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

Remember when Tasti D was the king of low-calorie soft-serve? No more. In the past eighten months, frozen yogurt shops have sprouted all across Manhattan, and the boom shows no signs of slowing. Last month yet another yogurt place, 16 Handles, opened up on Second Avenue not far from the new Pinkberry on St. Mark’s Place, (with a buy-one-get-one-free offer for August). It seemed like overkill, but I was hopeful. Maybe 16 Handles can save me from my Pinkberry addiction.

Not long ago I silently mocked the lines winding out of each newly-opened Pinkberry, packed with people willing to shell out $6 for a cup of sleekly-packaged swirly girly low-cal dessert something, for no one was quite sure if it was really yogurt, or a batch of chemicals–not that anyone really cared. But then Pinkberry got its frosty fangs in me. The concoction is creamy, tart, and sweet at first taste, then the flavor gently fades, leaving you face-down in your cup, chasing that initial tang all the way to the bottom. Topped with enough supersized, abnormally-perfect raspberries and blackberries to make it acceptably healthy, each costly cup of this embarrassingly compelling stuff drove me from the bright shop into the shadows, blissfully snacking and hating myself at the same time.

I tried Red Mango, an Asian import which has recently landed on 14th street and claims the Pinkberry entreprenuers swiped its yogurt concept; it wasn’t the same. I missed that tarty zing–that sugary something–that ineffable Pinkberryness…

16 Handles‘ plain tart yogurt is pretty close to what I require in a frozen yogurt. The whole place is self serve, and offers 16 rotating flavors (chocolate, raspberry tart, and mango sorbet stood out to me), and a salad-bar sized selection of toppings from fresh fruit to yogurt chips, granola, ground-up butterfingers, and long-forgotten breakfast cereals like cinnamon toast crunch. I liked being able to control how much of everything went into my cup and pay by weight–I ended up shelling out $4.09 for my strawberry-and-mango-studded creation instead of the requisite $6.23 for the Pinkberry three-topping medium. But be sure to come armed with a little self-control, or it could get expensive.

I have one critique–the little wooden eco-spoons were awful. Fro-yo needs to be lapped from smooth white plastic, not off a splintery surface. If you dare to go on the front lines of the yogurt war, dash around the corner and get yourself a proper spoon from Pinkberry on St. Mark’s Place.

16 Handles 153 Second Ave. between 9th and 10th Street

Germaphobes everywhere received a stunning blow yesterday, when it was revealed that there is no scientific evidence that alka-seltzerish “immunity-booster” Airborne prevents colds. Well, maybe not so stunning. Despite a few endorsements from friends, I had my doubts about the stuff. Sure, I still used it but I need my placebo pellet-peddlers to remain untouched by litigation. Once that happens my stupidness threshold prevents me from actually spending money on the item.

This morning, as I gently stuff myself onto a hot, packed subway that stinks of fetid, phlegmy coughs, I wonder: what oh what will replace the fizzy comfort of Airborne? Short of developing a hand-washing compulsion that leaves me with papery geriatric fingers, or wearing a latex body suit, it seems I am exposed at every turn.

Here are instructions on how to get your Airborne refund online. Mind you, if you submit a claim for more than six packages, you must send in your file of neatly-saved Airborne receipts, which you have no doubt stashed away for just such an occasion.

The pizza at Alligator Lounge is an unexplainable phenomenon of budget snacking. I can’t quite figure out how it’s free. Well, it’s not exactly free–you must purchase one drink, at about $5 a pop, to get a free pizza ticket. If you want toppings, it’ll be $2 for the first and $1 for each additional. But assuming you don’t, in about ten minutes you’ll have a piping-hot 12-inch pie to accompany your beer at a cost of zero dollars (except possibly a tip for your pizza guy).

How is it possible? Because the pizza actually isn’t terrible. True, it tastes better after several beers. And you might want to blot the grease with several napkins and go heavy on the crushed red pepper and oregano to give it some extra taste. Better yet, you might want to carry along your own personal pizza spice-rack for just this situation. But if you spice it up just right and be sure to eat it fast before the cheese congeals–this is the miracle of which I speak.

The kitschy-tropical ambiance is bearable, to a point: potted palms and bamboo shades, flamingos and rainbow lights, a decent digital jukebox, pool table, and inevitably, crowds. Alligator lounge may not be the main attraction for your night, but it’s a good late-night hunger fix (open until 3:30 am), or a place to get the party started before moving on to some serious drinking at Spuyten Duyvil.

If you don’t feel like hopping the L, there’s even an East Village outpost. And if you can handle two pizzas, you get another free one with your second drink.

Brooklyn: Alligator Lounge, 600 Metropolitan Ave. at Lorimer St. Open Daily 3pm-4am

East Village: Crocodile Lounge 325 E 14th St. at First Avenue Open Daily 12pm-4am