02

Jan

Holiday Meal Traditions

I’m of two minds about spending the holidays in New York. On the plus side, the city is decked out in her prettiest outfit, all sparkles and glitter and polish. On the other hand, it is swarming with tourists to the point where, if you’re not careful, you can literally get stuck among the scrum, just as my husband and I were last Christmas Eve Day near the Rockefeller Center tree. We had to make a harrowing escape via a small opening near Saks.

But there is a lot to love. The celebratory restaurants at your disposal, for one.

Hanukkah

We celebrate Hanukkah, and each year we make a pilgrimage to eat some latkes at a traditional Jewish deli. This year, though, we tried something different.

On the 6th night of Hanukkah we rented a Zipcar and drove to Stix Kosher Restaurant in Forest Hills, Queens. This homestyle establishment specializes in the cuisine of Bukharian Jews–a Central Asian population with a distinctive culture whose history in the region dates back millenia. Lamb is what they do best, and the varieties we sampled were tender and not-at-all gamey. We feasted on lamb plov, kebabs, chebureki and traditional tandoori bread. All around us, large tables of families were toasting to birthdays and the holiday with BYO bottles of vodka and brandy. It was an incredibly festive and warm atmosphere.

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After dinner, we were craving sufganiyot. These filled doughnuts are traditionally enjoyed during Hanukkah to commemorate the oil burning miracle at the center of the holiday. They’re similar to American-style jelly doughnuts, Italian bomboloni and German Berliners. We stumbled upon Queens Pita, which wasn’t just serving one variety of sufganiyot; they had prepared a veritable smorgasbord of the pastry. We were in deep-fried, powdered sugar-coated paradise. I mean, just look at that photo. The ones in the foreground are filled with Nutella. NUTELLA! Just as God had intended.

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Christmas

As Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan admitted during her confirmation hearing, most NYC Jews spend Christmas at a Chinese restaurant. It’s a funny tradition with origins in the mere fact that, for a long time, those restaurants were the only ones open on a day when the usually bustling city is uncharacteristically quiet. Local Chinese joints were the default place to grab a bite for cooking-averse New Yorkers. Many have also pontificated about the shared otherness both Jews and Chinese Buddhists experienced back when assimilation had a much stronger pull in predominately Christian American society.

In order to get a meal in with family members who were leaving the next day, we decided to partake in a spicy Szechuan outing on Christmas Eve night as opposed to the much busier Christmas Day dinner hour. Café China in Midtown was packed with families of all stripes (including The Americans‘ Richard Thomas, out with his wife and two kids!) Festooned with kitschy throwback decor, the restaurant is a nice option for a slightly-more-upscale Szechuan meal in the area. The foods of the Szechuan region are covered in spices and mouth numbing peppercorns (ma la, in Chinese parlance). If you can handle it, order their specialties and not the American-Chinese entrees on offer. We enjoyed Szechuan noodles, dumplings in chili oil, scallion pancakes, tea-smoked duck, ma po tofu, spicy lamb, fried strings beans and twice-cooked pork. Over-ordering and enjoying leftovers later that night in your PJs is half the fun.

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Christmas Day is a relaxing day for us. No presents to open. No fancy dinner to make. We spend it lazing about the apartment and baking something from scratch. We had a breakfast of corned beef hash with two eggs over-easy (my favorite!) at a standby diner down the street. It was quiet, low-key, perfect.

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After a stroll in the park, I spent nearly all of the rest of the day making these cinnamon rolls. They weren’t too difficult, and as I’ve been doing with nearly every dessert this season, I  spiked them with some bourbon–just a tablespoon or so added to the cream cheese frosting in order to give it a little extra sumthin’. We enjoyed the rolls with sparkling wine cocktails. A very merry Christmas, indeed.

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New Year’s Eve

NYE in the United States is mainly a going out holiday. It’s about drinking, dancing, counting down until midnight. In Russia it’s much more–it’s a Thanksgiving-level celebration. There, New Year’s Eve is a HUGE deal. After the Communist Revolution and the subsequent suppression of religion, the traditions surrounding the day mirrored those of Christmas–a decorated tree, a Santa Claus-like figure, presents–though completely void of any religious meaning. (Actual Russian Orthodox Christmas is celebrated on January 7th). Since moving to the U.S., my family has dropped most of the Christmas-like traditions (except for the presents part, natch), but NYE doesn’t feel right without a festive meal that includes caviar, sweets and champagne. My husband and I were going out with friends on the actual day, so we made the meal–complete with homemade crepes–on December 30th. It was freakin’ lovely.

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27

Aug

Ice Cream Sandwich Roundup, Updated

Last summer I posted a comprehensive roundup of the best made-to-order ice cream sandwich in NYC, and there were plenty of formidable contenders. This season brings a few new examples that up the ice cream sandwich ante.

