{"id":44588,"date":"2025-11-19T08:36:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T08:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/44588\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T08:36:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T08:36:11","slug":"oahu-bagel-shop-wins-big-at-new-york-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/44588\/","title":{"rendered":"Oahu bagel shop wins big at New York competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) &#8211; An Oahu bagel shop won three awards at the annual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bagelfest.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.bagelfest.com\/\">BagelFest competition<\/a> in New York City.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Competing against bakers from 12 states and three countries, Tali\u2019s Bagels and Schmear walked away as the winner in the Rising Star category, runner up in Best Showmanship, and third place in the Best Bialy category.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe serve New York-style bagels in Hawaii, but to serve them to New Yorkers, it was very validating,\u201d said owner Talia Bongolan-Schwartz.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">She and Kelly Bongolan-Schwartz began perfecting their bagel-making skills at home during the pandemic, making bagels every day for a month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI was born and raised in Hawaii. I didn\u2019t know what a real bagel was supposed to taste like. So I was the baker. She was the taste tester,\u201d explained Kelly Bongolan-Schwartz.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Talia, a native New Yorker, provided the flavor expertise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI grew up in New York. I\u2019m from Long Island so I was eating bagels my whole life. I took bagels very seriously so I had the flavors in my mind. I could taste it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThere were a lot of fails and then one day there was like a nostalgic moment for her,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The duo\u2019s passion project eventually grew into a business. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Tali\u2019s Bagels and Schmear opened in Ward Village two years ago and expanded to Kailua in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Their next big challenge? The Big Apple and BagelFest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe did a creamy kimchee mixture instead of the traditional caramelized onions. Instead of the traditional poppy seeds we did black and white sesame seeds,\u201d Talia said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Their Hawaii-influenced flavors, like ube schmear, proved key to their success.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cUbe has started to become popular on the mainland too,\u201d Talia said. \u201cWhen we were shopping for ube in the store, it\u2019s literally labeled as Hawaiian purple yam because it was popularized here in New York from Hawaii culture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Tali\u2019s Bagels and Schmear is located at 1200 Ala Moana Blvd. in Ward and 26 Hoolai St. in Kailua.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/talisbagels.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/talisbagels.com\/\">Visit their website for more information.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) &#8211; An Oahu bagel shop won three awards at the annual BagelFest competition in New York&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[24201,8202,15980,25603,25604,25601,15745,25606,9,11,10,25602,2895,25600,25607,25605,16528],"class_list":["post-44588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-bagelfest","tag-bagels","tag-best","tag-best-showmanship","tag-bialy","tag-competition","tag-hawaii","tag-kailua","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-rising-star","tag-shop","tag-talis-bagels-and-schmear","tag-ube","tag-ward","tag-winner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}