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 =)

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

Wow. So behind. How typical. The past several days have been an accumulation of all sorts of unhealthy shit in my arteries. Albeit, delicious unhealthy shit. :]
This post will have to be chopped up into two! Cus I just have too much to write and post about. I will follow up with my visits to Two Little Red Hens Bakery, Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery and Grandma’s Bday Dinner soon.

On the 21st, Wednesday, I went downtown to the Financial District to check out Dine Around Downtown . 50 of downtown NYC’s finer dining establishment set up booths in front of Chase Manhattan Plaza for the crowd of hungry businessmen and women to peruse and graze. It lasted from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm and all the booths sell small dishes and plates from $3 to $6. I tried to get there before 11:00 to beat the masses that were sure to swarm the plaza during their lunch breaks but to no avail. It seemed that ALL of Wall Street had beat me to it! By the time I got there, it was already a sea of pinstriped suits, ladies in Italian leather pumps and corporate moguls clicking on their Crackberries.

It’s all of Wall Street!

Shoving/elbowing my way through the crowd, I made a beeline for Financier Patisserie’s booth. Yea, couldn’t help it. Had to start lunch off with dessert first. The selection looked so pretty! I wish I got a better picture of it but disgruntled and hungry brokers were hustling about everywhere. This was their menu for 2008:

Each dessert was only $3, which was fabulous. I bought the Chocolate Mousse & Vanilla Creme Brulee cup. Sadly, it was a bit of a misnomer. The mousse part was decadently dark and chocolatey but it wasn’t mousse! The texture was off by a million miles; it had the mouth feel of very very very grainy chocolate ganache. It wasn’t smooth, fluffy, light or at all like a mousse. The layer of vanilla was definitely not a Brulee (er, no burnt sugar crust) and tasted like a simple sweet custard. It wasn’t a winner in my book. Boo, I was soooo looking forward to Financier too. Here are some shots to show you the layers and textures:

With the desserts being so cheap, I easily could’ve gotten another one, but because I am resourceful and unwasteful, I actually finished the whole thing. That was plenty of sugar for one day, thank you very much. Moving on along, I needed some real food and found The Ketch Restaurant (harharhar get it, The Ketch? The Catch? Seafood, duh):

The slider wasn’t bad. It was sitting in a little lunch box which didn’t do much for the texture of the crabcake’s crust. The home-made potato chips were a little soggy too. But all in all, it fared well for the cheap lil sandwich that it was. The crabcake was very well-seasoned if a tad dry, but I bet it would’ve been awesome and crisp if it were fresh out of the fryer. The crabcake itself actually had a great ratio of crabmeat to breading. The remoulade had a spicy kick and the corn added a sweet crunch. The bun was boring; typical bready stuff you can find in the supermarket so blah to that. It wasn’t a horrible sandwich, just didn’t make me hop around happy.

The Innards of the Slider:

Ok so at this point, the crowds have become vicious. I don’t know if it was because of the midday sun and hunger or if maybe businessfolk are just inherently aggressive and pushy mofos but I was feeling like it was time to bounce. UNTIL I SAW THIS:

“Why, what is that man grilling?” you ask. LAMBCHOPS. *drool. From Harry’s Cafe and Steak .

I shoved my way onto line (it was probably one of the longest lines there, for good reason) and waited. And got this little beauty for $6.

It was wonderful. A little more well-done than I usually like, but hey, as a carnivore, I like my meat still (slightly) bleeding. The outside was charred to a nice smokey crust. The inside was juicy and tender. The sauce was a blend of sweet caramelized onions and fresh mint which masked the slight gaminess of the lamb. It was really really really good. A tad pricey, but oh, so worth it. It definitely made up for the lack-luster two dishes from beforehand. Yum. I washed everything down with a bottle of Pomegranate Fizzy Lizzy, which was supposedly a drink made from 100% fruit juice and seltzer water with no added sugar. It was tart, tangy and bubbly which helped cut through all the grease and sugar I had just ingested.

Then I took a couple more snapshots of the scene and bounced off to work. Overall, it wasn’t a bad experience. I suppose since it was created to cater to the massive and rather undiscerning crowd of Wall Street workers, the food wasn’t exactly restaurant quality. But then again, the food scene in the Financial District has never been quite up to par with oh I don’t know, say the Upper/ Lower East Side. Just my opinion though! I might just be an Up(per)town girl. I think there’s tons of potential for the restaurants down in lower Manhattan to progress (from business luncheons and such). The whole point of the Dine Around Downtown event was to promote the Financial District as a competent contributer to Manhattan’s food scene.

