In Palo Alto, where bagel prices can range from dirt cheap to incredibly expensive, food quality doesn’t always match the accompanying bill.

As relative beginners to bagel tasting, we visited five bagel spots in Palo Alto on a search to identify the city’s best bagels. We picked a bagel from each menu at varying price points and evaluated them according to five criteria: taste, value, service, atmosphere and presentation. We averaged our individual scores for each bagel.

Taste includes both flavor and texture, based on our personal preferences. The value category takes into consideration the bagel’s “bang for your buck,” or how worth the cost it is. Both service and atmosphere play an important part in the overall satisfaction of the dining experience. The presentation category scored the visual appeal of the bagel.