NYC: Bakery Review - Crumbs Bake Shop

Crumbs Bake Shop - visited on November 18, 2016

Crumbs Bake Shop was also on my NYC foodie bucket list to visit. I've blogged before about my old college roommate Caroline sending me a mail order birthday present from Crumbs. I'd also blogged about making the cupcakes from the Crumbs Bake Shop cupcake mix I found at Target. I liked cupcakes from both sources but you know I had to go visit Crumbs for myself. Nothing like personal research after all.

What I didn't know was Crumbs had declared bankruptcy a few years ago, according to an old grad school classmate, Fran, who I met up with in New York. What?? I was checking all these Crumbs locations and seeing how I could circumnavigate to one but Fran advised me to call first before I used up my shoe leather hiking over in case that location had closed. Eeek.

But my fears (and you know I was afraid - it's me and cupcakes after all) were unfounded. After Shawn and I had lunch at Mama Mia and inhaled the Mississippi Mud Pie at Little Pie Company, we were strolling back to the hotel through Times Squares and, lo and behold, thanks to trusty GPS, yelp and my own unerring instinct when it comes to nosing out bakeries, we did come across a Crumbs Bake Shop in Times Square. Score.

By then though, you can imagine I was quite full of pasta and pie. Which left little room for cupcake. So despite my eyes always being bigger than my stomach - although, honestly, my stomach seemed to be doing its level best to catch up to my gluttony - I only got one cupcake. It was hard to narrow down the choices and I almost got two but sanity and my straining waistband prevailed and I "settled" for the dulce de leche cupcake. Even though the Chocolate Salted Caramel below was looking at me reproachfully for leaving it behind. ("Pick me! Pick me!")

Shawn and I had to wait until later in the day to eat it after we both had some room. All I have to say is the wait was worth it. The cupcake was smaller than I remember my birthday cupcakes being but the dulce de leche was really good. The highest compliment I can give any cupcake is when I eat the frosting (non-frosting person here, remember?). Yep, I ate the frosting too. The cake part of the cupcake was perfectly fluffy and delicious and the frosting complemented it nicely. I'm glad that of the one flavor choice I made, it was the right one. And no lie, I thought about going back later and getting another one. I didn't but yeah, I thought about it. Maybe next time.

Dulce de Leche cupcake

It wasn't just the flavor that made me love the cupcake, although that was certainly no slouch. But the texture is what sold me. This isn't your box-mix cupcake texture. It's like if a box-mix cakey cake texture met a dense pound cake texture and they compromised perfectly to meet right in the middle. Not heavy, not dense, not light or chiffon-y either. But just right, Goldilocks. This is the kind of texture I have yet to achieve in my cupcake and cake-baking efforts. The kind that, if I can't make it myself, I'd spend top dollar to buy it. In other words, this is Icing on the Cake banana cake-worthy. Please stay open, Crumbs Bakeshop. I want to come back.

Best taste and texture ever

NYC: Bakery Review - Little Pie Company

Little Pie Company - visited November 18, 2016

It turns out Mama Mia wasn't that far from the Little Pie Company. We found Little Pie Company by looking on yelp what would be a highly-rated dessert place where we were. Then I saw that Little Pie Company was one of the vendors that sold on Foody Direct, an online food website I've ordered from before. Naturally I wanted to go see it in person and taste their product to assess their viability as a source for online food ordering. If you ever want to support small businesses, particularly those in the food industry, Foody Direct is a great place to find them. It can be a little pricey but I'd rather budget for it and support a small business with a quality product than go mass market for something that isn't as good.

Even if I hadn't had that justification, as the patron at Mama Mia told us, once we got close to the Little Pie Company, we'll "smell something really good". She was not kidding. Wow. Shawn and I were walking down the street, following the GPS directions and we hadn't gone far before we were both assailed with the most marvelous aroma. Not just of baking pies but just marvelous baking goodness. Enough to unspeakably thrill your olfactory senses. No need for GPS once we got within sniffing distance.

As with many "mom and pop" bakery places, space is at a premium. This looked like the kitchen was slightly bigger than the retail space of bakery display counters and a few tables to sit at. Which is always good with me since you want as much room as possible to bake all that pie goodness.

As you can tell from the picture of the display case, they also do little cakes. I really wanted to try one of the cakes but had to succumb that when you go to a place called the Little Pie Company, you should get try their pie.

We decided to try two of the smallest pies - the Mississippi Mud and the Old-Fashioned Apple Pie. They were $8.50 each. Being me, being in New York City, and hey, it's pie, I didn't blink. Sure, $8.50 might seem like a lot for a little pie but it really isn't. Especially not for delicious pies and these were delicious pies.

