Inglourious Bagels proves there's always more of everything

“Don’t notorious and inglorious kind of mean the same thing?”

The question’s come up thanks to the quirky pairing of restaurants on a stretch of El Camino Real in Carlsbad’s La Costa neighborhood. The first is Notorious Burgers, a tongue in cheek burger bar that, despite the name, has spent ten years establishing a positive reputation, particularly among the beef and beer set. The second is its new sister restaurant, dubbed Inglourious Bagels.

In effect, Notorious took over a neighboring bagel shop, giving the storefront a change in name — and attitude— that’s occasionally apparent in its offerings.

For the record: notorious refers to something or someone well known for bad reasons, while inglorious might describe the dishonorable act behind such infamy. So, they’re not quite synonyms, but close. Being a huge word nerd, it was hard for me to not already like a bagel shop that provoked such a conversation. (Never mind that Inglourious adopts the intentional, Quentin Tarantino misspelling from his film Inglourious Basterds.)

As for how much attitude a bagel shop might possess, there’s probably not a lot of room for any more bombast beyond declaring it a New York style bagelry. But Inglourious has found at least one way to assert itself: by adding more ingredients to the everything bagel.

Traditionally, “everything” is said to include sesame seeds, poppy seeds, onion, garlic, and salt. And Inglourious makes its everything bagels this way ($2.50 each). However, it also offers a everything jalapeño cheddar bagel, which uses “everything” as a starting point, then adds jalapeño slices and melted cheese ($4).

Other less common bagels include strawberry bagels and ones made with muenster cheese. The rest of its bagel lineup is mostly made up of usual suspects, such as quick to sell out sesame seed bagels, and kid-friendlier mainstays including blueberry and chocolate chip.

But, Inglorious finds another avenue to creativity through its schmears ($1.75-2 per topping, $5-5.50 per tub). Along with industry standards such as roasted garlic, chive, and sun-dried tomato cream cheeses, the shop offers deviations featuring habanero, green chilis, fig, and a subtle kimchi flavor.

Finally, Inglourious Bagels has fun with its sandwich creations, first with a few playful, Yiddish naming conventions. For example, egg and cheese bagels go by the name Shlemiel and Shlimazel, referring to bacon or sausage breakfast sandwiches, respectively ($8.50). On a somewhat more traditional bent, the “Oy Vey” features house gravlax or lox with capers, tomatoes, red onion, salted cucumber, and dill ($15), while the “Shiksa” sandwich shows So Cal roots, topped with avocado and lemon juice ($5.25). Most notorious may be the Schmendrick: a culture-bending creation combining lox, bacon, and avocado ($15).

The menu suggests that brisket and pastrami sandwiches may soon be available, but in the meantime, there’s plenty to dig into, including the classic salads trio: the “Bubbe” egg salad ($8), the “Maven” chicken salad ($9), and my pick, the ”Schtick” tuna salad with lettuce, red onion, tomato, and cheddar cheese ($11.50). Tuna salad on a bagel is neither inglorious nor worthy of notoriety, but behind the clever wordplay and adaptations, at its base, this really is just a friendly, neighborhood bagel shop.