metro >> Out To Eat Bistro 82 Opens Best Veggie Restaurants Barbecue In Plymouth Newly renovated and French-inspired Bistro 82 opened last month in downtown Royal Oak, at 4th Street and South Lafayette in the former Sangria tapas bar and salsa dance club. Upstairs is Sabrage, a high-end lounge and night club where a DJ will play above a fish tank while champagne is served from a tap behind an onyx bar. It will be open on Friday and Saturday nights. Derik Watson is the leader of Bistro 82's kitchen, which will offer West and East Coast selections of oysters, pork belly and ratatouille and several other appetizers, Waygu hanger steak, beef short rib, sea scallops, Scottish salmon, chicken paillard and other entrees, and dessert choices such as yogurt panna cotta, dark chocolate tart and cinnamon sugar beignets. Popular food blog Eater Detroit came out with its list of best dining spots for vegetarians and vegans in the Motor City. On the list is Seva, 66 E. Forest Ave.; Topsoil, 4454 Woodward Ave.; PJ's Lager House, 1254 Michigan Ave.; Corktown's Brooklyn Street Local, 1266 Michigan Ave.; the Russell Street Deli, 2465 Russell St.; and Detroit Vegan Soul, 8029 Agnes St. The IN would like to add one more restaurant to that list: Gold 'N' Greens, 695 Williams Mall on the Wayne State University campus. This kosher restaurant is a favorite of vegans and vegetarians alike. Texas-based Dickey's Barbecue Pit recently opened its fourth Michigan location at 44741 Five Mile Road, next to Busch's Supermarket, in Plymouth Township. The restaurant is fast casual where people "move with the food:' similar to Subway and Qdoba. Regular menu items include pit-smoked meats, potato salad and pecan pie. Specials include free ice cream every day as well as a kids-eat-free offer on Sundays. Other Michigan locations: Commerce Township, Troy and Coldwater. New York = agel Man 0 •SMI orn an read" in Detroit. Vivian Henoch I Special to the Jewish News E ver wonder where bagels come from? Pondering the mystery — and history — of the Detroit New York Bagel, it's lunchtime when we drop in to chat with Howard Goldsmith, owner and pro- prietor of New York Bagel Baking Co. For Detroiters, the shop on Woodward in Ferndale is an institution, serving hands-down "the best bagels," accord- ing to those who know the distinction between a bagel and a roll with a hole. "Born and 'bread' in Detroit," New York Bagel is a third-generation family busi- ness, a rarity in this day and age of fast and frozen food. "My grandfather, Morris, started the business in 1921 with two Eastern European immigrants who took over another bagel shop Downtown," Goldsmith says. "They renamed the store `New York Bagel' since bagels were intro- duced into the U.S. in New York City" Morris eventually became sole pro- prietor and, shortly after, Howard's father, Harvey, joined him. As Jewish Detroit moved over the years, New York New York Bagels Bagel followed. Howard recalls a store at Linwood and Clairmount, but his first vivid memories stem from the shop on Schaeffer and Seven Mile, which opened in 1954. "We just sold bagels there he describes. "Right next door, there was a grocery store — House of Foods — and 34 March 6 • 2014 people went there for their lox and cream cheese" In the 1960s, when bagel production became automated, New York Bagel opened its first suburban Detroit store in Oak Park, followed by the Ferndale loca- tion, then the store on Orchard Lake in West Bloomfield. Born To Bagels A speech and language therapist by train- ing, working as an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Goldsmith returned to Detroit in 1987 with his wife, Carole, and young family to take on the business in partnership with his dad. "My father had always left the door open for me; we had a third child on the way and I was thinking about our future. I looked for other academic positions and it all seemed the same, and I decided then to make a career of this. My dad and I initially shared responsibility; now he's retired. So this is my baby:' Asked about the chance of a fourth generation stepping into the business, Goldsmith is philosophical. "I wouldn't rule anything out, but I would be surprised" With daughter, Andree, 29, working as an attorney in Washington, D.C., and son Michael, 26, an actor in New York City, Philip, 32, is the one NEXTGener in the Goldsmith family who lives in town. "I believe Phil will take a different path in business:' Goldsmith says. "And look, nothing lasts forever" Fortunately for Detroit bagel lovers, New York Bagel is still going strong. What Makes A Bagel At New York Bagel Flour. Water. Yeast. Malt. And tradition. You probably don't think much about it when you stop in for your fresh dozen of plain, salted, poppy and sesame. But, those New York Bagels that we all know and love come piping hot out of the oven like clockwork on produc- tion days — 170 dozen to a batch, 25,000 dozen a week. You don't think twice about the perfect consistency of a New York Bagel — not to mention the time honored-Jewish culi- nary ritual of setting out a tray of bagels, shmear and lox on a Sunday morning, but someone has to keep the tradition alive in Detroit and that someone is Goldsmith. "You have to know what you're doing:' Goldsmith says. "Here we make every- thing from scratch. For us, there's more of an art and a science to it. First of all, there's the recipe:' Not to be attempted at home, the recipe for New York Bagels starts in the Baking Company with 350 pounds of flour and 160 pounds of water. Batches are made in what looks like a cement mixer; dough is fed in strips through a conveyor to produce uniform rounds. Bagels are then "proofed" — left to rise — then boiled in an alkalized water bath before baking. "Our bagels have no preservatives at all, so the shelf life isn't that long:' explains Goldsmith. "There are so many chemicals out there that you could add to the dough, but we don't put that stuff in, so we have Howard Goldsmith to turn over our product:' Apparently that's not a problem. With the three stores and a sizeable wholesale distribution, New York Bagel Co. sells and delivers to cafes and markets city- wide what most consider to be Detroit's quintessential bagels. Noting the full menu of New York Bagel provisions from the Bake Shop, Goldsmith adds, "We do 'flagels' (flat bagels) and bialys on the weekends. On average, we whip up about 700 pounds of cream cheese spread every week; we buy our lox from Seafare (another Detroit family business)" What Makes A Bagel Jewish? That, my friends, is anyone's guess. Apparently, the basic roll-with-a-hole concept is centuries old. Non-Jewish, boiled-and-baked, ring-shaped breads are found in Italy, Greece, Finland and Poland, even countries in Asia and Africa. Putting the requisite "shmear" and lox aside, why the European version has pre- vailed as the bagel of our heritage has as much to do with Jewish identity as any- thing else. New York Bagel has a large and faith- ful clientele of former Detroiters who buy bagels to take back home wherever they come in to visit. "I don't know if they can't get a bagel like mine anywhere — or if they just want a taste of home, but I'm sure part of it is nostalgia:' Goldsmith says.