We decided to get the apple pie boxed up to go and eat the Mississippi Mud Pie at one of the few tables in the retail area. That turned out to be a brilliant decision.

It was brilliant because the very nice lady at the counter heated up the pie for us before serving it on a plate with two forks. OMG. This was the most decadent, most rich, fudgiest "pie" I've ever had. It was more like a cross between a molten fudge brownie and fudge lava. All warm and pure chocolate.

Yes, we were full from the pasta at Mama Mia and no, it didn't matter. Mississippi Mud pies are usually characterized by marshmallows but there wasn't a speck of fluffy white marshmallow in the pie. I suspect they melted it into the chocolate itself and that's what contributed to the moist, fluffy yet dense, smooth richness. I normally don't like marshmallows but if they got melted into this pie to make up its texture, that was all right by me.

mini apple pie wrapped up to go

peeking into the kitchen where pie magic is being made

We didn't have the apple pie until much (much) later. And I have to say, I loved this possibly even more than the Mississippi mud pie. When it comes to pie, I'm all about the crust. The crust on this pie was magnificent. Not too soggy, not overly flaky but just right. I love apple pie and the apples in this pie were firm but not tough and not mushy.

Plus, come on, look at how cute that little pie is. So major thumbs up for the Little Pie Company. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. The locals know what's up as while we were in line to get our mini pies, the guy behind the counter kept regretfully telling customers who asked that they were no longer accepting pre-orders for Thanksgiving pies but that they'd put some out early when they first opened next week. This was the week before Thanksgiving. They sold out! Maybe they're the pie of cronuts. They certainly tasted like it. I will definitely be ordering from The Little Pie Company via Foody Direct for future foodie gifts.

Since writing this, I did order from The Little Pie Company via Foody Direct for a Christmas gift and got their sugarless apple pie for my brother-in-law who's watching his sugar intake. The pie was decent but I have to admit, it needed sugar, haha. Also, because it had been en route for a few days rather than the same-day pie I had in New York, the crust was softer. Not soggy really but definitely not as flaky as the one I ate on premise, so to speak. Next order I'm going to place is for the regular apple pie, same as the mini I ate before to see how it compares and fares in shipping. If you're ever in Manhattan, near Times Square, I'd urge you to try Little Pie Company in the flesh.

NYC: Restaurant Review - Mama Mia

Mama Mia - lunch on November 18, 2016

Shawn and I ended up having a running joke throughout our three and a half days in New York. We spent the whole time craving lasagna. I started it because on my flight to JFK, I saw a commercial featuring a steaming plate of lasagna. I wanted some. I passed on that want-some to Shawn. Turns out both she and I could eat Italian food anytime, any place. It also turns out that each time we went to an Italian restaurant for a meal, we were easily sidetracked by other dishes and never ordered the lasagna.

Case in point, we yelped our way to Mama Mia, were greeted by a friendly hostess, seated in an almost empty restaurant (for some reason, New Yorkers don't eat lunch at noon but sometime later) and each of us ordered something other than lasagna. We thought about it but her favorite pasta was manicotti and mine is always, always spaghetti and meatballs. So that's what we each got.

No regrets here because it's hard to go wrong with spaghetti and meatballs and, wait for it, it's even harder to have bad food in New York. I'm convinced of it because everything we had was delicious, this lunch included. Mama Mia is again the kind of place I try to patronize whenever I go out to eat. According to their website, they're family owned by the Schiattarella family and have been in business since 1971. They started out as a one-window pizza shop. When we arrived there, it looked to have grown into a prime-location restaurant bigger than Sam's Place and many others I've seen. The service was also top notch, from the hostess to the waiter to the guy who filled our water glasses; everyone was really nice.

Even a nearby patron (the restaurant filled up as we ate lunch and it got closer to 1 o'clock) was able to offer some friendly directions once she learned our post-lunch mission was to find The Little Pie Company (next post). Google maps decreed it wasn't that far from where we were having lunch and this native New Yorker told us we'd know we'd found it once we smelled something incredibly delicious. Our friendly hostess had never heard of it before and we told her she should check it out. If only we were going to pass her way again, we'd tell her about it. But our touristy selves didn't quite know the lay of the land so we didn't know if we'd see her again to report back. But she promised to check it out for herself and off we went to our next foodie mission.

NYC: Restaurant Review - Sam's Place

Sam's Place - lunch on November 17, 2016

I will also be reviewing the restaurants we went to in New York. Partly because my friend Shawn and I discovered we couldn't actually eat sugar 24 hours a day and needed some savory food to dilute the sweets. Who knew?

