Maybe its not fair to give this place one star, because we didn't actually eat there.
We arrived at 2pm on a weekday after seeing all of these great reviews, we made a special effort to go to Chaowai Soho especially for bagels.
We went in and sat down and the waitress looked nervous. The menu looked promising, we wanted the smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel set with soup and a coffee for 38rmb.
The place was empty except for one other table, we began to order and the waitress kept yelling things at the kitchen, we asked her what was wrong and she admitted that they might not have any soup, we waited for the kitchen to confirm that they might only have one serve of soup..... OK.... so we began to order again, the waitress still looked nervous, we asked what was wrong, she hesitated then told us that they only have 2 kinds of bagels left, only cinnamon raisin and date and grain. Neither of those sounded very appropriate for a savory topping, but i thought date and grain might be ok but then we were told that actually there was only 1 date and grain left.
I went to see the bagel selection in the glass cabinet and yup, there were about 20 cinnamon raisin and 1 date and grain. The menu offers about 7 different kinds of bagels. Also the bagels on display were really small. We gave up at that point and decided to go elsewhere for our late lunch. I don't know what went wrong today but to be out of food at 2pm is pretty ridiculous, perhaps we just happened to stumble in on their busiest day of the year and they had sold out unexpectedly at lunch time but they need to get that issue worked out.
We might go back again if we happen to be in the area, but certainly wont make a special trip or recommend it to anyone.
FYI, we ended up at Nola for lunch instead and im SO glad we skipped the half-assed bagels:
http://www.thebeijinger.com/reviews/2010/03/24/The-most-flawless-meal-I-have-had-in-a-long-time
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