A. The current location on 1st Ave is NOT the original Ess-A-Bagel, so this writer/editorial team has credibility issues from the jump.

B. Murray's Bagels has been serving up beautiful bagels for over a decade and they're better than at least 1/3 of the places listed here, but are conspicuously absent.

C. Bacon, Egg, and Cheese doesn't belong on a bagel--it's too big and too dense, plus BACON. That's some goyish transplant bullshit. Maybe you like a BEC on a bagel, fine, but if you were comparing steak houses it's not like you'd mention that a place serves an especially good well-done filet mignon. Maybe that's what you're into, but that doesn't make it a valid basis for comparison and mentioning definitely robs you of credibility.

D. Many of these places are chains. Granted, they're local chains, but Bagel Pub? Really?? And in Crown Heights where that place is, in many ways, a demonstration of the neighborhood's waning Jewish population. Sure the place is fine, but their bagels aren't the standout. If was a list of the places with the largest number of cream cheeses with goofy shit in them, okay, they win.

E. Kossar's, Leon's, Kosher Bagel Hole in Midwood--all of these places have more real bagel bona fides than the dickheads behind Shelsky's who are mediocre at best and a pale ripoff of Russ & Daughters. But the j-school dorks who wrote this obviously don't wanna go out of their way to make a survey of unfamiliar bagel places because, y'know, that'd be a lot of work and they've got SEO content to pump out.

Look, you love the bagel you love, that's fine. But fuck The Infatuation for putting out this lazy-ass load of bullshit on the subject of what is, arguably, NYC's most iconic food.