We both had  craving for Italian and lasagna sounded good to us so we went hunting for a good Italian restaurant in the neighborhood. As an aside, let me just say (again) it's my personal belief that you can't have anything bad to eat in NYC. If you do, it's your own fault. Really. Because you can always get recommendations from the locals or, failing that, there's always yelp.

We yelp'd our way to Sam's Place and it was exactly the kind of restaurant I like to patronize. It was small, perhaps less than a dozen tables fitted into a small space, and had friendly service, including someone who appeared to be the owner who stopped by our table to greet us.

A hunk of bread was placed for our enjoyment while we perused the menu. Despite the craving for lasagna, we both went with tortellini alfredo. Because the butter and sugar from the earlier cronuts needed some more butter and heavy cream to go with it, ha. Okay, it seemed like a good idea at the time and the dish itself was pretty good, albeit a bit rich and a little bland. The Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top helped give it some saltiness. But I have a low bar for pasta and I enjoyed the meal. I enjoyed eating at Sam's Place even more and thought they provided good, friendly service.

NYC: Bakery Review - Baked NY

Baked NYC - visited on November 17, 2016

After we visited Dominique Ansel Bakery, the other bakery on my NYC bucket list to visit was Baked New York. I have all three of their baking books, I've even made recipes from them (that doesn't always happen, ha) and I wanted to try the famous Baked salty-sweet brownie.

Fortunately, there was a Baked location not too far from Dominique Ansel's and within walking distance. I'm sure at this point my friend Shawn would like me to mention that my definition of "walking distance" might be a bit farther than normal people's. After all, the day before, on my subway ride from JFK to Manhattan, I misread some directions I had prepared beforehand and got off at the wrong subway station. I ended up walking from Queens to Manhattan, crossing over the Ed Koch Bridge to make it to our hotel near Grand Central Station. See? Walking distance. Normal people might've just gotten back on the subway and tried again. Piffle. As long as I had my phone's GPS turned on and two good feet, I don't see why I can't walk it, even if it did mean dragging my carry-on with me. Good thing it had wheels.

In any case, I digress. Baked NY was maybe a mile - or so - from Dominique Ansel Bakery so we did walk there. It was a nice little bakery cafe with some tempting display cases of baked goods for sale. Unfortunately, both of us were still full from the cronut and couldn't eat anything more while we were at Baked. Sad panda!

But there was no law against buying stuff "to go" and planning to eat them later back at the hotel so that's what we did. The hardest part was narrowing it down to a few choices. So many delicious options! But I knew there were other bakeries I wanted to try and I reluctantly accepted I really couldn't eat whole display cases at each bakery. Shawn and I settled on the apple crumble bar, the brookster, and the famous sweet-salty Baked brownie.

My review of each:

The apple crumble bar was amazing. Seriously. Perfect shortbread crust, perfect flavor and texture apples, perfect topping. Did I mention perfect? It was moist but not soggy. Apples are in season in the fall so it's always a good time to get an apple dessert. This was delicious.

The Brookster

Sadly, I wasn't quite as impressed with the brookster. It's a brownie "pie" shell with a chocolate chip cookie filling. Sounds good, right? I think this would have been great when it was just out of the oven and cooled to lukewarm. That's how spoiled I am when I bake my own desserts. When we ate this one, while it wasn't dry exactly, it wasn't as fudgy and moist as I would have expected. Personally I think I like my own version as a chocolate chip cookie tart a bit better.

The Baked Salty-Sweet Brownie

Happily, the third of our purchase, the Baked brownie made up for everything. This brownie IS everything. The funny part is, during our time in New York, we I was visiting so many different bakeries and buying so many things "to try" that I couldn't even get to my half of the brownie until after the trip. Shawn managed to eat her half right before we left. I put my half in my backpack with the intent of eating it on the plane ride home. But I forgot all about it until a few days after I had gotten back from the trip. By then, my snobby palate would've said "forget it" and chucked the brownie because who wants a week-old baked good? Not this girl. Except it seemed a shame not to at least have a bite, even if it was just to say I did try it and see if it met my it-must-be-dry-by-now expectations. Color me sheepish because I couldn't have been more wrong. Astonishingly, not only was it still moist and fudgy but it was another amazing (half)piece of deliciousness. And you know I know my brownies. So that's saying something. Plus I liked the large sugar crystals they sprinkled on top to give the brownie a bit of sweet crunch. If you ever get a chance to try a Baked brownie, run, don't walk, to get one. It was freaking delicious and worth every calorie.