Garden State Bagels. My mom loves this place. She’s not even close to being from New Jersey or anything like that, she just likes bagels. They make Peanut Butter bagels here, which are one of her favorites (she also really likes sesame, in case you were wondering). They’ve moved around town a few times – I think there used to be one in Carmel Mountain, then they were in Carlsbad. The location we visited is in Encintas, but I’ve read that they also have one other location in La Jolla. They really need a website so I can confirm these things! Hmm.
My mom and I were up in the north land part of San Diego and she had a hankering for these bagels. So I looked them up, found them, and after her appointment we made a quick stop here to get a dozen bagels.
It was an early Wednesday morning so we were in and out of there pretty fast. No line, just a couple of patrons inside enjoying an early morning bagel. The guy behind the counter was patient as my mom pointed out all of the bagels she wanted. I made her get one that sounded fancy to me – the flavor of the month special: a Reese’s Peanut Butter Bagel.
I believe the total for a dozen bagels was just shy of $8, but I honestly don’t remember. She only got bagels, no cream cheese or anything. We shared the Reese’s bagel in the car.
The Reese’s bagel is what you would expect it to be – it’s just like the Peanut Butter bagel but has chocolate chips added in. I personally though that the bagel could have used more chips – I hardly detected any peanut butter bits or chocolate bits, I mostly just tasted plain bagel. But the plain bagel is good – it’s got a nice, crisp edge to it and it’s soft on the inside, just the way a bagel should be. I was just expecting more out of the flavor of the month bagel. There was hardly any peanut butter in it, either! Oh well. We’ll just stick to the regular Peanut Butter bagels and leave it at that.
They also had samples out of other flavors they are trying out. I tried a sample bit of the “Cinnamon Roll” bagel which was actually pretty tasty. The small bite I got also had icing on it, bringing in the glaze part of the cinnamon roll. It also had raisins in it though, which led me to think that this was probably a cinnamon raisin bagel with icing on it. I don’t like raisins, so I might be biased, but I thought the cinnamon flavor was spot on.
I probably won’t frequent this place very often simply because it’s not in my range of “go-to” places, but sometimes I ‘ll have to come by to get some bagels for mom. I haven’t seen another place that does Peanut Butter bagels, have you? Maybe I’m just bagel-sheltered, who knows!
Garden State Bagels
191 N. El Camino Real
Encinitas, CA 92024
(760) 942-2435
My husband loves the peanut butter bagels from Garden State too! And his family *is* from New Jersey 🙂