Dining Downtown, Hip Little Bakeries and a Birthday, Part II

As promised! The second part of last week’s culinary expeditions.
On Thursday I went to Two Little Red Hens , which is the CUTEST little bakery ever, on 2nd avenue, just off 86th Street. Though it is absolutely teeny, it seems to be popular for stroller-parking Upper East Side moms and toddlers. Seating is small, maybe 3 or 4 little tables, but inside is homey and cozy with exposed brick walls and…well, lots of chickens (in the form of plates, pictures, paintings, ceramics…*cluckcluck). Their baked goods are a tad pricey ($2.75 for a Red Velvet Cupcake, $4.00 for the Brooklyn Blackout) but SOOOO pretty. And delicious. I’ve had those two cupcakes before and they were QUITE bad-ass. I didn’t eat any on this occasion, but don’t worry…sometime during this summer I will ;D

They’ve got such a sweet variety of cakes, cupcakes, pies, bars and cookies. I was in the mood for something fruity and spied their Linzer Bar (spin off Linzer Tarts maybe?). It’s an almond flavored pastry crust layered with raspberry jam. It was $2.75.

Pretty Layers!

It was pretty good. The bar was crisp and crumbly and the texture was really nice. The jam definitely tasted like raspberries but was a bit too sweet, and I think it washed out the almond flavor of the crust. But I liked it a lot and it satisfied my sweet tooth.

Then on Friday, Tina and I desperately needed to catch up on our Sex and the City to prepare for THE MOVIE . *emits girly squeal*. Ok, shoot me, can’t help it – SJP is just so fabulous. After work, I decided to pick up a sweet treat to enjoy during the marathon and headed down to the LES to pick up some treats from:

Sugar Sweet Sunshine , another hip little bakery. It’s kinda like a hole in the wall. A very sweet, charming, delicious hole in the wall. I believe the owners left Magnolia to start their own bakery, and well it’s been a smashing success. I discovered these babies when I worked several blocks away as a secretary in this office-…nevermind. Back to the baked goods :] I bought half a dozen cupcakes (though they also have amazing bars, cakes, puddings and trifles galore): Red Velvet, Spicy Pumpkin, Lemon Yummy, Ooey Gooey [chocolate almond buttercream on chocolate cake], Black and white, and Pistachio. Here, DROOL:

During that night we ate the Spicy Pumpkin and Lemon Yummy. My personal favorite is the Pumpkin and apparently, I converted Tina as well. Nice. It’s got a smooth, rich creamy cream-cheese frosting and the cake is SO moist and tastes JUST like pumpkin pie with hints of cinnamon and other sweet spices.

Cut in Half:

Then we had the Lemon Yummy. The cake is moist, buttery and rich. But it practically SINGS of lemon – the bright, tart flavor is so pronounced, its exquisite. It’s topped with a smooth satiny buttercream.

Sprinkles hehehehehehehe:

Cut in half:

*I noticed there was very little crumbling of the cake as I cut these babies in half. To me, that’s an indicator of a moist, FRESH cake<333.

On Saturday, my family and I celebrated my Grandma’s 87th birthday. [Frankly, if I reached 87, I wouldn't care to be reminded of my age. Lol. I'm horrible] Anyway, the weather was beautiful: warm sunny and breezy. We actually convinced my Grandma to go out for dinner and wheeled her in her wheely chair to a Chinese restaurant close by, Congee Village . It’s on Allen and Delancey Street and mainly, a Cantonese-style restaurant. Let me say, the decor on this place is over the top. Borderline tacky, but in a pretty sort of way. Since we went when it was still light, they didn’t turn on the blindingly bright display of light bulbs and faux-fireworks. But, I snitched a photo from the website and it would’ve looked like this:

The theme of the decor inside is based entirely on bamboo – everything looks like it was constructed from fake-bamboo. There are multiple seating areas and we got a small room with a mural on the wall on one side and exposed brick on the other. There were leafy (fake) greens hanging from the ceiling:

Exposed brick wall hung with little artifacts:

My teacup was particularly pretty, I thought:

We ordered the food family style, and it fed all 8 of us (My parents, two brothers, grandma, aunt and my grandma’s home attendant). The first thing they served us was a thin soup made out of some meaty broth and winter melon. It was savory and warm, nothing spectacular

Our waiter scooping out the broth:

Then came the House Special Chicken. This dish was pretty awesome – it was like fried chicken, without the breading. The skin was thin and crispy, the meat was perfectly cooked. It was juicy (even the white meat! which tends to be dry and bland) and flavorful because of the savory garlicky sauce they doused all over it. On top of the chicken was a layer of fried garlic slices which were nutty and sweet. General consensus was DELICIOUS.