1. I mentioned a version of the brioche-gelato sandwich before, but the Italian-by-way of Brazil gelato shop A.B. Biagi does it one better by offering their take. The Pain Gelato features a choice of three brioche flavors–chocolate-chocolate nibs, orange blossom and regular–sourced from stellar Brooklyn bakery Bien Cuit. Each pairs well with a different gelato flavor. My stracciatella (similar to chocolate chip) went well with the chocolate brioche, which I wasn’t at all angry about. They place the brioche and gelato in a special, waffle-press-like contraption until the sides of the brioche are sealed. The result is a warm, crisp pocket filled with cold, silky gelato. There’s something especially indulgent about eating dessert in the form of a sandwich. There are two caveats–one, at $8, it is pricey and two, because they don’t want the gelato to leak out of the sides, the scoop is pretty small.

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2. Dominique Ansel Bakery is best known for the perpetually imitated Cronut, but the shop’s signature item is a smaller version of the classic Breton pastry kougin-amann. The pastry is flaky, layer-y and sugary, similar to a croissant, but with a more pronounced caramelized, rather than butter, flavor. For their version of an ice cream sandwich (which technically isn’t new, but it’s new to me!), they take a DKA (Dominique’s Kouign Amann), cut it in half and fill it with two scoops of ice cream. The prailene ice cream creation below, for $6.75, was, for lack of a better word, awesome. The pastry is solid enough to hold the ice cream in place, and it’s sweet, but not overwhelmingly so, providing a perfect complement to the richness of the ice cream.

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3. So this creation from recently featured ice creamery Hay Rosie Craft Ice Cream Co. is utterly insane–in the best possible way. Referred to as “the barnburner,” and costing a reasonable-for-its-size $8, this take on the ice cream sandwich incorporates ice cream nestled between a rotating roster of bookends. The day I went there was a choice between slabs of raw chocolate chip cookie dough or actual PB&J sandwiches. After assembly, both the filling and the shell are placed into the very same machine used to create the Pain Gelato, above. The chocolate chip cookie dough barnburner, which I paired with Grape Nuts ice cream, was rich. Like, this-is-really-good-but-I-can-only-eat-a-tenth-of-it rich. The dough had been warmed just enough to create some crispiness, but its DNA was still very much dough. I indulge in a bit of raw dough eating every now and then, but it’s not my absolute fave, the way it is for some. If that means you, you have found your kryptonite.

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4. Newish Park Slope bakery Buterrmilk Bakeshop specializes in homestyle desserts, and their take on the ice cream sandwich reminds me of the sort of satisfying concoction you’d create in your own kitchen. Pick any two of their cookies–I went with one peanut butter and one chocolate chunk–and add a scoop of their homemade ice cream–I opted for coffee almond. The cookies are soft, buttery and crumbly, which makes the sandwich easy (no rock-hard cookie to fight your way through), albeit very messy to eat. At $5.50, it’s also a pretty good deal in the NYC ice cream sandwich market.

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02

Jul

The Artisanal Ice Cream Takeover of NYC

Back in October of 2012, my husband and I heard Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein speak to an audience of New Yorkers. The stars of the affectionately-hipster-satirizing IFC show Portlandia were asked what trendy import from Portland we New Yorkers could expect in the immediate future. Fred answered that weirdly flavored, super-popular, hyper-local, small-batch artisanal ice cream didn’t really seem like a big thing here in NYC, and that Portlanders were waiting in block-long lines for flavors like goat cheese-marionberry-habanero at purveyor Salt & Straw and many others around the city. “Ice cream is on its way,” he had declared.

Like a self-consciously ironic plot line straight out of Portlandia, he turned out to be right, off-handedly predicting NYC’s next big dessert trend. Is Fred Armisen some kind of soothsayer? Or are we just that predictable? American culinary ingenuity doesn’t always start here, the way we’d like to think it does. Small town shops across the country, like Jeni’s in Columbus, Ohio, have been doing this sort of thing for years, and it seems New Yorkers were ready for a deluge of some high-brow ice cream of their own.

Stalwart shops like Sundaes and Cones in the East Village (and before that Bay Ridge) and Cones in the West Village, both with impressive rosters of unique flavors, had been open for decades, but the wave really began about a year before Fred’s pronouncement, with the opening of Ample Hills Creamery in Prospect Heights in the spring of 2011. The shop, with addictive flavors like Salted Crack Caramel and Bubblegum, was so popular it had to close for a bit soon after opening in order to re-stock its ice cream supply. Ample Hills also had the pedigree of being one of the only shops in the country at the time to produce all of its ice cream, including the base, entirely from scratch, on-site. Very Portland-esque, indeed. The shop is now expanding to Gowanus, the site of their new production facility, and has an outpost at Brooklyn Bridge Park as well as a new cookbook.

I guess Fred saw the writing on the wall? After his pronouncement, Oddfellows Ice Cream Co., with flavors like Chorizo Caramel Swirl and Cornbread, opened in Williamsburg in the spring of 2013 and recently expanded to the East Village. Here are three more artisan ice cream shops, all opened since last summer, the last two just within the the last month-and-a-half.

