Life’s a Bagel
Egg Bagel
French Toast Bagel
Cheddar Bagel
Black & White Cookie
Cinnamon Coffee Cake
NY Silverlake Cookies – Sprinkle Butter, Chocolate Florentine, White Chocolate Rainbow, Dark Chocolate Rainbow, Raspberry Pocket, Linzer Tart, Jelly Top, Snowball Melt Away, Chocolate Coconut Butter, Chocolate Nut Melt Away
Located on North Rampart Blvd under various names across the years, Life’s a Bagel opened in early 2016 in the same plaza as German Bread’s Bakery, the team formerly behind Sterling Bagel taking a calculated risk in opening so close to the Sun City Summerlin population, many of whom have already established their favorite New York City replacement in the form of The Bagel Café.
Not seeking to copy the success of their nearby competition, the space as well as the menu substantially smaller, Life’s a Bagel instead focuses squarely on its eponymous bready rounds, more than a dozen varieties made each day with housemade Cream Cheese, Lox and various Deli Meats offered alongside a handful of cookies and cakes both imported and made on-site.
Not going so far as to boil their Bagels, a legitimate gripe for native New Yorkers looking for the authenticity found back home, Life’s a Bagel nonetheless achieves the effect of a malted exterior and dense center with a thin skin by way of a recipe that shortens fermentation, the Egg version rich and far better than those found commercially while both the Cinnamon-Sugar shellacked French Toast and gooey Cheddar are more like something that would be found at Einstein Brothers than Panera, the crumb lightly stretchy and taking well to toasting, but just as good eaten as served.
Importing Italian Cookies from New York based Silverlake, a good choice albeit a little disappointing since The Bagel Café produces their collection in-house, a better choice comes in the form of toothsome Coffee Cake riddled and topped with Cinnamon Streusel, the Black & White Cookie perhaps the best in town with a cake-like case topped in slick frosting that makes no attempt at sugar restraint.
THREE STARS: Not a Bagel expert by any means, but having tried some of the best, Life’s a Bagel serves a good product despite not adhering to traditional methods, the Coffee Cake and Black & White showing that with a little more effort these folks could potentially raise their game.
RECOMMENDED: Coffee Cake, Black & White Cookie, Cheddar Bagel.
AVOID: At $8.99/lb the packaged import Italian Cookies are overpriced, though the ability to mix n’ match is admittedly nice.
TIP: Bagels are $1 each, a half-dozen for $5 or fourteen for $10.
WHAT THE STARS MEAN: 5 World Class, 4 Excellent, 3 Good, 2 Fair, 1 Poor.
