It is hard to be overly picky about bagels unless you live in Manhattan. Crossing over to Jersey City immediately drops the quality. Venturing futher is just asking for trouble. I will happily eat the things that pass for bagels in the rest of the U.S., but one trip to the big city set the mark so high that I don't try to for perfection elsewhere. The lowest mark I've sampled was set in Montreal where I thought a onion bagel bought straight from the bakery would be be lovely... but instead was a crumbly, bready disaster. Obviously the Québécois have different expectations of bagels than do New Yorkers.