Vanilla Cupcake w/ Chocolate Icing
by Celia Cheng
July 11th, 2006
458 9th Ave
(35th & 36th)
212-643-1200
When I first heard about Mitchel London opening a place that specializes in burgers and cupcakes, I was so excited. It’s hard to screw up these two American staples, especially if that’s pretty much all you are serving. Plus it’s Mitchel London, the gourmet prepared foods chef (formerly Ed Koch’s personal chef) who has two other stores around town.
I tried a burger and two cupcakes for lunch. It was beyond disappointing. I felt like I was at Johnny Rockets. The food certainly didn’t taste any better than Johnny Rockets, and the service was slow and unattentive. The one thing it had going for it was that it smelled and felt cleaner than Johnny Rockets.
I ordered a bacon cheeseburger with avocado, medium rare. My burger came out well-done, and the beef was completely tasteless. That’s pretty hard to do, because even unseasoned beef straight from the butcher should have a distinctive taste to it. The cheese was a half-inch thick clump stuck to just the top half of the bun — a little uneven, I’d say. I also ordered large fresh cut fries and a green salad. I’ve tasted better fresh cut fries at In-N-Out on the West Coast. Even the salad, which was supposed to have cherry tomatoes but arrived with slices of regular tomato instead, was a display of the lack of effort to create something more interesting and tasty than straight meslcun and tomatoes in a bowl.
The cupcakes aren’t much of a treat either, especially considering that Cupcake Café is just five blocks away. The fresh blueberry with buttercream icing cupcake sounded promising, but alas it wasn’t particularly moist, and the icing was kind of icky. I also got a vanilla cupcake with chocolate icing to try a different combination. I normally don’t like chocolate icing, but its richness was a winner in contrast to the disgusting buttercream icing.
Saddened by this first excursion, and thinking I might have caught them on an off day, I decided to give Burgers & Cupcakes another try. So I went back for breakfast. I guess you could say that the breakfast here is more pleasant than at a diner — less greasy and more refined. But do you really want to set your benchmark as your local diner?! I tried the scrambled eggs with chorizo, jalapenos and roasted tomato, and I had a bite of my companion’s bottomless stack of Elaine’s pancakes. Both good but not amazing. Service was as lacking and slow as on my first visit.
My two trips to Burgers & Cupcakes were not validated, and I am a bit confused. How is it that people can be so checked out? The waitresses at the joint are checked out and could not care less. Those cooking the food clearly seem to be checked out too, since they’re making the food so lopsided and tasteless. Mitchel London was there both times and seems to spend a lot of time there, but there’s a clear lack of attention to detail. Or more befitting, it’s just lacking.
Posted in American , Burger , Hell’s Kitchen , Sweets
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Soufflé de Aguacate (Avocado Soufflé)
by Celia Cheng
April 19th, 2006
ZÓCALO
174 E 82nd St
(Lexington & 3rd Ave)
212-717-7772
At a festive Cinco de Mayo preview dinner celebrating Hass Avocados from Mexico, executive chef Julian Medina at Zócalo prepared four courses to showcase his talents and the various ways in which avocados can be used. As a noted avocado fanatic, this event was right up my alley.
Of the four courses — including a guacamole sampler for starter, avocado and foie gras as appetizer, steamed black sea bass in avocado leaf aromas with avocado tomatillo sauce for main and an avocado frozen soufflé to round out the meal — the dessert was an absolute knock-out.
This frozen soufflé mixed Hass avocado from Mexico and Meyer lemon. Julian chose to serve it at room temperature rather than frozen to keep the texture closer to that of a mousse — an excellent decision on his part, since the Meyer lemon stands out better in a fluffy mousse than in a hard frozen soufflé. The other winning touch was to use a hibiscus chile de arbol coulis instead of the ubiquitous raspberry or strawberry sauce. Hibiscus has a unique tartness that can be brought out when paired with certain fruits and teas. For me, avocado and hibiscus are a natural union of the tropics (yes, it’s the Hawaiian in me speaking). The soufflé is topped off with a dash of Marcona almonds.
This dessert was definitely unique and a real tribute to the Avocado. Kudos to Julian for his originality and success in creating such a delightful dessert and experience!
Posted in Mexican , Sweets , UES
Pumpkin Pie
by Celia Cheng
November 24th, 2005
‘WICHCRAFT
224 12th Ave
(27th & 28th St)
map
397 Greenwich St
@ Beach St
map
Bryant Park
Four kiosks located on the 6th Ave side
(40th & 42nd St)
map
I LOVE pumpkin pie! Actually, I love all things pumpkin, but I really love pumpkin pie. For the past couple of years I’ve been on the search for one that would blow me away, but I’ve always been disappointed by what I’ve found in the city. Certainly, I have ventured out to other pumpkin sweets and found some consolation in treats like Fatwich’s pumpkin brownies, Magnolia’s pumpkin cheesecake (although it is getting worse), and Beard Papa’s pumpkin cream puffs. Most recently I discovered that Savoy’s pumpkin spice cake is delicious, but I still have not been able to satiate my pumpkin pie craving. Where O where was my perfect pumpkin pie?
Well, luck would have it that I ordered a pumpkin pie from ’wichcraft for my Thanksgiving dinner this year, and, voilà, can I just say “Oh my god?!” If I don’t say so myself, it was by far the most popular dish at our feast, and it went quickly even though everyone was stuffed from the turkey and side dishes.