1. Davey’s Ice Cream, East Village According to Grubstreet, David Yoo, owner of Davey’s Ice Cream is a former graphic designer whose true calling was ice cream. He quit his job and enrolled in Penn State’s ice cream short course. (Incidentally, it’s the same course taken by Ample Hills founder Brian Smith, who was a Sci-Fi writer in his pre-ice cream life.)  Per EV Grieve, David, like Smith, produces all of the ice cream from scratch right in the his tiny shop and with local ingredients like Battenkill Valley Creamery cream and milk. There’s a cast of permanent flavors like Strong Coffee and Mexican Vanilla Bean as well as a handful of rotating, experimental flavors. I missed out on Ultra Babka from a few weeks ago (the babka is supplied by Moishe’s Bake Shop, a block away-not sure you can get more local than that), but enjoyed the below super-chunky Brunch! flavor filled with brioche French toast, cinnamon-maple syrup and coffee-glazed bacon. daveys2 Daveys

2. Morgenstern’s Finest Ice Cream, Lower East Side Started by restaurant alum Nick Morgenstern, who’d amassed an ice cream-lover following thanks to a cart outside Fort Greene’s General Greene restaurant, this parlor kicks things up far higher than a notch. A few nights ago I observed NYC’s own “Mr. Chocolate” Jacques Torres sampling the Durian Banana ice cream. He remarked that it had “a very distinct durian flavor.” Durian is a Southeast Asian fruit often banned from public spaces because of the offensive odor it produces when its studded exterior is cut open. Also on the menu: American Egg ice cream, a Jungle Bird cocktail sorbet and dozens of other flavors. My husband was angling for the Szechuan Peppercorn Chocolate. The ice cream is eggless and low in sugar (for flavor-not health-reasons, per Grubstreet), but doesn’t taste discernibly less rich or flavorful than standard ice cream. The below Chocolate Oat ice cream in a waffle cone was a winner. morgensterns3 morgensterns2

3. Hay Rosie Craft Ice Cream, Carroll Gardens I wasn’t 100 percent sold on the encompassing nature of this trend until I walked over to this brand new shop two weeks after it first opened. It was around 3 p.m. on a beautiful early summer day-in other words, prime ice cream time. The door was locked and a sign hanging outside the shop read “sold out,” invoking the great Ample Hills rush of 2011 and proving that New Yorkers have a seemingly insatiable appetite for uniquely crafted small-batch ice cream. Shop owner Stef Ferrari, like Yoo and Smith, is also an alum of the Penn State ice cream course, and churns out everything-from-scratch eggless flavors like Sriracha popcorn, which is distinctively hot, and the satisfying Bananas Ferrari (bel0w), with brown butter, Muscovado sugar, bananas, salt and malt. Her focus is on manufacturing, with the shop functioning as a tasting room on weekends.

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30

May

An Insider’s Guide to a Russian Food Store

New York City is rich with ethnic enclaves. This means culture-specific restaurants, bookstores, and perhaps most excitingly, food markets. If you’re not well versed in that specific culture, stepping inside can be a tad intimidating and overwhelming. Where to start? How do you make sure you’re picking up the right products?

As a Russian immigrant, I often go to Brooklyn’s beachside Brighton Beach neighborhood to fill up on provisions. One of my favorite grocery stores is Brighton Bazaar. It’s clean, expansive and easy to navigate. Here are some of the things I like to pick up when I make a trip.

1. Pickled things are the antipasti of Russian meals. The cabbage is tart and refreshing as are the full sour and half-sour pickles. You can also pick up pickled mushrooms, tomatoes and even watermelon.

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2. The hot bar is a cornucopia of Russian specialties, from bread pockets to meat cutlets to mayonnaise-y salads. The meaty, fatty, flavorful borscht is hearty enough for a full meal.

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3. The aroma emanating from the sliced meats counter reminds me of the sliced bologna and salami we indulge in during family gatherings. For salami, I’d suggest one of the more expensive varieties, like Hungarian (Vengerskaya) or Tzar’s (Tzarskaya), or, if you don’t eat pork, an all-beef salami referred to as “Jewish” (Evreyskaya). I have a soft spot for the alarmingly cheap Doctor’s pork bologna (Doctorskaya), which is smooth and strangely refreshing. My husband insists my love for it is a product of misplaced nostalgia, but I would still recommend it for the Russian food novice–it has a universally appealing taste that’s much less gritty than the Oscar Meyer variety.

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4. Apparently this shop’s bakery department orders their breads all the way from Germany. It makes sense; German bread is renowned in Russia, and the varieties offered here are top-notch. The darker breads are dense, delicious and perfect for sopping up sour-cream drenched things. I usually get the “crusty bread”, which is on the lighter side of dark, and has a nuanced sourdough quality. Feel free to pick up a poppy seed roll–the favorite dessert of every Russian father–if you’re looking for something sweet.

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5. There are a few varieties of dried fish in the seafood section. The one I’m most familiar is vobla. It’s the fish of post-banya meals and lazy afternoons. It requires a a bit of softening, so you can either hit it against the table a few times or bend it back-and-forth until it’s pliable enough to pick at. It’s salty, so pair it with a refreshing beer–a Baltika, maybe?–for a truly Russian experience.

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6. Buckwheat kasha or grechnivaya kasha (on the floor) is to Russia what French fries are to the United States. It’s a a staple side in nearly every home and restaurant. It’s not only a side, though. Add some sauteed mushrooms for a complete meal. My favorite dish as a child was buckwheat kasha mixed with cutup hotdogs.

