Just a brief mention in this week’s New York Magazine restaurant openings roundup, but it looks like Baoguette, a Lexington Avenue shop serving up hearty $5 bahn mi, is opening a second location on St. Mark’s Place (in what was once Bamn Automat). I had a few quibbles with my sandwich from the Lex Ave location, but Baogette is sure to be a boon to the food-court fare on this stretch of St. Mark’s (possibly the only place in nyc where with a Red Mango sits across the street from a Pinkberry, locked in a fro-yo staredown).
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
I’ve been ogling blow-ups of Dunkin’ Donuts new waffle breakfast sandwich since they started appearing around town, even though I was certain it was bound to be a let-down. I’m not knocking Dunkin’ out of sheer snack snobbery. After-school sojourns to the drive-thru for creamy-sweet coffees are what got me hooked on caffeine back in high school. But the donuts and breakfast sandwiches always had a slightly stale taste, like dashed expectations thrown in a microwave. This morning though, on day eleven of the cold from hell, my resistance crumbled and I found myself standing in a Dunkin Donuts, ordering a #8 combo–a waffle sandwich with medium coffee ($3.99).
The 410-calorie count made sense as I tore the paper away, revealing a sandwich no bigger than my palm, flattened between two slightly-soggy waffles. On the plus side, the waffles were subtly sweetened with maple, the bacon was actually crispy on the edges, the eggs were not nearly as rubbery as I’ve had in many a fast-food breakfast sandwich, and the American cheese was–well, orange and inoffensive. By the time I was finished I felt a surprisingly satisfied. I have to admit, in a pinch or far from Manhattan, I’d order this again.
Seriouseats.com does a side-by-side comparison of the Dunkin’ waffle sandwich and the McGriddle.
Dunkin Donuts 166 2nd Ave – open 24 hours
Update 4/2/09: Baoguette has opened up an East Village location.
In terms of bang for your buck, it doesn’t get any better than bahn mi. These famously cheap Vietnamese sandwiches combine French ingredients like baguette, pate and mayo with far-east flavors like pickled veggies, daikon, and grilled pork. Most bahn mi shops are tucked into storefronts in Chinatown and the LES, but Baogette brings the kickass snack uptown, to Lexington Avenue.
I ordered a classic baogette which came stuffed with the above-mentioned ingredients, in addition to cilantro, hot peppers, pork belly slices, tofu strips, a dash of sriracha (on request), and something I can only describe as a vaugely fishy aura, which must be a splash of fish sauce. All this cost a mere $5, which is actually a little steep for bahn mi, but the ingredients were clearly high-quality and the portion was quite large.
My gripe about the baogette is its proportions were off–too much carrot and daikon, not enough pork, and a bit too much pate for my palette (I admit, pate is not one of my favorite foods). The baguette is from TomKat Bakery (the same bread used in Cafe Condesa’s french toast); it was so hard I had difficulty biting into it. A few little adjustments and this could be a terrific sandwich, but this qualified as okay-for-five-bucks. I guess after reading excellent reviews on SeriousEats and elsewhere, I was expecting something more.
Ah, well. I still might head back to try the less-traditional “sloppy bao,” with curried beef and green mango!
Baogette
61 Lexington Avenue at 25th Street. Mon-Sat 8am-8pm
It’s a good time to be a pork-lover in NYC; not only do we have Momofuku Ssam’s famed steamed pork buns and a smattering of good barbecue joints (here’s looking at you, Fette Sau and Hill Country), but now there’s a new shop in the East Village specializing in the traditional Italian dish, porchetta.
Porchetta (pronounced pork-ET-ta) is a boneless hunk of meat and fat, rolled together with rosemary, fennel, and garlic, and slow-roasted in their crisp outer skins. At Porchetta, the meat is sliced and served with greens and beans ($12) or on a ciabatta roll ($9). The minimalist menu also offers sides: chicory salad with garlic dressing ($6), beans ($5) and “crispy potatoes” mixed with odds and ends of crunchy pork skin and savory meat ($5).
The porchetta itself is tender and well-seasoned and the sandwich travels well–it even tastes good at room temperature. But, despite a glowing review in NYmag, I was a little underwhelmed. First of all, in addition to some hard bits of skin, there were good-sized chunks of chewy fat throughout, which I ended up removing. Perhaps, not being raised on porchetta, I am a bit sensitive to gristle. Second, (agreeing with nycfoodguy on this) $10 doesn’t get you a lot of grub. I noticed that they’d recently switched from puffy ciabatta rolls to flatter bread, which serves the sandwich well. But the portions are small, consist only of bread and meat, and considering you’d spend half as much on similar-sized bhan mi at Nicky’s, it seems a tad expensive despite the obvious quality of the two ingredients.
The shop was a little claustrophobia-inducing on a Friday night, with seven or eight people jockeying for space on the black-and-white checked floor, waiting ten minutes or so for their orders. During less frantic times it’s a cozy space, with six seats and decor as basic as the menu–a swine stencil on the wall, and a tiny smiling crocheted pig dangling from the ceiling. For vegetarians, there’s a somewhat dry mozzarella sandwich ($7) as well as the beans and greens, but this is really carnivores’ turf.
Aside from a couple of complaints, if you love pork, Prochetta is worth a try. If arriving late, you may want to call ahead since, at least on the night I visited, they were running out of porchetta before closing.
Porchetta 110 East 7th St. between First Avenue and Avenue A
Sun-Thurs 11:30am-10pm, Fri&Sat, 11:30am-11pm
(212) 777-2151