CHEAP EATS

Beigel Bake

Here is a short list of things you won’t find at Beigel Bake:

• Pizza bagels
• Containers of schmeer with caloric information on the side
• A dazzling array of condiments and a promise to “have it your way”

If these are what you’re after, there are plenty of chain sandwich stores to suit your needs. Otherwise, head to Brick Lane—east London’s historically immigrant neighborhood and now the place to go for aggressively hawked Indian food, shaggy-haired hipsters in circulation-impairing pants, and bagels that are famous for a reason.

Beigel Bake “beigels” ("bei" sounding a bit like "buy" in local parlance) are the real deal: a hint of crunch and perfectly chewy. Plus, you can eat cheaper than dirt (literally--1kg of Miracle Gro runs about £3.99, while a bagel with chopped herring, a piece of cheesecake, and a soda can be had for a mere £1.90).

In American cuisine, bread is merely a vehicle for filling delivery, each sandwich asking an implied question: just how many animals and vegetables can fit in here? Beigel Bake, however, is all about the bagel. Order a cheese bagel expecting “the works” and Jo—tattooed and bespeckled, maintaining a steady stream of behind-the-counter banter--will hand you a bagel with a slab of cheese inside.

Feeling indulgent? The salt beef (aka corned beef) bagel is Beigel Bake’s most decadent offering. It comes with mustard and a £2.50 price tag (£3.20 for sandwich bread). Local institutions of their own right, regulars Mick and George will tell you the tenderness and quantity of the salt beef distinguish Beigel Bake from the competition (namely, the other 24-hour bagel shop next door). Mick and George can be found most days holding court on the folding chairs between the two shops, chatting up strangers and complimenting pretty girls.

For the secular non-New York City Jew (ie me), Beigel Bake is something of a religious experience—a first taste of food previously known mostly in gastronomical myth. Chopped herring, salt beef, strudel, cheesecake—I sampled widely in the name of research, even accepting a bite from a stranger’s eccles (a cookie whose lackluster qualities I later attributed to its WASP-y origins). But if you’re the average geezer, Beigel Bake simply provides cheap and tasty food, 24/7. When asked about other Jewish eateries in the area, one man replied through a mouthful of smoked salmon, “Bagels are Jewish, are they?”

Beigel Bake
159 Brick Lane
Phone: 071 729 0616
Tube: Aldgate East, Liverpool Street, Bethnal Green Road
Hours: 24/7
Cost: £.18-£3.20

Other Cheap Food:
In a city with no Hot Dog carts or pizza by the slice here's what you need to know:

DALSTON: Turkish food everywhere. Lahmacun is Turkish pizza by the slice equivalent. Pide is a kind of cheese and minced lamb pastry that looks like a canoe. Best to go to Mangal Pide Salonu on the High Street. Full meals at Istanbul Iskembicisi and Mangal Ockacbasi in Arcola Street ... fill it to the rim for under a tenner.

SHOREDITCH: A mile down the road from Dalston, near Hoxton Square is little Vietnam. viet Hoa and Song Que both on the High Street are the places to go. Have a bowl of Pho (pronounced fuh) Vietnamese soup.

BRICK LANE: Curry capital of inner London. Sweet and Spicy cafeteria is the cheapest of the cheap, and if you can do curry without beer the best place to go. (They don't have a liquor license)

CHINA STREET: (it's too small to be Chinatown): Garrard Street in the WEst End for takeaway dim sum: Char Siu Baos and so on. Lunch time special at Chines Experience on Shaftesbury Avenue