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7. Russian-style dumplings or pelmeni are my go-to frozen entree when I don’t have time to cook. There are over a dozen varieties to choose from, including sweet versions with cherries, often referred to by their Ukranian name, vareniki. I usually go for the chicken dumplings, but the most popular are “Siberian”-style, a mixture of beef and pork. Boil until tender and top with a spoonful of sour cream or melted butter.

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8. When I was younger, one of my favorite items from the Russian food store was a bag of pryaniki, Russian gingerbread honey cookies. There is an abundance of choice when it comes to picking your favorite. Do you like them smaller or larger, with a more pronounced gingerbread flavor or a more pronounced honey flavor, with more sugar glaze or less? They’re delicious, but also a bit of an acquired taste. They tend to be slightly drier than American-style gingerbread cookies and may require a dunk into tea or coffee.

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 9. There’s no American food product my parents hate more than factory-made marshmallows. They’re convinced American marshmallows taste of chemicals, and well, they’re kind of right. On the other hand, they love zephyr, a Russian dessert with a similar texture. It’s made with fruit puree, sugar, egg whites and some type of gelling agent. It’s airy, pliant, sweet and even better when covered in chocolate.

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10. Let’s get one thing out of the way: Russian chocolates look better than they taste. And well, that’s okay, because they still taste pretty good. The packaging is the star, though, especially in the case of the awesomely retro paper-covered chocolates. All feature bright Soviet-era illustrations, some inspired by Soviet realism, others by 70s-era children’s books. They’re mostly chocolate-covered and the interior is usually a wafer or a nutty nougat filling.

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11. Russians tend to prefer their desserts less overwhelmingly sweet than many Americans. They love flaky, buttery, Napoleon-style French pastry, and go ga-ga for layered meringue cakes, like the crazy-popular Kiev cake. The oblong, walnut-looking sandwich cookies (below, middle) called oreshki (the Russian diminutive word for “nuts”) are a wedding staple, made from a mayonnaise batter and filled with caramel cream and crushed nuts.  The long, purple, candle-looking dessert is called churchkhela and is popular in the Caucuses. The long spokes are made from nuts which are repeatedly covered in a gelling fruit juice mixture and left to harden.

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10

Apr

A Sweets Tour of the Upper East Side

Now that it’s finally beginning to feel like spring outside (knock on wood, spit thrice over your left shoulder, pray to the god of your choosing), it’s time to let your hair down and once again set out on foot across this great city. What better place to start than the Upper East Side? Yes, that Upper East Side. While we weren’t looking the buttoned-up ‘hood has transformed, with the help of a few longtime standouts, into the greatest dessert destination in NYC.

Bakeries and Patisseries

Maison Kayser:  The flagship NYC location of a Parisian-based patisserie, this shop is known for breads and pastry and a healthy collection of American treats like cookies and brownies. A sit-down restaurant is filled with ladies-who-lunch enjoying open faced sandwiches and salads. If you’re sitting down to lunch or dessert, make sure to ask for a bread basket filled with an assortment of bread samples; they won’t bring it to you otherwise.

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FB Patisserie: The fancy older sister to Francois Payard’s downtown bakeries, this location specializes in mousse-based pastry, tarts and French macarons. It’s a best-of compilation of French pastry. In front, there’s a casual cafe perfect for enjoying an eclair and a coffee, while the back is host to an upscale full service restaurant–with prices to match.

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Lady M Confections: This slim minimalist shop is home to one of my favorite cakes ever, the original mille crêpe cake, shown below at right. It’s not cheap ($7.50 a slice), but with 20 paper-thin crêpes and light, not-too-sweet cream layers, it’s an ideal celebratory indulgence. There are other flavors and other cakes, but the original is the superstar. The guidebook writers seem to think so, too, as the shop was packed with tourists during a recent visit.

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William Greenberg Desserts: This shop has been an Upper East Side institution for nearly 60 years. Their famous black-and-white cookies are made in the traditional way (more spongey cake than cookie, fondant icing) and are customizable when ordered in large quantities. They also specialize in Jewish desserts, which for the next two weeks or so means kosher-for-Passover favorites like chocolate-covered matzoh and flour-less brownies.

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Glaser’s Bake Shop: Open for over 100 years, this no-frills shop harkens back to the Upper East Side of yesteryear, back when Yorkville (the name of the eastern section of the neighborhood) was filled with central European immigrants. The influence is evident in their large selection of Danish pastries, but the bakery also specialize in American favorites like cupcakes, brownies, pies and layer cakes. The customer favorite is the black-and-white cookie, which, in contrast to William Greenberg’s they top with fondant and buttercream frosting.

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Orwashers: Our tour of the historic bakeries of the Upper East Side continues, and this one’s a real gem. Orwashers–opened in 1916– churns out award-winning artisan breads; their French baguette was recently declared the best in NYC by Serious Eats. They have pastries, too, as well as filled-to-order doughnuts (chocolate or sugar) with your choice of one of 5 fillings. The red raspberry ($4.25) was everything a jelly doughnut should be.