Interesting shape in Chase Plaza

Nothing quite like the dizzying height of a New York City skyscraper to make you feel…very tiny.

April Showers Are Hella Late: Clear Signs of 1/4 Life Crisis and Edible Consolation

So yesterday’s weather was an abomination. Windy, wet, cold and grey. I just tell myself that stoning the weatherman will do us no good because it seems like the Northeast is just unlucky this year. Ahhh, this crap climate is totally a sign of stormy days to come in my life. Someone up there (*points up there) is very clever. So schools been out for a while and I can’t say I’ve been enjoying things too much. Yea, my GPA shot up because I finally figured out what the HECK I wanna do but still…not good enough. It sucks that I’ve essentially boxed myself in and have very little room to move. One more mistake and my college career will be a bust…a very expensive bust, may I add. Someone pray to the gods of NYU that I get into honors English – burn a wad of Benjamin’s or something, its what those money-sucking leeches want anyway. ‘Cause really, I desperately want to write a 30-page thesis by the end of junior year. Lawl. I’m afraid it is happening. Nobody wants to major in what they like because someway or another, school will destroy everything it ever stood for. Before the end of 2008, I may very well hate English.

When we’re down, what do we do? We eat. Trudging home from work yesterday, I decided to hide from the rain inside Rive Gauche Bakery & Cafe. It looked like the run-of-the-mill cafe, but was cute, warm and glowy inside as opposed the depressingly drab streets of the UES. There’s a sweet little bench outside for you to sit on WHEN THE WEATHER ISN’T SHITASTIC and you can people-watch as NYCers hustle up and down a super-busy 86th Street.

Cute, eh?

They have lots of pastries and and all sorts of breads that they bake right there. I wasn’t feeling sweet (and didn’t want to gain like a million pounds) so I perused their sandwiches. Sadly, they were all refrigerated (*frowny face). Sticking a sandwich in the fridge compromises everything. Seriously. The bread totally loses it’s character and the filling more often than not just gets soggy. I bought a small latte and the tastiest looking one, a Caprese style s.w. Inside a baguette were fresh sliced mozzarella, fresh basil, sliced tomato and roasted red peppers. Total was a little under $11. Well, its NYC *shrug. The lady at the counter asked me if I wanted to warm my sandwich up. Feeling smarmy: “Iono, do I?”. Lol, I figured a warm s.w. is probably better than a cold one on a day like this so I told her to nuke it. But I was pleasantly surprised when she plopped the thing onto a panini press and grilled it for a minute or two, cus that sure as hell beats a microwave. I find myself a seat and OOOOOOOOOOLALA theres free Wi-Fi! And I’ve also discovered the wonders of macro shots! So picture quality is slowly improving. Here, don’t wet yourselves:

Mmmmm, melty cheese.

Grill marks. Sexy.

Grilling the s.w. definitely helped the baguette regain some of its integrity. The crust was crunchy and crackly while the crumb was tender, chewy and a little dense. It smelled faintly yeasty and there was the tiniest tang, like sour dough. The filling could’ve used some tweaking – too much cheese! Mozzarella is one of the blander cheese anyway, so it felt pretty pointless. I like a nice even ratio of everything in my s.w. and the cheese sorta nudged everything else aside. The basil cut through nicely though (I wish there was more!) and there was some smokiness from the roasted peppers. I would not have missed the tomato. It made everything soggy. Perhaps they could’ve brushed some olive oil on the surface of the bread so it wouldn’t get all mushy from the tomato juices. It was a decent sandwich. The latte however, was a dud. Talk about over-roasted and too milky =(. Look!

All I could taste was bitter; there was no crema or coffee flavor. FAIL. I’m seriously a coffee no0b, but this might be worse than Starbucks *gaps!

Anyways, I don’t mean to bash this place cus it’s really very decent. I left full and warm hehehe. Their breads looked tempting and next time I’ll try their sweets…they had tasty looking chocolate croissants ^_^V

I’ll blog about today’s “Dining Downtown” experience in a bit. Stay tuned, suckers =P