Bagels from Bo's Falafel Bar.

If you hadn’t noticed, Bend is having a bit of a bagel renaissance.

Coming onto the local bagel scene in recent years, Bo’s Falafel Bar has added bagels to its menu, and Mimi’s Bagel Deli has graduated from delivery to a tucked-away food truck slinging hand-rolled bagels and breakfast sandwiches, both joining a handful of local mainstays.

Rarely are bagels the stars of our daily diets, but often they serve as the foundations of our mornings, the cures to our hangovers and the caloric solutions for having too much to do and too little time to sit for breakfast.

So, awash with options, where is a Bendite to turn for the city’s best bagel, the perfect mix of taste and texture, crunch and crumb?

This, dear reader, is the question we hope to help you answer. Last week, The Bulletin newsroom gathered for a blind taste test, rating four bagels — all plain, for consistency’s sake — on four factors: taste, interior texture, crust and structure (like its height, shape and schmear-ability).

We crisscrossed town to pick up fresh bagels from four contenders: Mimi’s Bagel Deli, Bo’s Falafel Bar, Rockin’ Dave’s Bistro and Big O Bagels. In a city growing as quickly as Bend, many things seem to pit the old against the new, and for our bagel judges, the new arrivals won out over the classics.

Bo’s Falafel Bar (and, now, bagels)

While Bo’s Falafel Bar is already well known in Bend for the falafel bowls and wraps that emerge from the blue house on the corner of Galveston and 14th Street, it should also be known for its bagels.

This unexpected contender for bagel glory doesn’t look like other bagels. It’s crisper, browner and crackles under your fingers. It’s got a sweet outside and flavorful inside, giving it the highest scores in our blind test’s taste and crust categories.

“That’s quite good,” commented crime and public safety reporter Bryce Dole after his first bite. “It’s plain, but it’s got flavor.”

This bagel is springier than the rest, giving it a texture that’s softer than a classic bagel. That’s probably a red flag for the bagel purists hailing from the far-flung metropolises of bagel legend — but the skyscrapers of our city overlook the Deschutes, not the Hudson, so bagel purists we are not.

The delight of these bagels comes at a price, with a bagel and cream cheese costing $6.

Bo’s also offers a variety of bagel sandwiches with both classic ingredients, like the egg and cheese, or more contemporary combinations, like brie & apple compote or The Seth Rogen, with jalapeno sausage, cheddar, pickles and ranch. Sandwiches run between $11 and $14, and one-off specials often appear on the restaurant’s Instagram feed.

1366 NW Galveston Ave.; Bagels and breakfast available Thursday through Sunday, 8 to 11 a.m.

Mimi’s Bagel Deli

The bagel purists will likely find more comfort in the alley between Cannabend and Carpet One on Bend’s north side.

There, just north of the Winco Foods entrance on Third Street, Mimi’s Bagel Deli serves from its sea-green food truck New Jersey-style bagels, fresh cream cheese, breakfast sandwiches and assorted sweet treats.

“Just looking at it, your eye is immediately drawn to (it),” commented public lands reporter Michael Kohn, surveying our lineup of bagels.

The crust of this bagel is crisp and golden brown with just the right amount of gloss. The top scorer in our interior and structure categories, this is a bagel that knows its place: It isn’t trying to do too much, and it strikes the right balance in both flavor and density.

“Everything about it was just at the highest level,” Kohn said.

A bagel with cream cheese from Mimi’s will run you $4.50. A classic sandwich like the egg and cheese is priced at $7, and it’s hard to ignore the more complex specialties, including the Filthy Philly ($11) with sausage, egg and cheese on a jalapeno bagel or the SuperNova ($15), with Nova lox, red onion and tomato.

3308 North Highway 97; Open Thursday through Sunday, 7 a.m. to noon.

Big O Bagels

The newsroom’s next favorite bagel came from a local fixture, Big O Bagels. These came from the westside location on Galveston Avenue, though one could also find them at any of Big O’s five Central Oregon locations.

Among our taste testers, the consensus was that what this bagel lacked in flavor it made up for in softness.

“This is not as delicious as (the Bo’s) bagel.” Dole said. “But it is softer — that, I like.”

For others in the newsroom, though, the interior softness and lack of a hard outer crust just wasn’t right.

“I like a hard crust,” said local government reporter Anna Kaminski. Upon learning which bagel in our test came from which store, Kaminski noted her surprise that this one had been from Big O, saying the store is her go-to for an everything bagel and garlic-herb cream cheese.

Still, these bagels are a Bend institution for a reason: A bagel from Big O’s wide range of flavors plus cream cheese costs around $4, and their no-fuss breakfast sandwiches start at $5.50. More complex lunch sandwiches all run $10.75 or less.

Westside location: 1032 NW Galveston Ave.; Open 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily.

Rockin’ Dave’s

Rounding out the newsroom’s bagel ranking were those from Rockin’ Dave’s Bistro and Backstage Lounge, another Bend bagel and breakfast institution.

Of the four we tried, these bagels had the most bread-like flavor, making them a strong candidate for a hearty serving of a bold-flavored cream cheese.

Like those from Big O, these bagels were on the softer, airier side of the spectrum, again to the dismay of those who prefer a firmer bagel and harder crust. To some of our taste testers, these bagels were so soft they seemed undercooked and, in places, doughy.

A bagel with plain cream cheese from Rockin’ Dave’s is priced at $3.50, and sandwiches run from $6 to $10.50. There’s also a broader breakfast and lunch menu for the less bagel-inclined.

661 NE Greenwood Ave.; Open Wednesday through Sunday, 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.