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Two Little Red Hens: This all-American bakery is extremely popular with the locals, even now, when it’s situated on the wrong side of Second Avenue subway construction. On a recent visit, the shop was out of a lot, and patrons were crowding in to enjoy oversize buttercream-topped cupcakes. The Brooklyn blackout cake is a favorite for birthdays.

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(Image courtesy RichardBerg, Flickr.com; made available via Creative Commons license)

Specialty Bakeries

Canelé by Céline: This tiny adorable bakery specializes in mainly one thing–canelés. These ridged French pastries are marked by a soft, custardy center and a browned caramelized exterior. The shop sells unique flavors like caramel, dark chocolate, raspberry and rum, and even a few varieties of a savory canelés, with chorizo or parmesan cheese. It’ll set you back $4.90 for a pack of three.

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Ladureé: It’s hard to overstate the importance of Ladureé in the Parisian collective consciousness. The mint-green bag is ubiquitous around the city, and Charles de Gaulle airport even has an outpost of the famous shop. The speciality here is French macarons in a rainbow of flavors. The Upper East Side location is the first in the U.S. (one recently opened in Soho as well) and the macarons are just as good as the ones overseas–light meringue, flavorful filling. Their raspberry macaron ($2.80 a piece) is the macaron by which I judge all others.

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Sprinkles Cupcakes: This L.A. transplant is all about the cupcakes ($3.75 a piece). Yes, the cake is moist and the frosting is flavorful, but I think what people are drawn to most is the minimalist design of the shop, something mostly absent from American throwback-style bakeries. Next door is a 24-hour cupcake ATM, which is exactly what it sounds like. You pick your cupcake from a touchscreen, swipe your card, and within seconds, a little door opens with your cupcake of choice enclosed in a to-go box (add $.50 for the convenience). Is it at all necessary? Absolutely not. But it sure is cool.

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Dough Loco: There’s some debate about whether this shop’s location, on Park Ave. and 97th St., constitutes the Upper East Side or East Harlem. We’re not concerned with realtor definitions, just with dessert. The doughnuts ($3 a piece) remind me a lot of the ones from Dough in Bed-Stuy. Both shops feature yeast doughnuts topped with unique coatings. The ones here are smaller, though more dense. Flavors include maple miso, blood orange, raspberry Sriracha, and the below, peanut butter and cassis. Blue Bottle coffee products help you wash them down.

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Le Churro: I have a soft spot for churros. After all, what’s not to love? Freshly fried dough drenched in sugar and served with a chocolate dipping sauce. The ones here (4 for $3.95) are thin and light, in contrast to the heavy churros of the subway platform and Costco cafe (hey, if you’re in a bind…). They offer multiple dipping sauces (chocolate hazelnut, sweet mocha, to name a few), chocolate covered churros, bite-sized churros and even filled churros, for those too lazy to dip.

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Ô Merveilleux Belgian Meringue: I had never heard of Belgian meringues before, but they’re the specialty at this quaint new Second Avenue shop. These treats, which come in two sizes, layer meringue and whipped cream and are topped with chocolate shavings or speculoos cookie crumbs. The small, at $2.70, is plenty sweet to satisfy a serious dessert craving. They have other offerings too, including cupcakes, croissants, cakes, cookies, brioche and tarts.

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26

Mar

Happy 100th Birthday, Russ & Daughters!

There are certain places in New York that, 10 years on, still have the power to turn me into a giddy , I-heart-NYC proselytizer. There is Central Park on a sunny spring day, the Strand bookstore with its tall shelves of aging books, and a certain 100 year-old appetizing store on the Lower East Side. What started as a pushcart at the turn of the century has grown into one of the most iconic and longest surviving institutions in the city, all while keeping it in the family.

Stepping into Russ & Daughters means more than just a shopping excursion or a lesson in the Jewish history of NYC; it’s a sensory experience. It hits you right as you open the door: the wafting scent of smoked fish. It is incredible–one of my favorite smells in the world. The impressive smoked fish selection is supplanted with an equally impressive case of sweets and dried fruits. Russ & Daughters is the rare establishment that’s been able to maintain relevancy in the new millenium while holding on to its old-world sensibility. They care about the customer and about keeping the tradition of classic Jewish appetizing alive. And, well, have you tried the herring?

My Top Five Russ & Daughters items:

Holland catch herring: Around mid-to-late June, Russ & Daughters imports the year’s best catch directly from Holland. This creamy herring comes with its tail still attached. I love it as a sandwich, served on a brioche hot dug bun with chopped onions and pickles.

Beet, apple and herring salad: This is a staple in my and my husband’s home. A surprisingly light and refreshing salad, with a hint of saltiness, thanks to the herring.

Sable: We rarely get this because it’s pricey, but when we do, it’s such a treat. Melty, mild and delicious, it’s a worthy accompaniment to smoked salmon on a bagel sandwich. (Yep, it’s all happening).

Scottish smoked salmon: So buttery and smoky. Ask for it sliced super thin (“thin enough to read a newspaper through” as advised by assistant manager Chhapte Sherpa, also known as the Lox Sherpa), so you can layer the smoked salmon on top of a bagel and schmear (with onions and capers, obvs).

