The State of the Bagel | The New Yorker
"Mark Strausman was at his new restaurant, Mark's Off Madison (41 Madison Avenue), which débuted last month near Madison Square Park. Devotees of Freds will be delighted to find many of its signature dishes resurrected here, including the chopped chicken salad (with avocado, string beans, and pears), Estelle’s chicken soup, and bolognese lasagna. But hand-painted letters on a glass wall in the dining room advertise what is, in my opinion, M.O.M.’s biggest draw. “Not Your Grandfather’s Bagels,” they read, with “Not” crossed out. In the August of his career, Strausman is chasing his youth, attempting to re-create the bagels (plus bialys) that he remembers eating as a kid. M.O.M. has a proper wood-fired bagel oven, which helps attain a distinctly crunchy exterior—coated in toppings only lightly, and on just one side, so as not to compete with the flavor of the malt-infused dough." - Hannah Goldfield