A slice of the thigh meat, several chunks of white meat and some fried garlic slices that I artfully arranged on my plate (at this point, my family is highly amused at my frenetic snapping of pictures):

Then came the Peking-Style Pork Chops. Deep fried (YES!!!), breaded pork chops (not sure which cut, but they tend to be fatty) are then doused in a bright red, pungent, sweet/sour sauce that’s rather vinegary. It is the perennial Family favorite, what can I say?

Right after that, Fillets of Beef with Chinese Broccoli. I know my cuts of beef, usually, but er…I wasn’t too sure that day. I think it might be flank steak? It was just thick slices of tender beef with a simple brown gravy over a bed of crunchy Chinese Broccoli. Not exactly mind-blowing:

The dishes are coming in rapid succession now. This is Salted Fish, Diced Chicken and Bean Curd Casserole. It came in a flaming display (whoohoo, FIRE!):

From the top:

Basically its cubes of tofu and slices of dark meat chicken bound together in a brown sauce flavored with preserved salted-fish. I’ve always liked the flavor of salted fish (er, it’s an Asian thing?) so I enjoyed this dish. My grandma liked it cus it had tofu (lol, no chewing required). I derno if the fire was necessary though. O well, they get points for theatrics.

Ok so the next dish is SO VERY SPECIAL TO ME. It speaks of childhood memories and lazy weekend afternoons with my parents and grandma (before my brothers were born) in either Chinatown or Flushing. We would always order this dish or pick it up off the dim sum cart because I refused to leave the damned restaurant without eating it. FRIED SQUID IN SALTED PEPPER:

Piping hot, sweet and tender squid in a delicately crunchy golden brown, salty, peppery crust tossed with a few slices of jalapeno peppers. *Dies a little bit* So good. This place did it damn near perfect.
Cross section:

After that, everything was just plain blah. Lol, jk jk. My mom ordered this cus she thought it was cute -_-;;

Its the House Special Seafood Pineapple Boat. Wheeee. Sauteed scallops, shrimp, crunchy slices of conch, fishcake, bell peppers and chunks of pineapple. I liked the seafood because it was simply prepared and cooked well but the pineapple didn’t do anything in terms of contributing to the flavor of the dish. In fact, I think it was a little under-ripe. Meh.

These are Sauteed Snow Pea Leaves with Garlic. Chinese folk consider it a delicacy. It was tasty, tender and very green. Me likey:

This is another dish that I am very fond of, Singapore Style Mei Fun. It’s thin rice noodles flavored with curry and stir-fried with scrambled egg, bean sprouts, slivers of peppers, scallions and roasted pork. I thought this wasn’t bad – I wish it were spicier though and a more pronounced curry flavor. I happen to love love love spicy food!:

This…was boring:

I forgot what the noodles were called. We ordered it for my Grandma cus the noodles were soft and spongy in texture which made it easy for her to chew. The looming shadow is my aunt lol, sorry! There was some chicken and shitake mushrooms in there. It was decidedly unremarkable.

There was also a steamed fish belly. It’s supposed to be the best part of the fish cus the belly is fatty, silky and tender but its hard to eat cus it’s also the boniest part of the fish. I didn’t eat it, hence, no picture!

The complimentary dessert was NOT red bean soup! Surprise! It’s what every Chinese joint usually gives out at the end of dinner. We got instead, a sweet soup made out of sticky rice, barley and peanuts. I liked the mild yeasty earthy tasty of the barley and the chewy texture of the rice grains:

Plump little grains of barley:

The check came out to a little under $120 (not including tip). Not bad, I think for a very decent and large meal. Here are just some random shots:

An artsy fartsy shot of…a napkin, courtesy of my brother

Said brother(s):

Lol at the Fat Buddha behind the cashier!

It was still light when we left! The fabulocity of this place is nuts. Oh yea, I’ve neglected to mention the restaurant’s namesake, the Congee! Its rice porridge and absolutely lovely on a bone-numbing winter day (I’ve been here before). My favorite is preserved duck egg with pork!

Pretty mural I saw on the wall on the way back to Grandma’s. Apparently, she lives in a very hip part of town:

Street view, along Houston Street:

View from apartment. See that massive building in the upper right? It’s a spiffy new luxury apartment building complete with a cavernous Whole Foods Market on the first floor. Gentrification in the Lower East Side…*sigh:

Lol. Pigeon that landed on the AC outside the window:

Happy Birthday Grandma ^_^V

Addresses of the places mentioned in this post:

Two Little Red Hens Bakery
1652 2nd Avenue (86th Street)
New York, NY 10028

Sugar Sweet Sunshine
126 Rivington Street
New York, NY 10002

Congee Village
100 Allen Street
New York, NY 10002

Hope you didn’t get too hungry =)