PrintWhat Londoners Think of New York Food: The 'Madison Avenue Bagel'
There may be nothing funnier than seeing other countries take on your native foods. I hardly anticipated bagel greatness from Bagel Street at London's Heathrow Airport, but it's the sandwiches that were the real laugh. Like the Madison Avenue Reuben:
Named after its origins: It doesn't come more New York than this! Layers of traditional pastrami, sandwiched with juicy gherkins, sauerkraut, cheese and Dijon mustard.
Sad, sad bagels.
Also on the menu: the Harlem Nights (bacon and cream cheese on a bagel), the Tribeca (ham, cheese, and tomah-to), and the East Village "Alternative" Veggie.
The affronts on the proper bagel were too numerous to count--the pastrami piled "authentically" on top, the Dijon mustard, the idea that any of this could be found on Madison Avenue. Truth be told, it wasn't an awful sandwich, particularly as airport lunches go. The bagel, if less flavorful than your average white bread, was crusty and not too dry; the pastrami, while hardly Katz's, was on par with anything at your supermarket. With melted cheese and mustard, it was a perfectly fine mouthful of food.
But I could only imagine the "Classic Italian" Neapolitan Sandwich—a pizza topped with spaghetti and meatballs, say, with Eggplant Parmigiana stuffed into the crust?
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it pleasant. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
26 Comments:
The best bagel sandwich I've had was in Chicago. I'm sure it wasn't "proper" either.
timruddell at 2:11PM on 10/12/09
Oh yes, those bagels at Heathrow are awful. I missed a flight at Heathrow last year, so I ended up spending a day at the airport and had the misfortune of eating a bagel at Bagel Street. Not only was it awful, the woman at the counter yelled at me for trying to take a pic.
Tia Kim at 3:21PM on 10/12/09
Since they;re using mustard instead of Russian dressing, and they've included gherkins, and that cheese doesn't look melted, I'm going to call shenanigans on that thing even being a REUBEN, much less authentically New York.
Yeesh.
Nasty.
When will people realize that the bagel was not meant to be a sandwich bread??
klg19 at 3:29PM on 10/12/09
Those are pretty sweeeet bagel hooks.
Erin Zimmer at 3:38PM on 10/12/09
That reminds me of foreign food in Japan, where they think that piling two things that come from one country on top of each other makes it extra authentic, like putting penne pasta on top of pizza (drizzled with Japanese mayo, of course), or putting a potato salad on top of a hot dog (bafflingly enough, adding a spear of asparagus and a slice of bacon to this creation turns it into what they call the "BBQ hot dog"). It doesn't get more American than that!
Of course, we here are just as guilty. I remember going to an "Irish" pub in Boston and seeing things on the menu like "Celtic Quesadillas," or "Mrs. Murray's Pots o' Gold" (aka, deep-fried chinese dumplings).
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at 4:52PM on 10/12/09
That looks like a bagel shaped brioche roll.
ESNY1077 at 4:58PM on 10/12/09
That reminds me of two items I wrote about about four years ago. The first was Sainsbury's "New York Inspired Sandwich" which comprised "a delicious feast of formed smoked ham, layered with Swiss Emmental cheese and German salami on onion bread." The other is the Pizza Express "American": "A big helping of pepperoni for those who love their flavours strong and simple." Yipe.
English people who complain or comment rudely on American food should do well to remember that they live in England.
shoneyjoe at 5:15PM on 10/12/09
Well, it might not be cool in New York, but I think bagels are great for sandwiches. I've never been into sliced bread sandwiches, I find them kind of awkward, but give me a wrap or a bagel sandwich or a pita sandwich any day, and I am about it. I realize that I will be shunned in some places for this predilection, but I stand by my bagel sandwiches.
lkrier at 7:58PM on 10/12/09
This whole article (and comments) are beyond moronic. Wow, some non US corporarte chain capitalizes on ersatz US food culture? I can just imagine a billion Chinese aghast at Panda Express or Mexicans at Taco Bell or Italians at Pizza Hut or Australians at Outback Steakhouse or almost anything that dominates US fast food culture. Get over yourselves and your indignant reaction to corporations utilizing "foreign" culture for marketing purposes.
You're all acting like a 10 year old Japanese kid coming to the US for the first time astounded that the United States has McDonalds too.
wthrop at 11:01PM on 10/12/09
When I lived in London, I had a devil of a time finding a decent bagel (I'm from NY, that's what I used to eat for breakfast)...Anyway, the ones in Golders Green were decent....but by work in Camden they were dreadful, like rolls with a hole in them. I eventually gave up, but I made my parents schlep bagels from Ess-A-Bagel on the plane when they came to visit!
KateRuby at 11:33PM on 10/12/09
I believe putting pastrami and cheese together is not kosher.
Blue387 at 12:01AM on 10/13/09
I'm a native Texan and was in Austria in around 2002 and they had the "Texas Burger" - it was served on a bagel, with mustard and something else that was just wrong. Also the combo came with broccoli???? I ordered it to see if maybe the flavor somehow managed to still be something "Texan" (like an odd deconstructed experiment). It wasn't. Maybe east Texas? :)
accidentalepicurean at 1:19AM on 10/13/09
@wthrop - Amen.
