One day in February, a notice appeared on the website San Francisco Eater. An unknown outfit called Eastside Bagels was hosting a pop-up at a Mission District bar called Dear Mom. One morning only: actual New York bagels, with schmear, lox or pastrami. Doors open at 11:30 a.m.

But even before Sonya Haines pulled out her slicing knife, she was in well over her head. She had 10 dozen bagels (five plain, five everything) overnighted to herself, and by 10:30 a.m. there were more than 200 people standing on the 16th Street sidewalk in the rain. When you offer an East Coast Jewish transplant the possibility of a fresh New York bagel on a Sunday morning, you arouse a lot of yearning. Californians, spoiled by Platonic produce, excellent burritos and fine-art coffee, have a tormented relationship with this particular food item. Even expert local bakers, like Joe Wolf, the owner of Marla Bakery, concede, ‘‘San Francisco has struggled with the bagel.’’

Conventional wisdom, at least among former East Coasters and California Jews, holds that you can’t buy a good one in the Golden State. On the sidewalk outside Dear Mom, the mood quickly turned from grateful to complaining. Many customers felt disgusted by the line (though, of course, they themselves were the line). Others were outraged by the prices: $6 for a bagel with cream cheese; $10 for a lox or pastrami bagel sandwich, the latter with a poached egg. Half the customers left unfulfilled because of lack of inventory.

The New York bagel, as everybody knows, is an institution. No bagel definition will satisfy all, but for starters, let’s just say: A good one requires a chewy interior with blisters, called fisheyes, on a shiny, crispy crust. Making a bagel requires several steps: Hand-roll enriched dough; let it rise, or proof; retard the rising in a refrigerator; boil briefly in malted water; then bake. Mitchell Davis, the executive vice president of the James Beard Foundation — a man who is currently living in Milan and who almost came to tears one recent Sunday morning at the thought of his husband back home in Gramercy Park, reading the wedding announcements and eating an everything from Brooklyn Bagel — believes that the secret to a good bagel is technique, the length of time, say, for proofing and boiling, more than the type of water or flour. Achieving the right crust is foremost. ‘‘That’s the hardest thing, that outer crunch,’’ Davis told me. He recalled that his father described the bagel as ‘‘a doughnut dipped in cement.’’