leo's customers take out their order.
Kevin ordered the Cinnamon Raisin Bagel with Regular Cream Cheese ($2.50). He said that it was very good. There are quite a lot of different bagels to choose from. There are thirteen different types of regular bagels (plain, multi grain, onion, poppy seed, pumpernickel, sesame..etc), three healthy organic flavors and five different types of Artisan breads (Jewish rye, onion rolls, country white...etc). If you were to just buy a bagel (minus the spreads), it would set you back $1 for the regular ones and $1.35 for the organic bagels. A 'Brokers' dozen (14 bagels) cost $12 for regular bagels and $16.20 for organic.
My friend Wendy also ordered the Cinnamon Raisin Bagel but with Strawberry Cream Cheese ($2.50). Leo's are really generous with the cream cheese, just check out the amount they slapped on her bagel. She also said that it was really yummy and good. Looks good to me too!
I decided to try something that they are famous for. Smoked fish and bagels. So, I ordered the Multi-Grain Bagel with Eastern Nova Scotia Salmon and Cream Cheese ($8.95). Look at the amount of cream cheese they slapped on. The bagel sandwich was sooooo huge, I couldn't even finish it. So, was it good? Yeah it was. It was super yummy!!! The bagel was really doughy and chewy, just the way I like it. Not only that, the smoked salmon was really fresh. Everything in the sandwich complimented each other so well, it was so so good! No wonder Leo's Bagels is known to have the best bagels in Lower Manhattan. Simple delicious! I must make a trip down to Leo's Bagel sometime soon to buy home a Brokers dozen or two!!


Leo's Bagels - Financial District, NY
3 Hanover Square
New York, NY 10004-4015
Tel: (212)785 4700
Web: http://www.leosbagels.com/

1 comment:

Twilight Man said...

Drool! I really love American bagels. The closest we can have is Auntie Anne's here which is not so yummy! Why don't you perfect the recipe and franchise to Malaysia?