Brown Bagels

This is a lunchtime fav of mine. It’s conveniently (for me) just round the corner from the office in the laneway between Collins and Lt Collins called Equitable Place. There’s lots of options for lunch in this laneway, mostly catering for nearby office workers (like me), but this is my favourite of them. It’s a tiny place with 2 small communal tables. There’s a lot of fillings and about 8 different bagels to chose from, including a blueberry bagel (sounds a bit of a weird combo if you had, say chicken filling, but each to their own).
I always go for the smoked salmon with cream cheese, avo, onion and capers on a sesame seed bagel (which they lightly toast before adding the filling).
I had a coffee there today for the first time (double shot latte) and was excellent. On my way out I looked to see what beans they use and they have Coffee Supreme (a fav of mine so would have won the Pepsi challenge there!).
Price not too bad for a CBD lunch spot. Bagel was $ 9.90, coffee around $ 3.50.

Went there for lunch with my colleagues. In the middle of the cbd in a very cute lane so it is always going to be expensive. The bagel was nice and I like the fact that you can customise it completely. It was good but not amazing.

Been here a few times but wanted to try out 5 & dime before giving it a review & comparison. Lo & behold THIS IS MY FAVOURITE BAGEL PLACE IN MELBOURNE.
I came here after spending some time in New York and getting addicted to bagels from Tompkin Square Bagels and Brown comes closest to the real deal. The traditional cream cheese on everything bagel is top notch but I also love the more modern interpretations such as strawberry, nutella and toasted hazelnuts (on blueberry is my favorite), and the spicy pork had a nice kick to it. I would recommend the lighter/​classic bagels for breakfast, the spicy pork was a tad greasy so if you can’t stomach that for breakfast maybe reserve this as a lunch treat.

It’s always disappointing when what you’re presented with does not reflect the image you had in your mind. Perhaps the initial service should have been a precursor as none of the three members of staff seemed that interested in serving & when I ordered the bagel they just silently pointed to the remaining bagels that they had left.
The bagel itself was nice & probably would have been 100% better with just jam & butter. However I picked the spicy chicken… what I got was a splodge of mayonnaise with a lettuce leaf on top & then a portion of unidentifiable pieces of chicken in a spicy sauce which was freshly zapped in the microwave & then topped with mini gherkins. Whilst the filling had flavour the heat of the chicken mix left the lettuce leaf revoltingly soggy & it all required deconstructing in order to eat it. It was not a nice dining experience.
At $ 10 I feel that the bagel was overpriced especially when I think of the other great quality food I’ve had recently for the same price.

Awesome little place, friendly service and very tasty bagels with a range of options. So if you like choice, good service and most importantly BAGELS, then this is your raison d’être. They also have The Age for your viewing pleasure. Coffee was a little milky but otherwise tasty so I will give the coffee the benefit of the doubt.
BUT I will be going back here for sure.

If you are a New Yorker, you crave bagels, you need bagels, all you want is bagels. You don’t notice this until you leave New York, until you realize that 295 of the last 365 days you ate nothing but bagels.
And then one day you wake up to the sounds of the kookaburra, see palm fronds wafting in the breeze outside your window, and you stifle a scream as you realize that these are always indicators that you aren’t in bagel country anymore. Not even Dunkin Donuts can save you now.
Cold and alone, you wander the lanes and alleys of the land of oz muttering to yourself about egg bagels and black coffee, all the while people around you seem to be getting satisfaction from lamingtons and meat pies and skinny lattes, and the cultural divide could not seem wider…
But ho! As your tummy rumbles pathetically you see down a side street a sign. It reads «NY Style Bagels» Can it be? Is this a mirage? You fight off your first insticts to be cynical and figure it’s worth a try.
«They are boiled bagels» I’m assured from the girl in the shop. Good. they seem to know what they’re doing. Time for a bite…
And there it is. A Bagel. A real Bagel. Visions of salmon and cream cheese dance through your head as you get your fill. Oh you’ll be back.
INSIDE TIP: Call a day in advance to order a half dozen bagels.
omg. I just wrote this and now the craving hit… NEED MORE BAGELS!