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The Dough-Eyed Girl

~ There's no metaphysics on Earth like dessert.

The Dough-Eyed Girl

Tag Archives: Manhattan

Apple Tarte Tatin at Buvette

24 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Fruit, Pies and Tarts

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Apple, Creme Fraiche, Manhattan, Tarte Tatin, West Village

Apple Tarte TatinSome people take the Euro approach to vacation, flying out in flocks come August. But for me, mid-April is when I defect. In particular, I like to get out of the country. This explains why I’m always in financial straits, but once you catch the travel bug, you are condemned to always yearn for new places.

This year, unfortunately, I am doomed to stay home while the people around me are enjoying the fjords, fronds, and fromage. I guess there could be worse things. Especially since New York is a great place to “fake it ’til you make it.”

So that is what I am doing. I commenced by heading to Buvette in the West Village, an adorable jewel-box of a restaurant that thankfully tastes as French as it looks.

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Pineapple Coconut Smoothie at Cocktail Bodega

03 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Drinks, Fruit

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Coconut, Lower East Side, Manhattan, Pineapple, Smoothie

Pineapple Coconut SmoothieDiet, Week 2. Haven’t ingested a baked, sugary good in more than fifteen days. Feeling well enough. More tired. Less energy. But good, so far.

That is, except for my social life, which has taken a huge hit. Going on a very restrictive diet for more than a week makes you realize just how much New York social circles revolve around food and drink. No happy hours with coworkers. No late night pizza with friends. No quick lunchtime business meeting. No afternoon rendezvous at a coffee shop. What did people do before restaurants, bars, and cafes? Ha, don’t laugh at me. I honestly had to sit and think about activities I could do with friends or coworkers that didn’t involve alcohol or foodstuffs.

There was one catch that I’ve been exploiting, which I have called the Smoothie Loophole. I can drink with friends, so long as the drinks are “virgin” and there is no added sugar. Tricky, and I may have inadvertently failed once, but I got the idea after I met my friend L. at the Lower East Side spot, Cocktail Bodega.

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Raspberry Kanten at Souen

27 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Fruit

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Gluten-free, Kanten, Manhattan, Raspberry, Union Square, Vegan

Raspberry KantenReaders, I have made a huge mistake. Well. Sort of. I went on a diet! No, it isn’t some silly thing to lose boatloads of weight, primarily through ingesting nothing other than cayenne-spiked lemonade. I embarked on this three week journey because recently my food choices have been wayward. There’s been too much takeout and too little healthy home cooking. And thus, a diet was born. It’s nominally a “detox” (I really hate this meaningless term) exclusion diet that prioritizes whole, natural foods over processed and artificial foods. Along the way it cuts out gluten, dairy, meat and poultry, and – gasp! – added sugar.

Luckily for all the Celiacs out there, New York is a veritable wonderland of delicious gluten-free desserts. Unfortunately, even a gluten-free, vegan dessert usually has some form of sweetener, like agave nectar. That’s a no-no for me. The phrase that comes immediately to mind is, “Trapped in a hell of my own making.”

Alright, things aren’t so bad. I’ve adjusted well. Kind of. I’ve only had minor cravings, probably because I don’t eat much processed food and have already cut down on meat in favor of vegetables. But the real conundrum – and believe me, it was a puzzle – has been what to blog about during this diet.

Finally, after a lot of menu searching, I found something that not only fit my dietary constraints, but was not simply fruit salad. The answer: the fruit kanten at macrobiotic spot Souen.

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Mixed Burfee at Spice Corner

06 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Candy

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Tags

Barfi, Burfee, Burfi, Curry Hill, Manhattan, Murray Hill

Case Close-upMurray Hill, a neighborhood in Manhattan located in the East 20s and 30s, is known for two things:

1) An overabundance of generic bars frequented by polo shirted and mini skirted recent college graduates, whose parents pay for them to live in the overpriced nearby high rises; and

2) A small subsection on Lexington Avenue roughly between E. 25th and E. 30th Streets, home to some of the borough’s most authentic South Asian restaurants, affectionately referred to as “Curry Hill”.

