How do I describe the Beigel Bake? A free standing cafe, perhaps a takeaway cafe or maybe it’s just a bakery that sells hot cakes, bagels and sandwiches of all kinds. Here’s me, West London Boy, spending some quality time with the East and getting cosy with some hot salt beef.
Hot Salt Beef for all
I must admit, this is the first time I’ve ever come to this part of Brick Lane. I used to think that this part of town was just a kind of curry mile, what with the waiters flogging their menus to prospective customers anticipating free wine or a huge discount on the food bill or even both. I was wrong – Brick Lane is home to one of the freshest bakeries around town and apparently this place has proper street cred, especially for the three am crowd. Mmm, smell the hot salt beef.
This is breakfast for me, it’s Saturday at time of writing, and I’m standing on the steel sidetables just inside of the bakery. It looks really dirty by the way, but I don’t care, this place is so seeped in character, that it feels like I’ve just stepped back in time …. to 1975, and oh yeah, I wish I could grow a proper afro.
Right so tasting notes: Wow. That’s pretty awesome. That, my dear friends is a proper salt beef sandwich. It’s fleshy, it’s moist, it’s filled to the brim with intense salty flavours and it’s lashed with proper out of the plastic bottle mustard and it costs four quid. Forget the posh salt beef bar in Selfridges that weights exactly how much beef they are suppose to serve you – this one goes down just as appetisingly and as smooth.
Sensation
In addition to the savoury stuff, there’s pastry too. I spotted apple strudel on the menu. I also tried a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel, costs about three quid and yeah it tastes like it was freshly baked. Yummy.
Finally the cheese cake was alright, not too sweet, not too cheesy, just a little sugary and crumbly. For fifty pence, I wish I lived closer the twenty four hour bakery – fancy that, smell of fresh bread when you wake up, the smell of fresh bread when you come home from work and the smell of fresh bread when you retire to bed.
By the way guys, because it’s a bank holiday, I’ve been trying all kinds of wacky things with the camera, so I hope you like the pictures that are coming out – Expanding myself creatively you know – and it’s all for your reading pleasure, hope your weekend is going swimmingly, I’ll try to squeeze out another photo essay for the rest of my Brick Lane tour tomorrow if I can, if not, then be back here on Tuesday for a review on Vietnamese food!
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Tags: beigal bake, brick lane, hot salt beef
I’ve never tried the salt beef at Beigel Bake, but I once tried a bagel there and didn’t see what the fuss was about. Do you think its popularity stems more from rarity (of fresh-boiled-and-baked bagels) than anything else?
Also, a cheesecake described as “crumbly” is bad news – I think they’re tastiest when smooth and creamy with a bit of fluffiness. But I really like the salt beef idea and will give that a go next time I’m in the nbhd.
Personally I find the rubbery salt beef at Beigel Bake good for exercising one’s jaws but not much else. I suppose the moist, meltingly tender salt beef at Selfridges is not very useful for chew aerobics.
I really like the salt beef bagels from Brick Lane, but in a break from tradition,I prefer mine with cream cheese rather than mustard. I guess one element that appeals (apart from the price) is that feeling that it’s part of London Lost – the whole Brick Lane area, famously an immigrant neighbourhood, was in a previous incarnation Jewish and it’s really nice to see a few throwbacks to another era still thriving in the area.
Oh forgot to add – whatever your doing with the photos – works. They look excellent.
Hey Kang,
Heard from Vivi you’ll be guest posting for us soon! I’m excited, and also extremely loving the Beigel Bake post. You’re having the same problem as me, longing for BB to be shifted closer to home in West London. It’s such a gem. Awesome photos btw, what did you change, as opposed to what you normally do?
That’s exactly where I was on Sunday evening! Except mine was a few plain bagels to take home as I didn’t want to spoil my Thai restaurant reservation later on. You catch Fika in one of your photos, a Swedish restaurant I’d love to try. So many reasons to go back to Brick Lane!
That salt beef bagel screams ‘comfort food’ all over it, I love this type of stuff and I can imagine grabbing one of these at 4am in the morning after a big night out in town!. Is salted beef an English thing ?
I had one of these for the first time at around 11pm on a Thursday night. Massive mustard head (they applied it liberally) but it was delicious and I drool at the memory of it.
An American in London – You are right about the crumbly cheesecake, it’s not the best
. Yeah I think it’s the rep and I guess the fresh bakery bit about this place is getting abit cliche now.
Youngandfoolish – lol … chew aerobics really? Nah, it wasn’t that bad, it’s still quite tasty stuff
Dan – Cream cheese and Salt Beef is a pretty interesting combo, I’ll make sure I give that a try again. And yes do agree with you there, glad to see that the authenticity of Brick Lane still survives.
Dana – I’m excited to be guestblogging at yours!! I’m still prepping the post and hopefully will send it to you guys soon enough
Oh, I have altered my post processing methods slightly, instead of just messing with the colours, I’m simulating film cross processing methods… digitally, hope you like em!
Canelvr – Swedish you say?? Sounds like I need to pay a visit there as well!
Howard – Not sure where salt beef originates from, hmm, I don’t think its English though, somehow always assumed its an american thing?
Lizzie – Mustard Head.
Trying to answer Howard’s question: assuming salt beef is the same as pastrami (they taste similar enough to me), pastrami, like a lot of New York foods (bagels), came from Eastern Europe with Jewish immigrants. That said, when traveling in Eastern Europe, I’ve looked around for bagels and have found only bagel shops that (entertainingly) name themselves things like “Wall Street Bagels.”
Three quid for the smoked salmon cream cheese bagel? You got done mate, that’s M&S prices…last time I was there (maybe a year ago to be fair) it was about £1.50.
Brick Lane Beigel Bake reminds me of my dad coming home late at night with still warm beigels and perhaps a cake. One of my childhood highlights was going round the back to see how they put the jam in doughnuts. I still love it because it’s not conformed to the trendification of the area.
[...] This dude obviously disagrees with me and I’m really happy for him, but Absolute Bagels, Sarah Shapiro and Skokie have ruined me for other bagels. Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment » [...]
[...] pink salt beef slices. Yes, I suppose it was not bad, I can’t say it was any better than Beigel Bake to be honest. It’s just a [...]
Please tell me you didn’t just say salt beef and pastrami were the same thing.
David – Are you referring to ‘An American in London’s comment…?