Absolute Bagels

I am apparently the last person on the Upper West Side to discover Absolute Bagels on the east side of Broadway between 108th and 107th. But now that I have I'm there nearly every weekend, jogging the mile or so from the apt and then back with soft, chewy and just slightly sweet classics. They must sell thousands on Saturday and Sunday for the piles of each variety are constantly high and deep, but the turnover is so rapid that the bagels are always warm to the touch. On winter days the windows steam up and fathers wait patiently for their kids in strollers to decide what kind they want. I like to think of the place as a microcosm of NYC at its best -- a food most renown among one ethnic group, purveyed in a shop owned and staffed by two other ethnic groups and where, probably, one could place an order in any one of three different languages.