nasty "bagel"

I left this on my boss's desk yesterday. He didn't come in, so he's now got a day-old bagel sitting there. I hope he enjoys the nightmare.

My boss is from New York, so he knows his bagels.

Something comes over from the West, and Koreans will generally try to reproduce it "their" way, which means making it smaller and less substantial. For cakes and cookies, that means being stingy with things like butter, sugar, and eggs, resulting in sawdust-like roll cakes and such. A Paris Baguette "bagel" might look like a bagel, but the texture is wrong, wrong, wrong. A true bagel has density and heft to it; no one describes a New York bagel as "light and fluffy." But you can squeeze a Paris Baguette "bagel" as if it were a sponge, and it'll spring back. Shudder. How can this huge bakery chain get so many Western breads and cakes and other confections so wrong?

To be fair, Paris Baguette isn't totally hopeless. They do have some good products. When I was doing the Newcastle diet in 2021, I survived on their salads, for example. They also sell a cakey muffin (vanilla and chocolate versions) that is just about perfect. So it's not as though they get everything wrong, but if you want something close to real Western bread, you should probably find a specialty bakery like Kim Young Mo (the founder, his sons, and some staff received their training in France). Overall, the bread situation in South Korea has improved radically over the past few decades, but Paris Baguette seems to have found the perfect formula for fairly consistent disappointment.

Speaking of specialty bakeries: a former coworker told me there's a spot in Seoul called Sweet Park that's full of bakeries, chocolateries, etc. Perhaps when I'm healthier, I'll have to swing by. I heard they're getting their own branch of Five Guys. I hope the portion sizes remain American (they won't), and I'd like for the prices to be reasonable (they won't be). I should just stick to making my own burgers, I think.