Best Thing We Ate This Week: shakshuka at Hot Bagels in Lakewood
Editor's Note: "Best Thing We Ate This Week" is a weekly feature highlighting food writers Sarah Griesemer and Gabriela L. Laracca's favorite dishes. Follow along at app.com and Jersey Shore Eats on Instagram.
Most bagel shops offer a pretty straightforward menu: breakfast sandwiches, bagels with cream cheese, muffins and coffee. Some make eggs and pancakes, and maybe sandwiches for lunch.
Hot Bagels, of which there are three in Lakewood, is not like most shops. I didn't visit with bagels in mind. It was the rest of the menu that drew me there, from the cream cheese and lox croissant, breakfast burrito and pizza bagel to a sandwich of cinnamon raisin goat cheese, roasted red peppers, arugula and smoked paprika oil on sourdough.
I dined at Hot Bagels' Second Street restaurant; the others are on River Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard. I knew right away I was in for something good, thanks to a display of beautiful pastries from New York-based Patis Bakery, which opened a cafe in Lakewood earlier this year.
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At the counter, I ordered shakshuka, a dish of eggs poached in tomato sauce. It was the fresh, house-baked sourdough alongside that sold me (you can buy whole loaves at the counter), but the rich tomato sauce was worthy, too. My order came with generously sized cups of butter and scallion cream cheese; spread on the sourdough, their creaminess was the perfect complement to the tomatoes.
One of my gripes with most bagel shops is the coffee. I never find it to be that good. Hot Bagel's is delicious, as were the dulce de leche and honey kouinn amann pastries I got for the road.
A note: Hot Bagels is a kosher bagel shop, so don't expect any meat on your breakfast sandwich — there are plenty of places for that.
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Sarah Griesemer joined the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey in 2003 and has been writing all things food since 2014. Send restaurant tips to [email protected], follow on Instagram at Jersey Shore Eats and subscribe to our Jersey Shore Eats newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Jersey Shore restaurants: Best Thing We Ate is from Hot Bagels
