Sweetening Up Breakfast With Marmalade Jam
El Bagel | Miami and Las Vegas
Sweetening Up Breakfast With Marmalade Jam
El Bagel | Miami and Las Vegas
By Patricia Fitzgerald
July 17, 2024
By Patricia Fitzgerald
July 17, 2024
Matteson Koche
In the early days, when El Bagel founder Matteson Koche was serving bagel sandwiches from a mobile pastelito cart operated as a Saturday pop-up, he didn’t have room to stock many topping options. “There was just a cream cheese and guava option on the menu. Once we moved to a full-sized truck, people started asking for an egg on it. And then papitas,” he says. Today, at the concept’s three brick-and-mortar locations, the King Guava bagel sandwich is a top-five seller, filling the bill for anyone craving something savory and sweet or wanting a bit of Latin flavor.
The build starts with the concept’s freshly baked, hand-rolled bagel, available in plain, poppyseed, salt, sesame, everything and rosemary-sea salt flavors, along with a rotation of onion, garlic, jalapeño-cheddar and cinnamon-raisin varieties. “The customer’s choice is stacked high with a thick layer of cream cheese, topped with an over-easy fried egg and sprinkled with papitas (our house-fried potato sticks), and a heavy drizzle of guava marmalade,” says Koche. “Most customers add bacon to it, which takes the sandwich into the stratosphere!”
About the Author
Patricia Fitzgerald serves different roles on the Flavor & The Menu team, including writing custom content, Kitchen Collaborative chef spotlights and digital editorial content, as well as acting as a contributing editor for the print magazine. As owner of PFitzCommunications, she specializes in various areas of foodservice and hospitality, while also maintaining clients in other industries and professions. She can be reached at [email protected].
