As a kid, I ate a lot of cereal. I knew the exact number of minutes it took for Rice Chex to get soggy. I knew how to eat Fruit Loops without scraping the top of my mouth on their sandpapery sugar coating. I could pick all the crunchberries out of a box of Cap’n Crunch, and leave it looking untouched. Even so, I had my limits. It usually crossed my mind to slurp the milk from my bowl when I’d finished my cereal, but there was something just faintly repellent about it, enough to keep me from doing it most of the time.
So sipping a plastic cup of cereal milk ($4) at Momofuku Desert Bar was, for me, a bittersweet dose of nostalgia. If you were the type of kid who did not feel conflicted at all about drinking milk steeped in Frosted Flakes, you probably shouldn’t miss this. Fortunately there are enough items on the menu to keep the rest of us entertained.
The cookies ($1.75 each), for example, are top-notch examples of junk food fusion. The conflake-marshmallow-chocolate chip cookie puts the breakfast staple to better use, adding buttery crunch to its edges, while melted marshmallow centers remind me of the gooey hearts of rice krispie treats. It’s better than its vaguely saltier cousin, the compost cookie, which fuses chocolate and butterscotch chips with potato chips and pretzels. The corn cookie and blueberry cookies are both delicious, like the butter-soaked caps of muffins, but I’d skip the comparatively unexciting peanut butter cookie. Soft serve ($4) in unusual flavors, including sour gummy and red licorice, is another speciality here, and every customer is entitled to a tiny free sample. Even though I never liked gob stoppers, I can’t get enough of the fireball flavor. Individually-unwrapped ground-up gumballs add a touch of dimestore cinnamon, tempered by cool ice cream. Their website announces some new flavors, like rosemary and apricot, available starting June 17th.
The cakes ($5/piece) are a little more hit-or-miss. I found the dulce de leche cake and the tea-jelly-and-lemon Arnold Palmer cake overly sweet with little payoff. But both the banana cream-and-hazlenut crunch cake and simple pecan-based “crack” pie were almost worth the caloric sacrifice.
(photo by gothambill)
And then of course there’s always the showstopper, the pork buns ($9/two buns) made famous from David Chang’s other hotspots, Momofuku and Ssam Bar. It’s been a while since I’ve been to Momofuku so it’s hard to remember how the Milk Bar’s buns stack up. But most certainly, these tender, fatty slabs of pork belly folded on sweet, spongy steamed buns with pickled cucumber and hoisin sauce are the most decadent things on the menu.
If you’re planning to visit, prepare for weekend lines, loud music, and standing-only tables, but when all is said and done, a ten-minute wait goes quickly when what you really want is a conflake cookie and a taste of free soft serve. The best time to visit is early evening, but check their website since they are sometimes closed for private parties.
Momofuku Milk Bar
207 Second Ave (entrance on 13th Street)
Mon-Fri 8am-12am, Sat-Sun 9am-12am
The Japanese just might be the modern-day masters of cute. But wagashi, adorable pastries shaped like fruit, birds, and flowers, have served as traditional tea ceremony snacks for centuries. Although rare on this side of the Pacific, Minamoto Kitchoan sells wagashi in bright array, spot-lit in glass cases like the baubles at Tiffany’s.
Enjoyment of wagashi hinges on one’s opinion of the mochi (rice paste), sweet red-bean paste, and jellied fruits they’re made from. If you like treats that are sweet and potato-textured you’re in luck. But if in doubt, ingredient and freshness information is meticulously displayed on the oft-impenetrable plastic packaging.
A selection is pictured above. Hakuun-no-hotori ($3 – bottom left) consisted of condensed milk and sweet beans wrapped in crepe. Fukuwatashisenbei ($2 – top left) was really more of a classic vanilla wafer, with crisp, butter cookies encasing smooth crème. The pumpkin-shaped one ($2 – top middle) had a moist thin rice layer wrapped around sweet pumpkin-spiked beans. Wagashi can be bought individually for two or three bucks although a box of Shunen, pictured at the top of this post, will set you back a steep $27. (The petals are white bean paste wrapped in pink rice cake, while the middle is rice cake and merengue). Staff are unfailingly friendly, (as I stared at the daunting word Fukuwatashisenbei, one counterperson offered kindly, “cookie?”). Seasonal wagashi are available – this cherry blossom dessert on nycnosh looks too good to eat.
