Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Mei Fang Huang, owner of Saratoga Bagels on Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road, offers a wide variety.
Saratoga Bagels offers wide variety of toppings, spreads
By Suzanne Cristallo
Dense, chewy and shiny, bagels have become a staple of West Coast fare as important as their East Coast cousins. What's all the fuss? The interest in the doughnut-shaped yeast roll could be because bakers--or more accurately "boilers," as true bagels are cooked by dropping the dough into boiling water--have been able to satisfy the great public yen for variety.
Take Saratoga Bagels, for instance. The favorite stopping-off point for battalions of commuters along Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road, the cafe offers a multitude of tastes to satisfy the peculiar preferences of the passing public.
For 60 cents each, there are sesame, herb or high-fiber bagels; there're also blueberry, raspberry, apple and herb. There are garlic and onion, whole wheat and salt, jalapeño, three-seed, banana-nut and cheese, followed by pumpernickel, poppy seed, cinnamon raisin and plain. Next month, sourdough is coming. A baker's dozen runs $3.50.
Bagels may be topped with lox and cucumbers or low-fat cream cheese spreads flavored with vegetables and chives, pesto and garlic, honey, strawberry, jalapeño and tomato basil.
"We even have biali," says co-owner Mei Huang proudly, describing the flat yeast roll with a depression in the center for toppings of onion and garlic that must be ordered in advance.
Huang and partner Ted Lam, both of San Jose, center their lives around bagels. While Lam, who bought the Saratoga store eight years ago, runs two other stores with wife Tiffany in Mountain View and on Stevens Creek in San Jose, Huang has managed the Saratoga store since she became a partner five years ago. She and Lam are cousins.
Family is the backbone of their business. Every morning at 3:30 a.m., Huang's father, Chaolin, fires up the boilers for the day's batch of bagels and the ovens for the macadamia nut, oatmeal raisin and chocolate cookies baked fresh each day. Customers begin lining up at the door for the 6:30 a.m. opening. After her accounting classes at DeAnza College, Huang's sister Yansang comes in to run the counter.
Six days a week, Huang and her husband, George, a Cupertino engineer, leave their daughters--17-month-old Samanda and 2-month-old Sanne--to spend the day with their grandma. The same thing is happening in the Lam home, where Ted's mother, May Yen, cares for his 3-year-old and 19-month-old.
Fans of doughnuts from the Maple Leaf doughnut shop in Los Gatos will recall May Yen. She owned the store for years until her retirement and sale to Huang's brother-in-law, Jian Chen.
Family ties notwithstanding, customers need only keep their bagel choices straight, or mull over which kind of bagel sandwich they might enjoy that day. Those choices are many, too: egg and cheese, ham, lox, turkey, beef, chicken salad and tuna, all for around $3.50 with a bag of chips thrown in. To sip along with them, there are espresso coffees, flavored ice drinks, or the increasingly popular hot chai tea with spices and honey.
It's a world full of choices, and May Huang, 28, relishes them. "It's a pretty country," she says of her adopted homeland after growing up in Canton, China. "You have to work hard to get a better life--it's pretty tough--but everything gets better and better."
She and her husband just purchased their first home. Eventually Huang wants to return to DeAnza College to further the education she attempted to continue last fall. "But I fell asleep in class my first two days, because the babies kept me up at night," she smiles. "I'll try again next quarter."
Saratoga Bagels, 12840 Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road, Saratoga. Open Mon-Fri. 6 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Sat. 6:30 a.m.-4 p.m., Sun. 7 a.m.-3 p.m. 408.867.6834.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
