Sometimes, you don’t feel like walking far away from campus to grab a quick breakfast, or there are days when you want to take a relaxing stroll away from campus, touch some grass, and enjoy the morning sun. When craving a reliable, quick, and delicious breakfast, bagels are the perfect solution: filling, versatile, and easy to customize. You can choose your favorite cream cheese flavor, or if you’re not a fan of cream cheese, you can opt for a bagel sandwich instead. Since college, I made the mistake of signing up for early morning classes, which often left me with little time for breakfast. And as we’ve all heard a thousand times, breakfast is the most important meal of the day since it breaks your overnight fast. Skipping breakfast because of the tight schedule between classes has started to take a toll on me — I’ve been feeling increasingly dizzy on my way to class. But yesterday, while strolling through Target’s bakery aisle, it hit me: I need to buy a reliable breakfast option for my mornings. With so many bagel places around campus, I think I’ve found the perfect solution.
On days when I’m feeling too lazy to venture beyond campus or in a rush, I stick with Canon Cafe’s cheap classic bagels. You can choose from plain, everything, or cinnamon raisin bagels, and the cream cheese options range from strawberry to plain to the heavenly, scrumdiddlyumptious scallion cream cheese. I always go for a sesame bagel, though I haven’t seen it on Grubhub yet. That combo with the scallion cream cheese is divine; the rich, creamy texture of the cheese paired with the fresh, savory flavor of the scallions is unbeatable. Some other days, I feel like venturing out for lunch, and just a block down from campus, right as you exit the Gateway Academic Buildings on 6th and Washington Street, you will spot O’Bagel. Besides acting as a location guide for me to get to campus, their food is exceptionally delicious and reasonably priced. Let me tell you, the Fuego bagel was everything; one of my favorite cheeses is pepper jack, and paired with tender chicken and other sandwich elements, it was a melt-in-your-mouth experience. It was delicious but heavily layered with grilled chicken, pepper jack cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and pickled jalapeños, making it hard to take a bite without it falling apart. O’Bagel itself has a minimalist, industrial vibe, very black and white, and is always packed. In the summer, they decorate the exterior with flowers, which is so pretty. They have endless options, from bagel sandwiches and regular bagels with spreads to breakfast burritos.
There’s also Bagels on the Hudson, which I’ve never tried, so maybe that’s a topic for another article where I’ll share my experience. It’s available on GrubHub, making it super convenient to order and open 24 hours. However, my absolute favorite, a staple from middle school to now, is good ol’ Wonder Bagel. I mean, it’s a classic. They don’t skimp on the cream cheese like other places do. The ratio of bagel to cream cheese is always perfect, and they have all types of cream cheese: scallion, veggie, sun-dried tomato, olive pimento, jalapeño, blueberry, strawberry, walnut raisin … how do they expect me to choose from such a large variety of bagels and cream cheeses? Or should I go for a smoothie or a bagel sandwich? I always end up conflicted but usually settle on a sesame bagel with scallion cream cheese because I can never decide. The bagel always arrives warm and toasty and never tastes stale. Anyway, I’m glad to say I’ve found a solution to my no-breakfast problem. I could never get bored of bagels, and there are too many options to choose from.