Babka (small): Yes, this is the same Green’s babka that’s sold around the city. Russ & Daughters is one of the only places, though, that allows you to get a small hunk–the perfect size to split among 2-3 people post-lox and herring gorging.

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18

Mar

A Slice to Get Excited About

For the last decade or so the city has been the launching pad for some kind of Neapolitan pizza takeover. These pizza places–categorized by personal-sized light-as-air pies baked in a wood-fire oven–hoarded the spotlight, touted their Naples pedigrees and natural ingredients and seemed to lay waste to the old-fashioned New York slice joints of yesteryear. We were all complicit in their aggression. (For shame!)

But, as evidenced by newbies like Best Pizza and Williamsburg Pizza, the humble slice joint lives on! Last weekend, I had probably one of my favorite slices of the last few years at Prince St. Pizza (in the former Ray’s Pizza space). Though not a standard New York slice, this square Sicilian-style version, was perfection: soft, pliant dough, quality mozzarella, a perfectly-charred, perfectly olive-oily crust, small discs of crispy pepperoni, spicy sauce. It was the square slice of my dreams.

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20

Jan

The Ultimate Hot Chocolate Roundup

When a polar vortex threatens, my beverage of choice is a cup of glove-warming hot chocolate. Thankfully, this city has a slew of places that specialize in liquified chocolate. Now, for the criteria. You don’t want it to be too watery; it should coat the inside of the cup. The chocolate should leave “tree rings” as you drink. Also, this is a bit vague, but the drink should taste layered–more than the sum of its parts. I drank a lot of hot chocolate for this write-up, so toward the end of my research, the most notable criteria was whether–after so much taste-testing–I wanted to keep drinking. Since all of the below are so different, and it’s hard to pick a favorite, I’ve assigned superlatives. I should also note that though hot chocolate usually means chocolate bits melted by steamed milk while hot cocoa is cocoa powder mixed with milk and often sugar, some places use the terms interchangeably, with hot chocolate being the catch-all.

Most Comforting: The Chocolate Room, Park Slope. For $4.75, you get a huge cup of hot chocolate. The added fresh whipped cream was $0.75 extra, but so worth it. The hot chocolate was milky, but not overly so, and intensely satisfying. The texture was more traditional and less thick than many of the more European, “drinking chocolate” places in NYC. I enjoyed it to-stay, with a complimentary amuse bouche of tiny dark chocolate-almond financier.
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Best Deal: Jacques Torres Chocolate, multiple locations. The classic or wicked (spiced) hot chocolate at one of the best chocolate shops in the city is still $3.25 for the small. If you want to try one of their other flavors, it’ll set you back $3.50. I went for the peanut butter. Yep, I said peanut- frickin’-butter. In hot chocolate. Awesome. The beverage itself is thick and molasses-y, in the best possible way. The whipped cream, spooned in from a bowl, is complimentary if you request it. Overall, a delicious and unique cup.
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The Classic for a Reason: The City Bakery, Flatiron. This place has been the hot chocolate go-to for years. They even have a yearly hot chocolate festival. (City Bakery is also home to the awe-inspiring pretzel croissant, NYC’s first hybrid pastry.) Yes, it’s busy and touristy, but the freshly made hot chocolate is sweet, rich and delicious. Like the Jacques Torres cup, it’s a thick drinking chocolate. The oversize house-made marshmallow, though not completely necessary considering how satisfying the chocolate is on its own, is pliable without being spongey or tasting chemically. Not the cheapest option at over $7, with the marshmallow, but I would argue definitely worth it.
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Simplest: L.A. Burdick, Flatiron. There aren’t many bells and whistles here, just a satisfying, drinkable cup of really quality hot chocolate. At $4.75 for the small mug pictured below, it’s also a cup you can actually finish on your own. Definitely one of my favorites. Plus, the cozy shop, with its handful of tables and delicious cakes by the slice is a great place to take a break on a chilly afternoon.

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Best Ambiance: MarieBelle, Soho. I was the only non-tourist at this elegant waitress-service hot chocolate salon in the the back of the brand’s retail shop. The espresso-sized adorable teacup below will set you back $5 ($7 if you want a normal-sized teacup), which gives this hot chocolate the distinction of being among the priciest on this list. The chocolate itself was sublime. Rich, very layered and compulsively drinkable. There are countless options and combinations for your chocolate: milk, dark, white, European, American, hot cold, flavored. There’s even a list of over a dozen specially-sourced chocolate drinks, including “Jefferson’s Hot Chocolate” from my home state of Virginia. My cup was milk chocolate and hazelnut. Instead of being added via syrup, which would’ve been the easiest option, the hazelnuts are actually ground and incorporated into the chocolate. And yes, it’s expensive, but it was the perfect size for me; I actually finished the whole thing.
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Fanciest: La Maison du Chocolat, multiple locations. When visiting an establishment during my research, I always asked for the drink to-stay, if it was an option, just to see what the presentation was like. French chocolatier La Maison went all out, which a small plate of cocoa-dusted whipped cream, a glass of water and a complimentary piece of chocolate. The cup itself was also the most expensive, at $8.50. After trying so many milk hot chocolates, I went for the dark (the other option was vanilla-infused dark) and it was intense, the thickest of all of the hot chocolates on this list. It almost had the consistency of the melted chocolate one would dip churros into.

