Philip Fibiger

The two most available bagels in Orlando are those at Einstein Bros. and at Panera. Both of these are like high-end Lenders bagels, they’re really just bread with a hole in it. The bagels don’t have any bite to speak of. I did some pretty exhaustive searching online, and found reference to a place called “Bagel King” in two different locations nearby, neither one existed when I drove by. Yahoo Local pointed me toward a Bruegger’s location six or seven miles south of me. I used to drive an hour and a half each direction for Bruegger’s Bagels from Los Angeles to deep in Orange County, so that would have been fantastic. When we got there, I found a sub shop that looked very much like it used to a Bruegger’s at some point in the near past. Neither Whole Foods nor Fresh Market had particularly good bagels. All was lost.

As expected, Chowhound came to the rescue. Someone pointed out that there’s a Bagel King in a shopping plaza at the corner of Semoran (436) and Howell Branch Rd. The bagels are a little salty, which could have been an isolated case of over-salting the boiling water. This is a minor quibble, and overall the bagels are excellent. The woman behind the counter had to go to the back to get my bagels (the baskets were empty) and ended up giving me 20 bagels to my dozen. Without question we’ll be back.