Double Smoked Salmon Bagel Review - The Brooklyn Cafe in Newington, NH
It’s been two years since my last bagel review! I’ve eaten plenty in the intervening years, but not from any new locations. I’ve been too busy to seek out new places, but I’m determined to get back on track. Since the last post I’ve moved about 30 minutes north of my old apartment, into a house in a more rural area, so there are less options in close proximity.
The Brooklyn Cafe is presently the only kosher cafe in New Hampshire, hidden just off Route 16 in a small plaza. They offer two smoked salmon bagel choices as seen on the menu below: Nova Lox and Double Smoked Nova Lox. This is probably a good time to discuss some of the different types of salmon preparations commonly offered on bagels. This post [1] from the Goldbelly blog provides some clarifying details:
- Traditional Lox (aka belly lox) is cured in salt brine, not smoked. It’s rather salty.
- Smoked salmon is salt-cured (not brined) and cold-smoked. It’s much less salty than lox.
- Nova is also salt-cured and cold-smoked, with milder flavor and smoother texture than traditional lox. It’s namesake is the source location; Nova Scotia. It’s considered particularly desirable as far as smoked salmon goes.
Apparently these terms are used somewhat interchangeably in common parlance, but that should help clarify what we have today for review.
For an extra three bucks, I chose the double-smoked nova option coming in at $13.99. For top-notch salmon at a kosher joint, it seemed reasonable.
Here’s a topside view of the bagel. I chose a poppyseed, which I do think is the superior bagel for salmon.
Separating the two halves, we can see that they gave an incredibly generous portion of salmon with a schmear. Athough the total amount of salmon is quite hefty, the individual slices are thin and manageable; a plus.
Looking at a half of the bagel, we can see the toppings I opted for: red onion, capers, tomato, and cucumber pickle. I don’t think I’ve had bits of pickle on a bagel with lox before, but I was interested to try.
In a word - fantastic. The bagel was toasted perfectly. A crisp exterior matched with a chewy interior. I think this style of toasting is favored in New York, but I’ve never been to NYC. I heard J. Kenji Lopez-Alt describe toasting as the great equalizer of bagels. Pristine bagels and mediocre alike end up meeting somewhere in the middle through toasting. I’ve never had an untoasted bagel from any shop. I don’t know if a lifetime of eating toasted bagels would prejudice me to freshly boiled and baked ones. That’s a matter for another time.
The double-smoked nova lox was mouth-watering. A very soft and smoky flavor that lightly lingered in my mouth after each bite. By comparison, many other lox (loxes? loxen?) I’ve tried feel far too salty. The fish was incredibly fresh. I don’t know if bagel joints usually cut the salmon to order or if it’s done ahead of time, but the freshness of this salmon is nearly unmatched for me.
The cream cheese is also worth bragging about at Brooklyn. Rich, creamy, and fluffy. Almost textured like “whipped” cream cheese, but I don’t think it was. Possibly the best cream cheese I’ve had on a bagel. Good enough to make me want to swear off any future tubs of Philadelphia. As for the toppings, they matched well but simply amplified the salmon. Not too much to say. The pickle bits were much less intrusive than I expected. They added just a little hint of sour that made things more interesting. As far as pickles go, they were very light on the sour/briny flavor.
Rating: 96/100
I think I could eat one of these for breakfast every day and not tire from it. The quality of the salmon was impeccable, matched only by the Pacific salmon I tried at Frolik. This was a very different type of salmon than that - much lighter and less smoky, but buttery smooth. The perfect nova lox paired with a perfectly cooked bagel combine for an unbeatable bite.