Claire Ortiz and Luke Szyszkiewicz, Staff Writers

This week, Claire and I took a train ride down to Fishtown, one of the trendiest neighborhoods in the city. A popular spot for millennials, Fishtown has coffee shops and bagels aplenty, but I truly think Kismet Bagels takes the cake for the best bagel spot in the neighborhood. Located just minutes from the Girard stop on the Market-Frankford line, we met our guest reviewer (and Luke’s brother) Steve Szyszkiewicz, ’14, to try the most in-demand bagel in town.

Looking at the menu, Claire was immediately disappointed in the lack of sausage options, with the only meat being offered was bacon. What they lacked in meat variety, they made up for in other varieties of spreads, with many different options of cream cheese available as well as some interesting veggie options. The bagels themselves are exquisite: fluffy yet crispy and wonderfully seeded. I ordered “The Egg,” which includes scrambled eggs, Cooper sharp cheese, zhug (a Yemeni hot sauce), I added bacon to it, and of course an everything bagel. Claire ordered a poppy seed bagel with cream cheese, which they call ‘schmear.’ Steve ordered “The Veg,” which includes tomato, cucumbers, red onion, microgreens, veggie schmear, extra virgin olive oil, and salt & pepper on an everything bagel. Although scrambled eggs typically lose points on our rating, they were fluffy and tasty, so they won’t detract here. 

To the ratings; this is personally my favorite. I think it really has everything I could want in a bagel place. The only downside is that the sandwiches are messy and not the easiest to eat. Claire and Steve both said similar things regarding the messiness of the sandwich. For Claire, the downside was the lack of sausage on the menu, although the bagel itself was delicious. For Steve, the messiness was a major portion, as his fell apart toward the end. Overall, we’d give this a 4/5 Gritty’s. Come back next week as we explore another bagel place in Philadelphia!