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Best Presentation: Vosges Haut-Chocolate, Soho and the Upper East Side. This Chicago-based chocolatier sells unique and exotic chocolates in beautiful packaging and was one of the first to spearhead the whole bacon-and-chocolate trend. When I asked for my hot chocolate to-stay, I wasn’t sure what to expect, since at the Soho location, the sit-down area is just one long high table. It’s not really waiter service either, just a “sit and we’ll bring it out to you” thing. Which is why I was shocked when the below arrived, all included in the $5 price. The hot chocolate was served on hipster-y driftwood, with powdered sugar-vanilla-bean whipped cream and samples of their brand new peanut butter-salt-milk chocolate bar. It was smooth and drinkable, with a nice vanilla flavor. Other options include a multi-spice dark chocolate or a white chocolate.
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Most Homemade Tasting: Dessert Club, ChikaLicious, East Village. This dessert shop is known for its creative, hybrid pastries. (People love its unique puddings, flavored ices and ice cream sandwiches.) The hot chocolate–hot cocoa? (it’s listed at $5.05, but I was charged $4.75, maybe because of the off hour) is a solid contender. It comes pre-made from a heated vat and tastes almost identical to the kind of hot chocolate one would make at home, i.e. sweet, but not overly so, with just the right consistency. It’s not the fanciest or most complex cup, but it tastes great nonetheless.
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Biggest Surprise: Smile To Go, Soho. I wasn’t expecting much when I stepped into this gourmet prepared foods shop for a pick-me-up. It wasn’t even a part of my research. The melty chocolate was delicious and the milk was steamy but not overly frothy (which is categorically the worst thing ever). Plus, I finally got to experience a bit of latte art without having to order an actual coffee.

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Great for the ‘Hood: Nunu Chocolates, Downtown Brooklyn (top) and Leonidas/Manon Cafe (bottom), Financial District. Both of these establishments make very tasty if not extremely memorable cups of hot chocolate. Nunu Chocolates has been making single-origin artisanal chocolate in Brooklyn for years, and their cup ($4 for a small) features their quality chocolate, melted with milk into a satisfying, not overly thick blend. Leonidas makes fine Belgian chocolates and the no-frills cafe in the back of their Financial District shop delivers a sweet milk-chocolate-y cup (the milk is their standard; a dark or caramel is also available) with your choice of white, dark or milk chocolate candy sample. A small will run you $4.75.

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Also Really Good: Francois Payard Bakery (FPB), multiple locations. Okay, so that’s not a real superlative, but I’m running out of unique attributes here! Though the hot chocolate at this venerated French pastry chef’s bakery outposts is pre-made, it is incredibly thick and indulgent, owing to the heavy cream in the recipe. Split with a friend if you want a shot a finishing the entire cup ($5).

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The Rest: The Chocolate Bar, West Village (left) and Peels, East Village (right). Though the Chocolate Bar hot chocolate ($4.50 for a small) isn’t at the top of my list, the shop does score points for having a lot of flavor options, including peanut butter (which I had to go for again, obviously), peppermint, caramel, hazelnut and many others. The actual hot chocolate was a tad watery for my taste, but good for someone who doesn’t want an overwhelming cup.  The Peels hot chocolate ($3.50) had way too much milk, which could’ve just been a symptom of inconsistency. As you can see, it couldn’t be more different from the thick and fudgy hot chocolate the food website Serious Eats received when they visited a few years back. The house-made marshmallow is complimentary.

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10 years ago Short URL 1 Comment

Food/New York City

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04

Dec

Food as Cultural Ambassador

There are those nights in NYC when the last thing I want to do is go to that place with the young, tattooed chef cooking million-ingredient new American cuisine. I don’t want the fancy crowds or the hour-long wait or the communal tables. And I really, really don’t want the scene.

What I want instead is an escape, to go to a place that feels immersive and homey and a vacation from the money-d sameness of downtown Manhattan and brownstone Brooklyn. (Hey, we all have our cynical days.)

I’ve written about how Queens is a world away while only a 15 minute subway ride from Midtown. But there are places all over the five boroughs that offer the same kind of transportive experience.

My husband and I hit up three such spots, three weekends in a row.

First up was San Matteo Pizza and Espresso Bar on the Upper East Side. We were looking for something low-key after a visit to the Met, and this place was just right. It’s small, minimally decorated with maps and Italian football club scarves and churns out top-notch Neopolitan pies (I’d stick to the classic Margherita). Their specialty, though, is a panuozzo, a type of pizza dough sandwich that’s native to the Salerno province in Italy. The restaurant was filled with Italian tourists looking for a taste of home while on vacation.

Next was Chayhana Salom, a new-ish Uzbek restaurant in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay. We indulged in kebabs, plov, a regional lamb and rice dish with as many variations as there are grandmothers, and lagman, a toothsome, homemade noodle, egg and beef creation, which turned out to be our favorite dish of the night. Around us, Russian and Central Asian families were indulging in a celebratory night out. And, of course, like other similar restaurants in the ‘hood, it’s BYO (vodka).

