‘This is the bagel place everyone was telling you about’: A Bagel Seoul spread
The sign outside Bagel Seoul says, "This is the bagel place I was telling you about." By my third failed attempt to buy a bagel there, I had started to take it personally.
Fredericton's newest bakery, at 361 Queen St., has done something rare for a chilly week in October. It has made people line up in the cold, in the dark, for bread.
According to the bakery's Instagram, the first customers arrived at 6:30 a.m. on opening day. The team made roughly 650 bagels and sold out by 12:30 p.m. Day two was bigger: about 700 bagels, gone by noon.
Chef and co-owner Leo (Seungho Kim) addressed the sellout in a long, heartfelt post.
He said he had started work at 4 a.m. and was heading home after 14 hours, tired but happy. The bakery isn't going to crank up production to chase demand, he wrote. It is capping output to protect quality and the people making the bagels.
That restraint is a good sign, even if it's a pain for anyone with a 1 p.m. class.
Who's behind the counter
If the names sound familiar, they should. Kim and his partner Seul Ah Jang, known to regulars as Leo and Sarah, have run Boulangerie Seoul, the French-Korean bakery on Woodstock Road, for three years.
Bagel Seoul is their second act. Jang said that many of their customers work downtown and were driving 20 to 30 minutes for a snack, so the couple decided to bring the bakery to them.
They took over the former Chess Piece Cafe on Queen Street.
So what is a Korean-style bagel?
According to the owner’s concept, Canadian bagels tend to be denser and chewier, while Korean-style ones are much softer.
They are soft enough, he said, that you can eat one without a drink.
That matches what I found. Don't walk in expecting the boiled, chewy, Montreal-versus-New-York-debate kind of bagel.
The ones in the display case are plump, dark-brown rings, split and filled, closer to a soft filled bread than a bagel in the traditional sense.
The cards also note that no nuts are added, but cross-contact is possible in a shared kitchen.
My bagel
I came by three days in a row and found empty shelves each time.
On Oct. 21 I showed up expecting more of the same. But the woman at the checkout told me a fresh batch of coffee cream bagels would be out in 20 minutes.
I did what any reasonable journalist would do and stood around like a golden retriever.
It was worth it. The bread was warm and so soft it barely resisted a bite. The coffee cream filling was rich without being sugary and the whole thing tasted like it had come out of the oven moments earlier, because it had.
At $7.99 it's not a casual snack, but I'd pay it again.
I should be honest about two things.
Coffee cream was not the bagel I came for, so this is a review of what I got, not what I wanted.
Secondly, I am not a bagel expert. I can't tell you how it compares with the classics, only that it was delicious and that I'm still thinking about it days later.
Bagel Seoul, 361 Queen St., Fredericton. Mon–Fri, 7:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m., or until sold out.
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