Tasty traditions Tasty traditions (January 13, 2006)

Izzy's serves up a tempting spread of New York-style favorites

By Rebecca Wallace

It takes a certain kind of person to pass up Belgian chocolate cream cheese spread for herring in cream sauce.

But that's the kind of eaters we are, my mom and I. We're tough. We're Jewish. We like the traditional food, the kind that makes us think of Grandma Phyllis speaking Yiddish and my mom's childhood in the Bronx.

So we do pretty well at Izzy's Brooklyn Bagels. We can nosh to our heart's content, listen to customers chatting in Hebrew and find my mom's old subway stop on the New York map on the wall.

Truth is, though, we're not really that tough. Jewish deli-style food has become popular with all types of people, and Izzy's has a particularly tempting array. If you haven't tried something besides a raisin bagel with strawberry cream cheese, you really should.

Case in point: the white fish salad ($3.95 on a bagel, $4.95 for an eight-ounce tub). We tried it on a sesame bagel and found it smoky and creamy, yet pleasingly light. A member of the salmon family, mild-flavored white fish is a delicious alternative to tuna. And Izzy's friendly workers also offered us a taste of the salad in advance.

Herring in cream sauce ($3.95 on a bagel, $4.95 for eight ounces) is richer, with a stronger fish taste. It's hard to eat a lot of it, but the pickled herring gives everything a zesty tang, and sweet onions add the perfect touch.

Both got the thumbs-up from my mother and me, although she would have liked more onions in the herring. She's biased, though: they used to eat herring in cream sauce with Sunday breakfast in the Bronx, and she would pick the onions out of the jar and eat them alone.

The white fish and herring at the decade-old Izzy's come from New York; they're shipped in from a supplier in Brooklyn. The other salads, though, are made in-house, says owner Israel Rind says. They include cole slaw, Israeli chopped vegetable salad, Moroccan carrot salad, couscous salad with chickpeas and dried cranberries, and Eva's potato salad with green apples, which comes from Izzy's mother's recipe (all are $3 for eight ounces).

Another house-made offering is the vegetarian "chopped liver" ($3.75 on a bagel, $3.95 for eight ounces). I'm a huge fan of the real stuff, and this wasn't it. But as a veggie alternative, it made for a savory sandwich when paired with an onion bagel.

Slightly sweeter than real chopped liver, the smooth spread had a rustic flavor dominated by its ingredients of green peas, egg and onions, but I could also taste the salt, pepper and walnuts in it. Satisfying and different.

The bagel, though, had the same problem as the "egglette" ($3.50) of scrambled eggs on an onion bagel that I'd ordered on another day. Both bagels got over-toasted so that the onions were burned. The layer of egg was also bland and too thick.

Sacrilege to have scorched onions on such a tasty bagel. Izzy's makes some of the best bagels around, boiling the raw dough and then baking them for a perfectly chewy, substantial result. This is what a bagel should be.

The sliced lox on a bagel also lived up to expectations. Although the dish is pricey ($7.50, as opposed to $3.95 for lox cream cheese on a bagel), portions are very generous and Izzy's doesn't skimp on the salmon, which is wild, not farmed. It all comes with healthy helpings of cream cheese, tomato, cucumber and red onion. Even if my mother had allowed me to talk with my mouth full, I wouldn't have been able to.

Those who want something besides the typical Jewish deli fare can try Izzy's pizza, which is made in-house. No meat options are available to keep everything kosher, and the cheese is made without rennet, a substance that comes from calves and can be used in commercial cheese.

One afternoon, I chose the vegetarian ($4.25 a slice), which had green and yellow peppers, mushrooms, red onions, zucchini and olives. The veggies were ample and fresh, the onions sweet and the peppers crisp. The crust had a friendly, homemade taste and, unlike other pizza crusts, was light and not greasy.

When my mom thinks about her Bronx days, one of her favorite memories is in black and white. No, I'm not going to get in trouble for saying anything about her age: I'm referring to one of her favorite sweets, black-and-white cookies.

The Izzy's folks bake their own black-and-whites -- large, soft cookies ($1.95) with one half covered with chocolate and the other with vanilla -- and my mom couldn't wait to eat one. Unfortunately, both times we went together to Izzy's they were out.

I had to go back on my own to get a cookie, which was too bad. It was delicious, but so rich that it's daunting for one person to eat.

There's a science to properly consuming a black-and-white, my mom says: you have to choose which side to eat first.

But I couldn't decide between the sugary vanilla or the deep, mellow chocolate, so I combined bites of both. I can handle it. After all, I'm tough.

Izzy's Brooklyn Bagels 477 California Ave., Palo Alto (650) 329-0700 www.izzysbrooklynbagels.com
Hours: Monday-Friday 6 a.m.-4 p.m., Saturday-Sunday 7 a.m.-3 p.m.

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