Beigel Bake, Shoreditch High Str
Posted on: April 14, 2013
BEIGEL BAKE
159 Brick Lane
London, E1 6SB
RATING: 8
PRICING: Salt beef beigel – £3.70
WRITER: THE EDITOR
WEB: none
I take my job here at EAL very seriously. So, spurred on by a starvation high, I took great lengths to transport myself to Shoreditch (OK, I took one bus) and then walked the considerable stretch of wasteland to Brick Lane. Well, it wasn’t exactly wasteland, in fact I was surprised to find a series of pop up shops outside Shoreditch High Street Station. Having heard about the phenomenon, I hadn’t really come across them before.
Shoreditch pop ups
They were like a row of cubby holes selling everything from marshmallows to manicures; the latter had attracted a queue of Easter holidaying teeny boppers a mile long.
The walk up to Brick Lane thrust me into a 1970s time warp, especially walking past old antique and record stores. I was however, on a mission to find a bakery that I last visited around 20 years ago with my regular bunch of compadres, craving a bagel in the early hours of the morning. It was always the same friend (you know who you are!) who dragged us to Beigel Bake, regardless of whether we were 50 miles away or around the corner at the time. She was the catalyst for all the nutty scrapes we ended up getting into, and her partner in crime was the one who was always ready to carry out anything in the name of having a laugh!
It was perfectly fitting that we gave them a joint hen night years later, marking our last hurrah for immaturity. That night I put a string through a bagel and strung it around the bagel obsessive’s neck as part of her ‘hen’ dress, which turned out to be the only solid food keeping her from collapsing into a drunken stupor! Ahh good times!
Where was I? Oh yes Beigel Bake hasn’t changed one iota; twenty four hours of delicious bread, bagels and more bread still grace their shelves. The bagels have a slight sweetness and are completely satisfying when stuffed with salt beef and a kick of mustard. They even do salt beef on rye bread, which is definitely the combination worth crossing the city for.
I must say I was a little disappointed when I didn’t get a fresh bagel, as I reached there at 12pm and was looking forward to the comforting inner glow of eating just baked bread. I may be inclined to call ahead next time, to check their bagel exit schedule.
There are certain things in life that trigger memories. The song “Groove is in the heart” thrusts me back to every Friday night of my final year at University. My mum’s roast chicken reminds me of my childhood home, the time we decided to have dinner on the first floor (can’t remember why) and my dad dropped the whole roast onto the staircase. Beigel Bake is a fond reminder of the group of friends I hung out with in my twenties and all the crazy stunts we pulled, in the name of never wasting a minute of our responsibility free lives, knowing full well that it would not last forever.
Excited About Lunch 
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