Chubby Bunny

Untoasted Bagels

It turns out that we had bagels today on two separate occasions. What can I say? Great palates taste alike? Wait, no that sounds like a case of mono waiting to happen.

Anyway, in between finishing up at the hospital and going to meet up with Ian, I got hungry. This was after finally going to a practice room at school and actually practicing for a bit.

What to eat?
What to eat?

That question banters at me the most when I am solo. There are two things in life that Ian once challenged me to do. One was to watch a movie alone. Not daunting at all, though I haven’t found a movie lately that I would actually want to watch. Another is to actually eat alone. In a restaurant.

Today I was half-way there with the second challenge. Maybe.

Au Bon Pain is a restaurant that can be best described as fast-casual. It’s self-service and pay before you eat. There’s tax, but no gratuity. It’s a better option than fast-food places like Starbucks, McDonald’s and so forth– places I visit once a year at most.

What’s great about Au Bon Pain is that everything is carby. They sell pastries, bagels and sandwiches. Also, there’s yogurt, fruit cups and candy. Yes, some of it is overpriced, but some of it is priced standardly.

Asiago Cheese Bagel– I’ve read before that eating a bagel is almost the same as having 5 slices of bread. I’ve had days when I’ve had five slices of bread dispersed throughout the day. But in any case, the bagel was not pre-heated or pre-toasted. Even so, the cheese gave it enough flavor to be eaten sans cream cheese or any other filling.

Surprisingly, it was very moist inside. This would probably be an indication that it was baked fresh and hasn’t had the chance to get stale. And yes, Ian, I ate this sitting on a bar stool swinging my feet in the air occasionally, like a little kid.

Later in the day, after our adventures, Ian decided to get a bagel with cream cheese and a drink. I picked up something to sip on as well for a late-afternoon pick me up.

Is that an onion bagel? I love onion bagels.
Nope. Everything.

An everything bagel entails…everything from onion to sesame seeds to poppy seeds. (But where are the raisins and the cinnamon? Ooh, that’s so not everything…) Ian got his with cream cheese.

And to go with it was his bottle of sparkling lemonade.

Lorina’s Sparkling Blueberry Lemonade is made with sparkling water, citric acid and juice. It made me think about the bubbly sodas that you can get in Italy that are made by adding sparkling water to syrup.

As for me, I decided to try Honest Tea’s products on a whim.

Honest Tea’s Peach Oo-La-Long really is “just a tad sweet.” Everything, according to the ingredients, is organic and freshly brewed. It was a good blend of tea, peach pureè, and a little bit of cane sugar. The bottle is also a really sturdy plastic; they used to use glass. But wait, there’s more! They have a penguin dressed in French-style clothing posing with a peach on the label. That’s definitely a winner.

Both Au Bon Pain and Smiler’s have locations throughout the city.