Curry Hill is home to some of my favorite Indian restaurants in the city, as well as a number of South Asian specialty shops, such as spice mecca Kalustyan’s, corner shops stocking the latest Desi flicks, and Indian clothing boutiques. Admittedly, I spend a lot of time in the area, since it is smack between my office and N.’s apartment. Walking to work in the morning, the streets refreshingly devoid of the usual nighttime revelers, I always make sure to go through this avenue for just a quick sniff of the spiced air and a peek at the exuberant windows.

One day on my walk, this view greeted me:
Spice Corner CaseYes, my friends, that is a whole case full of South Asian sweets, housed within a seemingly nondescript shop called Spice Corner. Can you guess how I responded?

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Schmapple Puddin’ at Sugar Sweet Sunshine

20 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Uncategorized

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Apples, Caramel, Lower East Side, Manhattan, Pudding, Schmapple, Vanilla

Schmapple Puddin'As I mentioned in a previous post, dreary February is my birth month, and this past weekend was my birthday. As I battled vicious icy gusts of wind, I longed for the simple, sweet pleasures of summer birthdays: picnics, outdoor beer gardens, cake on a patio. But just because these things will never come true for me, it doesn’t mean that I need to deprive myself of a larger sense of “birthday”. Can’t I still have my cake?

Not always. When I walked into Sugar Sweet Sunshine looking for a classic, birthday layer cake, I was underwhelmed by the selection. SSS does a mean cupcake – and offers quite the selection – but cupcakes often leave me wanting. Too soon devoured, lacking fillings and layers and (often) complexity, cupcakes simply don’t satisfy me the way a stacked piece of cake does. For me, it feels more civilized to eat dessert with a fork.

So, as you probably know by now if you’ve been reading consistently, instead I went for the pudding.

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Polentina at Eataly

13 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Pastry, Uncategorized

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Blueberry, Eataly, Flatiron, Frolla, Manhattan, Polentina

PolentinaIt’s dark, gray, frigid. There are blizzards and chapped hands and exploding frozen pipes. In other words, it is February, most people’s least favorite month. I’m a little warmer towards it simply because it’s my birthday month, but I’d much rather enjoy spring or fall than trudge through the depths of winter.

In fact, it’s been so viciously cold these last few weeks that I have been subconsciously transporting myself to summer days, when I don’t need to worry about wearing sixteen different layers or keeping my little tube of Aquaphor at the ready to soothe my weather-beaten knuckles and lips. I’ve been fantasizing about strawberries, and apricots, and cherries, and all of the delicious bounty that crops up once the soil thaws.

And then, I came across the polentina at Eataly, and knew I had to have it, immediately.

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Chocolate Caramel Cake at Sugar and Plumm

23 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Cake, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Cake, Caramel, Chocolate, Manhattan, Upper West Side

Chocolate Caramel CakeI am one of those people who associates cake with occasions: birthdays, weddings, office parties. I am not one of those people who simply eats cake because it’s a Sunday night and why not? However, I have been trying to adopt more of a, “You can become anything you set your heart on,” mentality this year, so if I want to become a cake-anytime person, then, dammit, that’s what I’ll strive to be.

So when I was on the Upper West Side on a Sunday evening, in need of a pick-me-up after sitting through three hours of Lincoln, I thought, “I can be that person! The person who eats cake whenever she wants.” So I marched myself over to Sugar and Plumm, Pichet Ong’s vaunted new bistro/bakery, for the very first time and bought myself a slice of cake.

When superfluously buying oneself cake, moderation should not play a role in the decision-making process. As I suspected (and hoped), the cakes on offer at Sugar and Plumm were decidedly excessive. But which to choose? If all decisions were so difficult, whole nations would crumble due to indecisiveness and neglect.

Eventually, after much deliberation, I chose the chocolate caramel cake.

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Matcha Macaron at Harney & Sons

09 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Cookies, Uncategorized

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Cookie, Macaron, Manhattan, Matcha, Soho, Tea


Matcha Macaron
When I was studying abroad in Paris waaaay back in 2006, I displayed typical American gustatory behavior and devoured everything in sight in obscene (to a Frenchperson) quantities: pain, vin, fromage, pâté, tartine, jambon. Whatever it was, I ate it, and had seconds. But there was one solitary foodstuff that made the others pale in comparison: the macaron.

