Walking to The Globe office, I held my stomach to protect my food baby from the cold. Tucked inside my jacket, I held a $7.89 pepperoni pizza bagel and a $7.49 Farmhouse Sandwich with avocado spread. In my hand was a small $4.49 caramel cold brew inside one of those paper koozies.
Although I think it’s expensive, it isn’t my first time eating at Einstein Bros Downtown, but that’s simply because breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
When I finally made it to our office next to the wharf, I hunkered down at a computer and opened my pizza bagel box first.
The receipt definitely said “pepperoni pizza bagel,” so when I saw just cheese it was so very disappointing. Even after the worker confirmed with me two times that I definitely wanted pepperoni.
I think a vegetarian would be pleased with this, as it is marked as vegetarian on the menu, but the sliced bagel looked sad with just bread, sauce and cheese. The outside of the bagel was nice and toasty, while the inside bread was soft and chewy. The marinara was flavorful but… it’s missing something.
Oh yeah, my pepperoni.
I figured that the two men making my pizza bagel were too focused on listening to “Dragon Ball Z” to realize the importance of my extra $0.60.
After opening the box, the bagel quickly became cold and the cheese stopped stretching and everything became kind of hard or soggy. Although, in their defense the taste of cheese on the inside and outside of the bagel is strong and overall had great flavor.
Now I’m no Jake Dabkowski but my caramel cream mocha coffee was kind of delicious, yet thinking about the ice cubes melting before I finished the drink was sad. Although it was caramel, it tasted like a sweet cold chocolate drink with added coffee undertones. The drink wasn’t too sweet, either, because the coffee balanced out that flavor.
While ordering, I had a craving for avocado so I asked if I could get an avocado slice. I should have figured that, like many businesses, they didn’t have any, so I compromised for avocado spread on my Farmhouse Sandwich. However, I didn’t know that I was sacrificing the other spread that they normally put on this bagel for my avocado.
The sandwich was filling, don’t get me wrong, with the hash bagel, an egg, ham, avocado spread and cheese. But it was so disappointing. Maybe in the middle of the sandwich I tasted my avocado spread, but one side of the sandwich was really skimped and missed, leaving a dry bagel texture on my tongue.
Normally the food here is above average. Don’t get me wrong, the flavors are on a different level, but the prices are too. I’ve eaten here before and had a way better experience, yet this week, Einstein Bros at 1:30 p.m. really flopped.