@KateRuby - Bagels are just different in our respective countries. The place in the above post just isn't representative. You were on the right track with Golders Green but you should also check out the Jewish places further north (Edgware, Finsbury Park; areas in Barnet and Harrow) as well as the Brick Lane Beigel place.
masalha at 6:41AM on 10/13/09
Bagel Street Company is part of the Autogrill Group, so it's actually what a group of Italian businessmen who are looking at the gross profit, not authenticity or quality, think they can pass off as vaguely New Yorkish from an expensive concession to people who did not have the forethought to bring something decent with them to the airport. Now, if you want a real gross generalisation of what Londoners think of New York food, it's that it's either deep-fried, smothered in plastic cheese and sugary sauces or out of a box. I personally love the food in New York and in London, but then I'm not from either place and am open-minded.
lewyintheuk at 7:05AM on 10/13/09
@ wthrop - I am Chinese, and I am aghast at Panda Express. What of it? The point is never to highlight things that are wrong exclusively for the sake of finding the inaccuracies, but to think about what the misconceptions are, and why such impressions exist. I'll admit, I was going for an easy laugh, but I do think it'd be great to export some of the lighter and fresher varieties of food from around this lovely nation, but instead, the perception is that we and our food are seen as loud, boorish, and unrefined. Your comment explains why.
Your indignation would be a lot more believable if you weren't so quick to highlight other people's faults every other time you post.
shoneyjoe at 7:55AM on 10/13/09
@wthrop: I certainly wouldn't dispute that Americans grossly misinterpret the cuisine of virtually every culture we encounter, especially once it gets to the corporate level. (Or even before that, as Kenji points out.) Personally, I'd be interested to read what an Italian thought of Olive Garden; I think it'd be quite entertaining. There was no indignant reaction intended. Simply amusement.
Carey Jones at 8:10AM on 10/13/09
So what's new? You have to come to NYC to get the authentic NYC experience. Let them interpret the bagel anyway they want...We do our own versions of all kinds of cuisine here too!
http://chillonthecheap.wordpress.com/
chillonthecheap.wordpress.com at 10:51AM on 10/13/09
@shoneyjoe: Yes, my comment is indicative of why the rest of the world thinks of Americans as loud, boorish, and unrefined. Yeah, I think you're stretching there a bit for your point, but nice try.
wthrop at 8:34PM on 10/13/09
@Carey Jones: Argee it's all pretty amusing. My point is it's just dumb marketing that's amusing, it's not some (the article presumes naive) culture's underlying misunderstanding of our food culture. In the same way we are under no impression that an onion blossom is some Australian delicacy. Yes, funny how stupid some corporation market's their product, not how stupid this assumes other cultures are about American cuisine.
wthrop at 10:39PM on 10/13/09
apologies for the grammatical errors
wthrop at 10:44PM on 10/13/09
When I was living in London, I was in a small play that was right next to a shop that had a sign out--for the entire rehearsal period and run--'Bacon Bagel.' (I assume it was buttered, too). I commented how ironic this was, but none of my British friends seemed to get why I found it so hilarious.
HeartofGlass at 6:34AM on 10/14/09
When I was a child, my parents would take us to India for the summers, and about a month or two in, we would crave pizza, McDonald's, and all sorts of other representatively American foods. We would whine until my parents buckled and took us to the "Pizza Hut" (total knock off). And of course, every year, we would be terribly disappointed by the Indian version of American pizza. Tomato ketchup instead of tomato sauce, and not nearly enough cheese.
atammal at 10:19AM on 10/14/09
i think its impossible to generalise as there are great bagels in London and New York,but in both cities it pays to search them out,but the best i have had is in 'Harrods' coffee house,just opposite the store.
secrets at 2:39PM on 10/14/09
I always stay away from restaurants here in Canada that advertise "English-style Fish and Chips". For some reason these places seem to think that by just putting the "style" in there, then this makes their food authentic.
My wife and I were once in Manchester, U.K. and decided to give Pizza Hut a try, just to see if there was any difference in taste and quality. We were pleasantly surprised and enlightened to the fact that these huge chains do take the trouble to try and replicate their products wherever they may be!
Turtlewax at 4:19PM on 10/14/09
Reminds me of a menu item I saw in West Virginia, under the rubric "New York Deli" or something similar: Cream cheese, grape jelly and bacon on a "bagel."
Lippy at 5:37PM on 10/14/09
I ate at several different "Mexican" places in Germany back in '91, and shockingly enough they were run by Latinos from El Paso and other places in the US. I have no idea what I was served, but it didn't resemble anything like any iteration of Tex-mex or Mexican food I've ever had. It was much closer to Greek & Turkish food and kebabs. I asked the guys what they thought they were doing and they said they'd caved to bizarre local expectations.
If my weird "tacos"/Mexican gyros (not even vaguely close to a taco, burrito, or gordita - they were entirely new foodstuffs) actually tasted any good, I couldn't have cared less about authenticity. These restaurants think that wrapping themselves in a flag will make people overlook the horrid food they're serving.
Big Guy at 4:24PM on 10/15/09