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The plates at Chayhana Salom

On the third weekend, we hit up BCD Tofu House in Manhattan’s Koreatown. This chain has locations all over California and an outpost in Seoul. Their specialty is a tofu stew called soondubu. The stew is spicy, funky, and filled with silken tofu as well as your choice of add-ins. It’s the ultimate cold-weather comfort food! The dish is served with multiple small plates called banchan. At BCD Tofu House, this means various pickled things, a fried fish and a raw egg to crack into your boiling pot of soondubu. Their bulgogi, a type of grilled and marinated steak, was saucy, sweet and delicious. It’s a great spot to enjoy the buzz of K-town and a variety of unique–and addictive–Korean specialites.

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Soondobu and bulgogi at BCD Tofu House

10 years ago Short URL Comments

Food/New York City

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13

Aug

Ice Cream Sandwich Roundup

What better way to relish the dog days of summer than with a really good ice cream sandwich? An ice cream sandwich, just like most really great treats, is all about the contrast in textures. You have the soft, chewy–alternatively, dense, crunchy–cookie (or other delivery device, as you shall see below) and the cold, smooth ice cream. All of this is why, in my expert opinion, the best ice cream sandwiches are made-to-order. An MTO ice cream sandwich is not an easy find. Many of the city’s most-touted ice cream sandwich suppliers, including Melt Bakery, The Good Batch, Jacques Torres Chocolate (you can get non-pre-assembled sandwiches at two locations, but they insist on only using frozen cookies) and Bierkraft, keep pre-made sandwiches in a freezer. I’ve tested my sensitive teeth too many times on frozen solid cookie. Which is why I’ve scouted the city for well-made MTOs. You’re welcome.

chikalicious

A longtime favorite dessert, the chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich ($6.95) at Dessert Club ChikaLicious in the East Village is everything you’d want from a delicious summertime treat. The cookies are chewy if not downright out-of-the-oven-warm, and the in-house vanilla soft serve is rich and satisfying. A few squirts of hot fudge are exactly what you didn’t know you wanted.

Coolhaus

With endless ice cream and cookie flavor combinations, including unique offerings like fried chicken and waffles (ice cream) and peanut butter captain crunch (cookie), the Coolhaus truck, with mutliple locations around NYC and elsewhere, is the king of the MTO ice cream sandwich. On a recent visit to the CPW location, I paired s’mores cookies with a chocolate-stout-and-pretzel ice cream. The cookies had just the right texture, thin and pliable, and the ice cream had a lively beer-y kick. If you’re really looking to diversify, ask for two different cookies as I’ve done on more than one occasion. They’re more than happy to oblige.

Ronneybrook

When I was first handed the above sandwich from Roneybrook Milk Bar ($3.50) in Meatpacking District’s Chelsea Market, I was a tad disappointed. I could tell the cookies were hard and was worried I’d have trouble biting through them. But then I started eating. And, well, I couldn’t stop. The cookies were dense, yes, but not in a stale way. They had an appealing crunchiness with oversize white chocolate chips that broke up the texture. The cinnamon ice cream I had chosen was simple but incredibly creamy with the perfect amount of cinnamon flavor.

amorino

Carb-laden sweets are my Kryptonite. I had no idea brioche ice cream sandwiches existed until I saw one advertised at a now-defunct Midtown East Italian restaurant five years ago. At Amorino in Greenwich Village, their sandwich, called a Foccacina ($7.50), combines a sugary brioche with two of their gelato offerings. The gelato at Amorino is not to be missed, with two types of pistachio and all of the best Italian classics (despite the chain being of French origins). I went for the saltier of the two pistachios coupled with the hazelnut. The scoops were stuffed into a small-ish roll and dusted with powdered sugar. Though the brioche was good, albeit less dense than I prefer my brioche bread, the gelato is the star here.

milkandcookies

The ice cream sandwich at Milk & Cookies Bakery ($5.50) in the West Village was a knock-your-socks-off surprise. The cookies were chewy, layered and–wait for it–warm. There’s nothing better than biting into a soft cookie and cold, creamy ice cream at the exact same time. I went for a milk-chocolate-and-caramel cookie and paired it with caramel gelato, which they source from city favorite Il Laboratio del Gelato. There are over a dozen cookies and nearly as many ice creams to mix-and-match according to your preference. Since their specialty is cookies, it seems prudent to treat the cookie selection process the way you would picking a bagel. Ask for what’s fresh and warm and use that as your guide.

wafelsanddinges

I knew the sandwich at Wafels & Dinges, a.k.a the de Verdekke ($6), was going to be good when I saw the woman working the truck (60th and CPS location) put two mini liege waffles onto the grill. After they warmed, with the beautiful sugar crystal edges you see above, she paired them with a single scoop of their specially made Spekuloos ice cream (a version of their famous spicy cookie spread ) and topped it off with powdered sugar. Yowza. This was delicious. In a way that, when you first bite into it, you’re totally unprepared for. It was warm and chewy and melty and all around satisfying. Plus, it’s small and portable–a perfect dessert for a quick city stroll.

11 years ago Short URL Comments

Food/New York City

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