Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
A dozen kinds of tasty
Fresh bagels, scones, and Turkish Delight at Memo’s Bagel Café
Turkish Delight
Aside from fresh-baked bagels, I wouldn’t say I had specific expectations going into Memo’s Bagel Café. It’s in a boxy shopping center storefront in Rancho San Diego surrounded by a litany of corporate food chains. I knew it would offer a different experience than the Subway, Denny’s, Starbucks, or Applebee’s, but whatever notion I had about its concept went out the window the moment I walked in.
Memo’s Bagel Café
First of all, “Memo” is not pronounced like the intra-office correspondence — it rhymes with “Nemo.” Memo is a young entrepreneur with an interesting idea how to complement the many bagel offerings in her shop by offering a glass case filled with Turkish Delights and savory Mediterranean pastries.
A rainbow-colored plain bagel
Those distracted me on the way to the bagel counter. The delicate Turkish entries incorporate ingredients such as rosewater, nuts, and sour raisins. Several racks of the jelly-like candies gave way to different takes on baklava, then Bavarian cream-filled, pistachio-encrusted scones and meat-, cheese-, and spinach-filled pastries. It all looked good.
Baked-on-site scones filled with Bavarian custard, glazed with chocolate and a pistachio crust
But I’ve been burned in suburban bagel shops before, so I wanted a good examination of the shop’s featured offering. Large holes give these bagels a skinnier appearance than the puffy looking New York style. Nearly two dozen different flavors are available, including the usual suspects — poppy seed, cinnamon raisin, and several topped by melted cheese. This being a couple days before Easter, there was even a motley rainbow-colored plain in the case to mark the occasion.
Bacon-cream cheese on a sesame bagel with a side of spinach pie
There was also a spinach bagel. I haven’t seen this before, so it immediately stoked my curiosity. However, I didn’t want to judge the bagel quality on the merits of a creative outlier, so I opted for my go-to sesame. I asked for it toasted with one of the house-made cream cheese spreads. Memo was out of the lox schmear, so I settled for a satisfying backup, bacon. And since I had thwarted my spinach craving, I ordered a spinach pie to go with it.
The bagel dough was dense and chewy — pretty well done, and not just in the context of East County. The sesame flavor shone through, even with the spread, which possessed a subtle bacon-ness that paired well with the cream cheese tang. The spinach pie didn’t offer much seasoning other than boiled spinach, but the bread around it turned out way softer than I’d anticipated — less empanada and more like a stuffed dinner roll.
There’s not much to Memo’s little shop, but it’s interesting, enticing, and at least a dozen kinds of tasty. Ten bucks here covers a lot of ground, and bagels are just the beginning.
Here's something you might be interested in.
A dozen kinds of tasty
Fresh bagels, scones, and Turkish Delight at Memo’s Bagel Café
A dozen kinds of tasty
Fresh bagels, scones, and Turkish Delight at Memo’s Bagel Café
Turkish Delight
Aside from fresh-baked bagels, I wouldn’t say I had specific expectations going into Memo’s Bagel Café. It’s in a boxy shopping center storefront in Rancho San Diego surrounded by a litany of corporate food chains. I knew it would offer a different experience than the Subway, Denny’s, Starbucks, or Applebee’s, but whatever notion I had about its concept went out the window the moment I walked in.
Memo’s Bagel Café
First of all, “Memo” is not pronounced like the intra-office correspondence — it rhymes with “Nemo.” Memo is a young entrepreneur with an interesting idea how to complement the many bagel offerings in her shop by offering a glass case filled with Turkish Delights and savory Mediterranean pastries.
A rainbow-colored plain bagel
Those distracted me on the way to the bagel counter. The delicate Turkish entries incorporate ingredients such as rosewater, nuts, and sour raisins. Several racks of the jelly-like candies gave way to different takes on baklava, then Bavarian cream-filled, pistachio-encrusted scones and meat-, cheese-, and spinach-filled pastries. It all looked good.
Baked-on-site scones filled with Bavarian custard, glazed with chocolate and a pistachio crust
But I’ve been burned in suburban bagel shops before, so I wanted a good examination of the shop’s featured offering. Large holes give these bagels a skinnier appearance than the puffy looking New York style. Nearly two dozen different flavors are available, including the usual suspects — poppy seed, cinnamon raisin, and several topped by melted cheese. This being a couple days before Easter, there was even a motley rainbow-colored plain in the case to mark the occasion.
Bacon-cream cheese on a sesame bagel with a side of spinach pie
There was also a spinach bagel. I haven’t seen this before, so it immediately stoked my curiosity. However, I didn’t want to judge the bagel quality on the merits of a creative outlier, so I opted for my go-to sesame. I asked for it toasted with one of the house-made cream cheese spreads. Memo was out of the lox schmear, so I settled for a satisfying backup, bacon. And since I had thwarted my spinach craving, I ordered a spinach pie to go with it.
The bagel dough was dense and chewy — pretty well done, and not just in the context of East County. The sesame flavor shone through, even with the spread, which possessed a subtle bacon-ness that paired well with the cream cheese tang. The spinach pie didn’t offer much seasoning other than boiled spinach, but the bread around it turned out way softer than I’d anticipated — less empanada and more like a stuffed dinner roll.
There’s not much to Memo’s little shop, but it’s interesting, enticing, and at least a dozen kinds of tasty. Ten bucks here covers a lot of ground, and bagels are just the beginning.
Comments