Wise Sons Jewish Deli Fillmore Street — Restaurant in San Francisco

When I moved to California I gave up my bagel habit. As a native New Yorker I just couldn't find anything close to what I knew from home, and given the calorie count of your average bagel, I decided it just wasn't worth it to keep consuming things that made me unhappy. I definitely subscribe to the NY water theory and I question whether I'll ever find a bagel out here that I like.

That said, this might be the first place I've had a California bagel that I didn't hate. I tried an everything bagel - I found it to be chewy on the inside, slightly tough towards the center of the bagel but otherwise almost a proper texture and consistency. On the outside, a light gold color, crunchy and slightly blistered, and covered in all kind of seeds that fell everywhere while eating it - exactly what should happen with an everything bagel. I appreciated the range of seeds as well, not just sesame and poppy but caraway, onion, garlic, a bit of salt. Lots of flavor here.

I also tried the pastrami smoked salmon bagel sandwich. I'd probably give it 4 stars. Some of it was a total miss - the tomato was mealy and sliced way too thin, the cucumbers didn't taste super fresh. Some of it was great - the salmon was thick, pastramied on the edges, fatty, and melted in my mouth. I do wish there was more of it, but what was there was great. The scallion shmear wasn't overpowering in scallion flavor and was applied liberally. As a sandwich, it was ok, though I found that certain elements overpowered others, and I enjoyed it more when I ate the good pieces separately.

Overall, I wasn't disappointed. I'll likely come here again when I'm having a serious bagel craving, but at $13 for the sandwich, it's way too overpriced to change my bagel habit...

Felt like I was Bear Grylls trying to tear apart this plain bagel with my teeth. $3 is reasonable for a bagel but an extra $2 for a thin layer of plain schmear?? I asked the cashier if schmear was included with my bagel purchase, and he said, "It could be if you want," implying that it was included... it was not included... I asked for the bagel to be toasted and it was not toasted. It was an hour before closing so maybe that's why the bagel texture was so atrocious, SO I went again a second time the next day in the morning.

This time, I asked for a plain bagel sliced and toasted without their mediocre, overpriced schmear. Then the cashier looked at me like I offended his mom. Is it that ordinary of an order to be judged like that? The bagel was still tough but not as tough as the day before. Few years ago, there was a line out the door famous for their bagels and now I understand why...

We pop in to one of their locations every time we visit the area. This time we had the bagels with lox and cream cheese, the Matzah Ball Soup, and the Potato Latke served with sour cream and spiced apple sauce.

First of all....Fix your #*%&!&% front door! It does not close quickly or properly and the cold air just blasts into the small dining area any time someone enters or exits and it makes the experience of dining in quite distracting and uncomfortable.

The latke was good and classic. Th bagel and lox spot-on. The Soup was a mixed bag: the broth was a rather bland, the flavor of the chicken was amazing and the matzah ball could have used more herbs and seasoning. It did not taste well integrated, more like a compilation of multiple ingredients rather than a flavorful soup.

The smoked trout salad on rye was as good as always, and one of our favorite things...