’wichcraft uses roasted pumpkin in addition to the usual ingredients. The pie is extremely moist, and that includes the homemade graham cracker crust. The filling is rich and the honey added makes it very caramelly. The filling and crust work in perfect harmony and you want to savor them, both apart and together equally. The smooth filling and the granulated graham cracker crust offer a variety in texture, but certainly the two work in unison to deliver a gorgeous taste that I can’t get out of my mind. The pie is sprinkled with pumpkin seeds as a brilliant little touch to complete this perfect pumpkin pie.
Posted in Sweets , Tribeca , West Chelsea
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Cupcakes
by Celia Cheng
September 17th, 2005
CUPCAKE CAFÉ
@ Books of Wonder
18 W 18 th St
(5th & 6th Ave)
646-307-5878
I’ve developed a horrible addiction, an addiction to the cupcakes at Cupcake Café. You can imagine that maple walnut is my favorite, but I tried a vanilla/chocolate the other day and almost died and went to heaven.
In the past couple of years, we’ve definitely seen a cupcake boom in NYC. I was just reading about the feuding and animosity between bakeries. While, the myriad of Magnolia-lineage bakeries (Buttercup Bake Shop, Sugar Sweet Sunshine, Billy’s, Little Cupcake Bakeshop) produce fun and pretty cupcakes with pastel-colored frosting, they are usually too sweet, too hard and, well, a bit crusty. So I find it ironic that these other bakeries are fighting in court, when in reality none of their cupcakes taste as good as those from Cupcake Café.
The frosting at Cupcake Café is made with buttercream, so it’s smoother, richer and much more delicious than its competitors’ crusty confections. The original Cupcake Café is in Hell’s Kitchen, but since they opened a store on 18 th Street inside the new Books of Wonder space I’ve had neighborhood-easy access — and hence the addiction.
Known for their signature floral designs on cakes and cupcakes alike, these sweets are almost too pretty to eat, though for me it depends on the design — some of the flowers and colors look a bit too kitschy. So find a flavor and a design that you like, and indulge! At $3 per large cupcake and $2.30 per small cupcake, these are not cheap treats, but when I think of the artistry and labor going into the decorative flowers on top and the superior quality in taste of both cake and frosting, I gladly hand over the money to get my fix.
Posted in Flat Iron District , Sweets
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Breaded 1-Bite Chocolate Lollipop
by Celia Cheng
September 10th, 2005
THOR
107 Rivington St
(Essex & Ludlow St)
212-796-8040
The Lower East Side is the new Meat Packing district, and I don’t mean that as a compliment, nor is it news. What I mean is that it’s hip and trendy with too much development going on and that this is detracting from the neighborhood’s original charm. My point being, in judging by location you can usually tell what you are going to get or at least the kind of crowd you are going to run into.
Thor is located inside the new chic and hip Hotel on Rivington — negative points already. It’s a place to be seen, but who is seeing whom? I never quite get it. Okay, enough negativity.
Chef Kurt Gutenbrunner does not disappoint. The food is fabulous! The menu is not strictly Austrian like at Wallsé or Café Sabarsky, but I would call it more creative American with Austrian influence. With all the hype and craziness going on in the restaurant I wasn’t sure if the food was also going to be an attempt to be crazy, but Kurt maintains the integrity of his reputation by serving delicious dishes that are also aesthetically gorgeous, and I really mean gorgeous! My red beet terrine was a piece of art that could have been on exhibit at a gallery — slices of red beets were thinly layered between the mousse of the terrine to create a very modern design. The tomato mousse with heirloom tomatoes was stellar as the mousse was light and fluffy and the tomatoes so fresh and juicy. For dessert, the breaded one-bite chocolate lollipop was amazing! Three lollipops stick out of a square wood stand as a piece of sculpture. It is not too sweet and just the right size. It is truly the perfect way to end a meal. And the final factor considered resulted in a plus for the restaurant: The price point is reasonable.
The service is scattered. Our waiter was extremely professional and pleasant, but there wasn’t much communication amongst the staff since with every course served, no dish was properly matched with the person who ordered it. Not to mention that we were drinking sparkling water and they then came around and mixed tap into our glasses. I love tap water but just not mixed in with sparkling. When I pointed this out I received a haphazard apology but no replacement for the now flat mixture. And next, since we sat at the first seat from the kitchen servers kept bumping into my seat each time they came out.
Ultimately, my conclusion is that Thor is a good restaurant and a significant addition to the neighborhood. The diners are lucky as they really are getting top quality cuisine at reasonable prices. I prefer the elegance and maturity of both Wallsé and Café Sabarsky, but I recognize that Thor too is elegant — it just caters to a younger and more contemporary crowd. The interior space, the décor, and the design of the menus are beautiful in a dark nightlife kind of way. I don’t see myself returning to Thor any evening soon, though. The thought of trying to crawl through the nightclub crowd hanging out in the lounge at the front in order to get to my seat at the back is just not my ideal dining scenario. However, I would like to try their breakfast and see how the restaurant looks and operates during the daytime. I bet the experience is drastically different and I would venture to say that it’s probably better. Let the hipsters sleep while I enjoy my breakfast and the neighborhood. Afterall, the LES and Meat Packing district are much more bearable in daylight.
Posted in American , Austrian , LES , Sweets
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