I liked 'em both:
Midnite Bagel and Arizmendi Bakery
Midnite Bagel
This morning, we ventured over to try out the Sourdough bagels at Midnite Bagel - a place that started as a pop-up, then became so successful that they tried to open a permanent place, which ultimately didn't work out as planned and has to close down next week. It sounds like they're still planning to do pop-ups, which hopefully will work out for them long-term.
When we got there this morning, their power had gone out, (they can't catch a break, so it seems) so they were selling their batch of bagels and nothing else. I felt bad for the person working behind the counter because they had to keep telling every patron the bad news.
I got a plain sourdough bagel and it was exactly as advertised: it had a nice chewy outer skin and a soft interior like what I look for in a NY-style bagel, and then the taste wound up sour in the same way as when I eat a piece of one of the sour batards that we regularly get from the local stores.
Arizmendi Bakery
When we finished at the farmer's market, there was a long line down the block that led to Arizmendi Bakery, so we decided to wait and try it out. It turned out that most of the line was because they weren't letting folks into the actual store for covid precaution reasons, and they just had a counter next to the items to order neatly arranged in a case that took up the entire window facing the curb.
We had planned on getting some pastries, but as we had time to look at the offerings, we learned they also had some of our favorite marinated sheep and goat feta, a sour batard, and a half dozen of the thickest, puffiest English muffins I've ever seen.
The food has been good so far, but even better was learning:
- That it was a worker-owned cooperative
- That it had multiple locations in the bay (Mission, Oakland, and Emeryville, in addition to the Inner Sunset)
- That it was also part pizzaria and the pizzas looked great
