#90 – CAVIAR CREAM CHEESE at RUSS & DAUGHTERS

Once again Time Out New York released their Top 100 Dishes of the year and once again, I’m going to eat my way through every one. And no price point or subway delay will stop me. In no particular order, here’s my take on their Top 100.

I was not expecting any of Time Out’s list items to overlap with my search for the best bagels in the city. There were a few dumpling options on the list this year and, last year I had plenty of pizza and a few pastrami sandwiches. But overall, bagels aren’t usually thought of as mind blowing or overly unique. And for the record, no bagel actually made the list this year, but something that is so enmeshed with the bagel did and I saw no other way to sample it then to order it with a bagel. I’m talking, of course, about cream cheese. Caviar cream cheese, to be more specific.

Russ & Daughters is an institution in the Lower East Side and it’s one of the few Jewish appetizing shops left in the city. An appetizing shop is not a store that specializes in chicken wings and mozzarella sticks, but rather things that are actually appetizing. I’m talking about smoked fish, bagels, cream cheese, etc. Basically, the opposite of a deli, which sells a variety of meats. These places focus more on dairy items, which are not kosher when combined with meat products.

I had been here many times in the past to try their gefilte fish and speciality sandwiches (like the Super Heebster, which is smoked whitefish and salmon salad with wasabi caviar and horseradish spiked cream cheese). But aside from a base for the sandwich, I had never truly sampled their bagels. And many people mention these among the best in the city. So I should do a separate bagel review, shouldn’t I?

Well, as it turns out Russ & Daughters doesn’t make their own bagels. They have a local company bake them and deliver them fresh every day. The bagel shops I’ve been reviewing all bake on location and the good ones bake them throughout the day to assure a fresh, warm bagel whenever I arrive (which is usually later in the day). I didn’t get to Russ & Daughters until after 3 and since the bagels arrived very early in the morning, I didn’t have high expectations. I don’t think it’s fair to include them in the bagel search when there’s no possible way they just came out of the oven. Especially considering that oven is miles away.

So while I noticed that the bagel was cakey and slightly stale, I excused it and focused on my list item, which was the dark gray, fish egg-specked cream cheese.

And in contrast to the bagel, the cream cheese is made in house. The caviar cream cheese is double-whipped and mixed with dramatic black whitefish caviar (very different than a black and white cookie, but similar in color). I could taste the freshness of the cream cheese, which was fluffy and had a subtle sourness. The caviar, however, didn’t add much flavor. For me, caviar is all about the saltiness and the pop. There were a few bursts here and there, but the texture was more creamy than poppy.

We also tried one of their speciality sandwiches, the Pastrami Russ, which is a pastrami sandwich minus the heart attack. Pastrami cured salmon paired with mustard and sauerkraut was amazing, especially on a pumpernickel bagel. It puts the A in Appetizing.

Would Russ & Daughters’ Caviar Cream Cheese make my Top 100 of the Year? Probably not. The cream cheese itself is some of the best I’ve ever tasted, but the addition of caviar doesn’t make it any better. I’d have been fine with just plain (or horseradish cream cheese), but it still earns a 7 out of 10.