A Week of Food…Part 1

School’s back in session for me ever since the past Monday and that means I’m spending more time in the city eating out besides school and studying. And I took the eating portion a bit seriously this week since I felt depraved from the food scene since I was working and/or studying almost the entire summer in Queens. Ahhh…it’s good to be back in Manhattan! Since a week is a lot to cover, I’m splitting this up into two posts for the sake of not boring you to death with my ramblings and not to let the post take forever to load up.

Starting off the school morning on Monday, I contemplated a slight controversial debate I had with a bunch of loyal macaron lovers that I had a few posts ago and went back to Madeline Patisserie.

Vanilla and Chocolate Macarons

This time I just try the vanilla macaron and the chocolate macaron. The chocolate was a bit wetter than desired and mushy, as Robyn commented on my macaron post earlier. The vanilla was a bit drier but it’s way to sweet for me. It reminded me of the pistachio macaron from Georgia’s Bakeshop I had during the macaron hunt a while ago. I’m getting depressed for the lack of awesome, divine macarons. Please Monsieur Pierre Herme! Open a boutique in NYC! Please!

I know it won’t happen in a long while no matter how much I beg, plead, wish, etc. Anyways, I went to class and eventually it’s my lunch hour/break. Since I don’t want to write another post about Bouchon Bakery and go obsessive like I had last semester (and tried practically everything in their pastry case), I walked down to Sullivan Street Bakery.

It’s their bread bag; not the sign

I perused the sandwiches they have and I found out that they have their own interpretation of the Cubano! But they ran out. Oh pooh. So to at least satiate my craving for complex carbs and starches, I went for a slice of pizza pomodoro and a torino di ciccolato.

That’s some red sauce

Upskirt shot

That’s thin…

This über thin, crisp pizza was pretty damn good. The tomato sauce was bright and acidic but had a sweet finish. Yes, the pizza could survive without the gooey, luscious cheese of any sort. The only thing I kind of wished about this pizza was that it’s warm instead of room temp.

Torino di ciccolato

Innards

The torino di ciccolato was good. It kind of reminds me of a dense, chocolatey brownie but it had a slight char flavor from the edges and the breadcrumbs in it that gave it an unexpected toothsome texture. I would prefer if the latter two didn’t exist but I guess it’s their way of the brownie or a bouchon.

As I munched my food, I kept staring at the pans of bread sticks they recently put out that I had the unusual urge to want to eat one. I ended up having an olive oil bread stick ($5) and it’s really long.

Innards

It’s about my entire arm’s length long! This stick of bread reminds me of a super saturated (of olive oil) olive focaccia bread, sans the rosemary or any herb that normally goes in that particular bread. Every time I touch that bread or anything that touches it, has an imprint of grease and every little green olive you see on top of that bread has pockets of olive oil within each hole. Not like I’m complaining really but that’s a lot of oil. In terms of texture and flavor, this bread is what you would dream everything you would want an olive focaccia-like bread to be: soft, light, a hint of yeast flavor, olive-y from the actual fruit and the oil, and crisp. Not bad for $5, but I couldn’t finish it in one sitting so I saved the remaining 3/4 for dinner. I washed down all the carby goodness with a bottle of San Pellegrino Limonata. Mmm…very refreshing.

San Pellegrino Limonata

On Tuesday, I organized (sort of) a meet up with my friends from St. John’s later on the afternoon after my classes were over. But since it was 9 AM and I’m in the city, I want coffee. My caffeine dependent brain was telling me that I must have coffee before I will regret the consequences that will occur if I don’t. So, for some reason I went to NoHo and stumbled upon Think Coffee.

Think Coffee

People love this place!

Menus

STELLA

Interior/seating area

This coffeehouse is basically mere steps away from NYU, hence why it’s so popular with NYU’s coffee-lovin’, arguably sleep deprived students who lug their Macbook and use Think’s WiFi. When I got there, there weren’t that many people as you see on the photo above. It’s more like 7 tables were taken given the time was 8 AM. I ended up ordering an iced latte to stay, which had it’s own price listing ending up to be $4.50 with tax. It turned out to be an average beer mug’s size of latte. That’s like a large and a bit more, if you had the normal coffee cup.

