Real New York Bagel and Lox, at its Best

Anthony Bourdain listed it as one of the 13 places to eat before he dies, but this place goes beyond that. Russ & Daughters has been a specialty purveyor since 1914 and this institution has been handed down four generations of the Russ family.

You can get their smoked fish to go, or some caviar, or a gift package. Bourdain talks about their traditional Jewish style herring and their smoked sable. Me, I was there to grab a bagel and lox for my flight back home. I didn't think I should attempt taking herring on the plane and eating it. (Should I?)

There's always a line to order, and when you get to the front you better know what you want. Which can be difficult. Very difficult.

The bagel: plain, onion, everything, sesame, etc?
The cream cheese: plain, scallion, tofu, or - if you want to be extra indulgent - caviar?
The lox: Scottish, Nova, Norwegian?

I wanted to focus on the cream cheese and lox, didn't want to splurge extra, and for bagel it's always scottish salmon for me, so this is what I ended up with:

Plain bagel, scallion cream cheese, scottish smoked salmon

Priced around $9, how was it? First, the bagel. It was the only bagel I ate in New York and it was better than the ones in L.A. Anything better in NYC? Probably, I wouldn't know. The scottish salmon was of course excellent. Russ & Daughters definitely acquired high quality products for their smoked fish. But I can get high quality lox elsewhere, so in the end, it's all about the cream cheese for me. It wasn't just the variety, it's the fresh double-whipped creamy spread, with the fresh chopped scallions.

Was it worth the $9? Oh yes.
(Was it worth the extra cab fare for the detour between Times Square and JFK, plus the wait time while I get the food? Well ... maybe if I had walked down the street for Katz also, because that ended up being one expensive cab fare :P )

Russ & Daughters
179 E Houston St
New York, NY 10002
(212) 475-4880
www.russanddaughters.com