Soon, I was on a mission to try all the best macarons Paris had to offer. I went to Pierre Hermé (several times, my favorite), Ladurée (classic, unimpeachable), and anywhere else a French friend had a tip. Sadly, I can’t remember the names of all the places I visited, but photos from that time period show the evidence in my chipmunk-chubby cheeks.

When done right, a macaron is an ethereal, sublime sandwich cookie. The cookie, essentially an almond meringue, should be light and airy and slightly chewy, but with a firm, crunchy shell that crackles at the bite. The filling, whether it is ganache or jam or buttercream, should be smooth yet firm, able to cement the cookie together but not so stiff that it puts up a fight. Large macarons should be approximately three inches in diamtere; small macarons, one inch. The cookie to filling ratio should be such that every bite, even on an edge, should be 60-65% cookie, 35-40% filling (in my humble estimation). When done properly, the effect is a extraordinary, a stunning blend of crispy and velvety textures; pronounced true flavors (the fillings need to shine); the feeling of eating a sweet, crispy cloud.

While on my sampling tour, I had nuanced views of each cookie, all of them solid contenders, but some marginally better than others. It was easy to take for granted the uniformity in quality amongst the board. No place had a subpar macaron; some were simply shades, or swaths, better.

Of course, I did take the Parision macaron for granted, as I promptly learned when I returned to the States. Even in New York City, finding even a respectable macaron was virtually impossible. One boutique had fillings so runny that the top cookie slid off while holding it (and that was at a shop devoted to macarons); another prominent chocolatier offered macarons so small and chalky that they were practically calcified marbles. One pâtissier came close, but the cookie was underfilled. Almost no, city-made macaron escaped unscathed. (The Ladurée macarons are imported from France, cheaters.)

Since my favorite macaron thus far comes from a tea parlor (Bosie, to be exact; stay tuned for that post), I decided to give the Harney & Sons pastry counter a try while I was shopping in Soho for Christmas gifts. I selected a pleasingly green matcha macaron ($3.00) because while in a tea shop, stick to tea flavors, I say.

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Pomegranate and Halva Chia Seed Parfait at Victory Garden

19 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Pudding and Custard

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Chia Seeds, Halva, Healthy, Manhattan, Parfait, Pomegranate, Vegan, West Village

Chia ParfaitWhat is it about this time of year that makes everyone so drowsy? Is it the endless shopping for presents? The coughs and sneezes and sore throats that are as prevalent as the cold bursts of air? The curtailed hours of daylight? The holiday parties where excess is no longer dissuaded among coworkers but, in fact, encouraged? Or maybe it’s the pounds of heavy, rich winter foods washed down with too many equally rich desserts. Perhaps it’s a combination of all of these things, but for me, it’s mainly the latter. I’m probably not alone in saying that I have not treated my body as well as I’d like these last few weeks, and I am really feeling pooped. I have no one to blame but that colleague who sent me a four box-tower of Godiva. (Yes, I ate nearly all of it. And I don’t even love Godiva!)

As a result, this week’s post is about trying to be a little better to yourself. It is also my first ever post on a vegan dessert. Don’t be scared! I can tell you, it is mighty tasty.

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Lamingtons at Pie Face

12 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Cake

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Australia, Chocolate, Coconut, Lamington, Manhattan, Raspberry, Sponge Cake

LamingtonMeet the lamington, a traditional Australian specialty: a yellow sponge cake cube, split and filled, slicked in a chocolate frosting, and showered with coconut shavings.

Until recently, I had never heard of a lamington. It wasn’t until after dinner at the Second Avenue Deli, where the thought of parve rugelach almost had my friends and me tossing our matzoh balls, that we ventured north to Pie Face, an Australian outpost that serves… pies. Friendly pies.

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Recent Posts

  • Chocolate Chip Cookie at Du Jour Bakery
  • There’s Always Money in the Banana Stand at Ample Hills Creamery
  • Apple Tarte Tatin at Buvette
  • Blueberry Strawberry Bran Muffin at Blue Sky Bakery
  • Pineapple Coconut Smoothie at Cocktail Bodega

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