To explain the STELLA photo, it’s their house wine offered for the evening, since this place do serve wine and alcoholic beverages.

Iced Latte

It’s actually pretty good. The latte was cold and it had enough of that bitter, roasted espresso bite as the finishing note to every sip I had. My caffeine craving was satiated and truly appreciated the coldness of the latte. Refreshing.

I didn’t eat anything until the meet up at Adrienne’s and that was around 3 PM by the time everyone showed up. Somehow coming down to Stone Street is such a difficult thing for most people who aren’t familiar with the Wall Street area. I don’t blame them initially since Stone Street is a tiny little nook of cobblestone that no one really pays attention to unless you’re trying to get some good or decent grub that is found on this street. Anyways, after everyone finding each other and the constant calls know how to find Stone Street, we’re there and I want to EAT.

What we’re here for…on the menu

We knew that we needed 2 whole pies to for the entire group and one of them has to be the Old Fashioned. The problem was the other pie. We ended up having a lengthy debate and discussion about what topping to go with the other one. What Bryan proposed was to use the method of deduction. Eliminate anything that anyone does not like and whatever remains, we take a vote. The winner was the sun-dried tomatoes and that’s what’s going to be on our pizza. Since we’re waiting for the pizza for over 20 minutes, we killed some time by taking group photos of the table since we’re sitting outside anyways.

The girls: Giulia, Julie, and Seungmi

Stephanie, Bryan, Helen, and me

And finally, the pizza has arrived!

Old Fashioned Pizza pics

The Old Fashioned was pretty awesome. The crust was thin, yet strong enough to hold the sweet, acidic tomato sauce and the gooey, stringy mozzarella cheese. Oh this was good. I haven’t had pizza in a long time but I think I like Grimaldi’s more though and I still haven’t tried Lombardi’s yet. The problem is that the school semester started for my friends and they don’t have any days off or long hours to commute over and eat with me.

Old Fashioned Pizza with Sun-dried tomatoes

My slice of old fashioned pizza with sun-dried tomatoes

Upskirt

Anyways, the pizza with the sun dried tomatoes were somehow a bit wet. The crust can’t really hold the sauce, cheese and tomatoes whenever I try to pick up my slice. It’s strange since it’s the same exact pizza but we just add a topping. It tasted good with the added chewy, sweet, slightly tart tomatoes but the mushy crust is the only thing that prevented me from enjoying this pizza.

Then for dessert, we walked a few storefronts down to Financier Patisserie. But before we went in Fen called and said that she’s on S. Williams Street, which isn’t too far from Stone and she wanted to join us for dessert. Since we’re waiting for her, Helen took my camera and took random, candid shots of the group without Seungmi since she’s trying to help out Fen with directions on the phone.

Bryan’s playing around

My cheesy smile…it’s another candid shot

Anyways, Fen eventually found us and Bryan and Stephanie already got themselves dessert: a chocolate flourless cake. Seungmi eventually got herself a strawberry shortcake, while Giulia bought the passion fruit mousse.

After taking photos of the aforementioned desserts, I went with Fen to peruse the pastry case to see what’s good remaining and she asked what is good there. Somehow it nothing struck my interest especially with the fact that I had their macarons before. Fen on the other hand ordered the crème brûlée.

Fen’s crème brûlée

This is the only dessert I tried from the three that the others had since Fen ironically was very conscious of her calorie and fat intake and she’s skinny and taller than I am. Anyways, the crème brûlée was fine. The buttery, pâte brisée crust meets rich, eggy custard with a hard caramel top. The caramel didn’t seem crisp or brittle as if one was breaking a thin film of glass with a spoon. It’s more like a tough, firm coating.

Here’s another set of candid (and a posed) shots in Financier.

We all left afterwards since I have to go home to take care of my mom and school stuff. I miss everyone already. :(

Go to the next post for Part 2…

Address:
Madeline Patisserie
128 W 23rd St
New York, NY 10011

Sullivan Street Bakery
533 W 47th Street
New York, NY 10036

Think Coffee
248 Mercer Street
New York, NY 10012

Adrienne’s Pizza Bar
54 Stone Street
New York, NY 10004

Financier Patisserie
62 Stone Street
New York, NY 10004