Go ahead and toast it if you want…it’s ok.
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Yes its an unwritten NYC bagel rule. Like not stealing 2nd base if you’re up 8-1 in the 6th inning. I like a toasted bagel too but don’t like when the cream cheese melts.
Too many rules.
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Yikes! re the cinnamon raisin. We have a wonderful bagel place here in Seattle. Honestly really close to NYC good. We get everything, sesame and poppy seed usually. I did get a plain one in our batch cause sometimes my morning stomach doesn’t want the seeds. And part of the routine is then to pick the seeds out of my teeth.
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Kenji has been posting about a few bagel places up there that look totally legit. I’d take either near me.
Loxsmiths
Bagel Market
https://www.instagram.com/kenjilopezalt/
We discovered Rachel’s in Ballard and are hooked and loyal 
If it’s still both crisp and chewy, yes, but most contemporary bagels never have that texture, not even when they’re fresh out of the oven.
A fresh bagel should have the crisp on the outside and it will be chewy inside. Most of us feel no need to toast a fresh one. But many of them sadly aren’t cooked properly.
But you’ll notice the bagel setting on a household toaster tries to achieve something similar. It toasts one side and just warms the other.
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So, to get back to my knife & fork pizza, I do not like folding it into a sandwich…may as well just buy a calzone.
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Putting on head and body armor, I’ll admit that I’ve never met a bagel I thought was worth eating. Fresh and untoasted, day old, split and toasted, cream cheese, no, no, never lox, I loathe lox or any form of salmon for that matter. Too rich for my blood.
Out of the club, out of the club…
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Saaaaame. 
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Damn to each their own but seriously bagel with a good cream cheese or the gjusta smoked fish lox bagel with works is out of this world
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Damned straight!
I like them toasted with butter. That’s it.
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that Gjusta sandwich is imo one of the top in all of LA imo. I like it on a bialy with lebneh and the works. So good. There are so many mediocre bagel places around I’m not surprised that people don’t like them.
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A great bagel is good just by itself, but I know only one place to get those. Otherwise, the only reason I buy bagels is as a vehicle for smoked salmon, sable, or whitefish salad.
very true— I usually eat an onion bagel straight up/raw/fresh out of the oven in the car on my way home right out of my paper bagged dozen (when I can actually get good bagels)-- then have another when I get home w/ cream cheese and lox (not toasted). toasting is a process for left over bagels.
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I used to love getting a fresh chewy warm salt bagel. Nothing on it.
Damn. I miss the east coast.
This ^^
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The only bagel I remember thinking worthwhile was probably all wrong by mavin standards. Big, still warm from oven, tender interior. Breugger’s Bagels in Amherst, MA. No need for topping of any kind.
In SF, I’ve been unimpressed with House of Bagels and transplanted Noah’s. I just don’t bother to buy them. Rather have a good English muffin or homemade crumpet.
Transplanted? From Berkeley?
I was only kidding about the hot dog. cmon!