Minamoto Kitchoan
608 Fifth Avenue New York, NY
Sun-Thu 10am-7:30pm, Fri-Sat 10am-8pm
French toast is one if my favorite foods, but I get to indulge so rarely. On weekend mornings I’m usually too unsociable to eat out, and cooking is the last thing I want to do. If someone made a tasty take-out version, I’d probably eat it every day.
Abraco Espresso‘s version of pain perdu (or “lost bread,” since in France the traditional recipe calls for stale bread) is the french toast sandwich I’ve been missing. A slice of moist, eggy challah is folded over ricotta filling, dusted with powdered sugar, and wrapped in wax paper for no-fuss nibbling. The ricotta is like no other I’ve tasted, creamy and spiked with orange blossom, which adds just a hint of fruity, floral flavor. The pain perdu is pre-made–perfect when you’re on the go, costs $3, and is just the right mount of food to quell morning munchies. At first I was a little hesitant about eating room temperature french toast without syrup and other accoutrements, but now I’m a complete convert.
I’ve written about Abraco Espresso before. This closet-size cafe has great service with great attitude, top espresso and coffee, and delicious edibles like salads, sandwiches, and daydream-worthy frittata. The buttery-salty-sweet olive oil cookies flecked with raisiny dried olives are also not to be missed–mind you, this comes from someone who doesn’t even like olives.
Abraco Espresso, 86 E. 7th St.
Mon-Fri 7:30am-8pm, Sat 8am-8pm, Sun 9am-8pm
Macarons are not macaroons. Those dense, coconut-cluster snacks have nothing on these French confections. One bite reveals the layers–a light whipped cream, sandwiched between two puffed pastries, whose sugary shells cracks and melts merengue-like on your tongue, while inside remains moist and chewy. Macarons come in an endless variety of pastel shades and flavors, from always-popular fruit like strawberry and key lime, to hazelnut, caramel, and chocolate.
A fail-safe spot to procure my favorite treats is Bouchon Bakery in the Time Warener Center. Bouchon feel something like a secret, as its situated up two escalators in the middle of an upscale mall. But neither the takeout window, nor the sit-down dining section deals in your standard food court fare. Lunch-friendly prepared sandwiches, like ham and emmenthaler on fresh-baked bread, as well as buttery spinach quiche and watercress salads are available, and priced lower than you might from the chef/owner of the French Laundry and Per Se. However, the baked goods–eclairs, tarts, croissants, brioche, and homemade-oreo “TKO cookies” are where it’s at. As for the macarons, try the raspberries and champagne, nutella, and caramel flavors ($2.75/each). But beware of the passionfruit variety, unless you like your cream filling eye-wateringly tart. Lest your pooch feel left out, foie gras-enriched dog treats are available.
Bouchon Bakery
Time Warner Center, 10 Columbus Circle 3rd Floor
Mon-Sat 11:30am-9pm, Sun 11:30am-7pm
Valentine’s Day falls on a Saturday this year, which means I don’t have to expend so much energy silently judging the relationships of co-workers who receive suffocatingly smelly bouquets at work. My idea of romance is a little more low key than that. Take this tin of chocolate skulls from newly-opened Bond Street Chocolate, for example. $14 for six pieces of artisanal dark chocolate isn’t exactly cheap, but for a gift, it’s understated, cute, and sublimely edible. If that’s not your idea of a nifty V-day present, Bond Street also sells gold-leaf, solid-chocolate buddhas ($10 small and $20 large). Believe it or not, these two options cover a wide range of datable people. But, if your sweetie isn’t a skull person or a buddha person, chocolate bars and ganaches, some made with tequila, others with passionfruit caramel, are available.
Bond Street Chocolate (not really on Bond Street)
63 E. 4th St, between Second Avenue and Bowery
(212) 677-5103