There's really only one word for bagels in Brunswick, Maine: ignorant. Finding a good bagel in this area is just about as easy as finding the local synagogue.
The bagel is such an anomaly here that my editor can't even pronounce the simple word. It's always "BAY-gel" never "BAG-el," c'mon now.
The bagels in the dining hall are a complete disservice to the rest of the food and are perhaps the single worst item available.
They offer the type of bagel that is pulled out of a plastic bag, sticky from condensation. Try to cut it and it folds and crumbles. Try to pull apart the halves and it breaks. The only way to salvage any normal bagel-ness is to toast it.
A note on toasting a bagel: bagels are not meant to be toasted. They are to be baked and eaten on the same day, the outside golden brown and the inside soft, doughy and slightly sweet.
If, and only if, you find yourself forced to eat a stale bagel, should you head to the toaster.
You know it's going to be a bad day at the office when you put bagel into Google Maps and Dunkin Donuts is option B.
Option A is Mister Bagel, a multi-location, Maine "bagel deli" that claims to have originated in Brooklyn. Having found success in New York, the "booming" business decided to bring its bagels to Maine.
Are you kidding me? Why would anyone decide to move a successful bagel business out of New York City and into the state of Maine? Does that make sense to anyone? It's also tough to believe that, if they indeed were successful in New York, it was with the same recipe they use now.
The bagel I ate was small and discolored: a poor man's bagel. The outside lacked any sort of crust, and the inside had no taste at all.
The lox spread and other cream cheeses were only okay. The lox bits were scarce, but, at this point, expectations were already so low that it was not a huge disappointment.
There was something off about the entire establishment. It was too clean and too generic to be a real bagel deli. When you walk into a bagel shop you need to see the bagel boilers in the back firing away. It should be a little humid and pleasantly dirty.
My understanding is that Mainers appreciate Mister Bagel in the same way that New Yorkers enjoy Maine lobster rolls in Manhattan. They know it's not authentic, but at the end of the day, it'll get the job done.
If you're kind of a yuppie and leave Mister Bagel distraught, stop at Tim Horton's and gorge on a Sundried Tomato Asiago Parm bagel. Your earlier disappointment will be absorbed into this oily, cheesy bread.