Coffee hits the spot at Sweetleaf

Patrick American, Coffee, New York

Rounding out the last of my back logged posts from my time in New York, I wanted to make another special mention to a coffee store in Long Island City called Sweetleaf. Located a couple of blocks away from the PS1, this was where I got a perfectly formed cortado and wished I could have spent just a litle bit more time relaxing in their very nice cafe.

I think like many modern coffee stores, Sweetleaf supplies free wifi although they have this really nice large table next to their open aired kitchen that they recommend you use.

Amongst all the cakes and pastries, they also looked like they prepared a good selection of sandwiches and salads though it wasn’t quite lunch time when we went by. I just really needed my coffee at this point.

It looked like quite a number of other customers were regulars, or at least on a first name basis with the baristas behind the bar. I can see why because the baristas were pretty friendly and knew what they were doing. In fact, the barista told me that she was just going to pull another shot because she knew immediately that it apparently wasn’t a good one. It wasn’t long before I was sipping on the crema of a beautifully made cortado, once again waking up to the world.

Name: Sweetleaf Lic
Found at: 10-93 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101
Website: http://www.sweetleaflic.com

Delight at M.Wells Diner

Patrick American, Cafe, New York, Restaurants

When we were in New York, my sister organised our activities with the food outings my responsibility. We headed to the MOMA’s PS1 out in Long Island City and so I had the task of researching a place to eat for lunch around that area. A few places turned up, including the famous 5 Napkin Burger but I was looking for something a little bit less fast food and something a bit more intriguing. I came across a number of blog posts including this one and this one that told me that M.Wells Diner was going to be a winner.

We arrived at about 1pm, so many people were still eating their lunch. We were offered a table at the counter top, but we weren’t really in a rush and thought it’d be much cooler to have a booth table. They had plenty of reading material to keep us occupied, including a few local magazine and papers showcasing more that Long Island City had to offer. Definitely a nice touch.

The menu was pretty diverse, and definitely not really stock standard for your average diner. Take, for example, Beef tartare on offer, or perhaps the escargots and bone marrow. Impressive and unusual offerings. This latter dish must be pretty popular since we saw a chef preparing marrow for our entire duration.

Still feeling the cold from the icy winds outside, I opted for their green pea soup (USD7). I went for it, figuring it’d be a plain soup and what arrived was something I easily would have expected from a restaurant where you’d probably pay double for it. It had crisped bacon for that extra salty bite, the crunch of perfectly toasted croutons and a drizzle of, what I think was, lemon oil lifting the entire dish. The soup itself was amazingly tasty and it went down very quickly.

Apparently the seafood cobbler (USD16) was impressive as well. Extremely cheesy, chock full of quality seafood and a heartily filling dish.

I almost don’t want to blog about a place like this. I’d hate for it to turn into one of those places you wait in line for hours to get in. It’s really that good. I hear they change their menu quite constantly, and the chefs obviously passionate about what they do with one of them reading a fairly dense cooking book on their break.

Go now. Before it’s too late.

Name: M. Wells Diner
Found at: 1-17 49th Avenue, Long Island City NY 11101
Website: http://mwellsdiner.com/

Cookies Cream

Patrick Berlin, Restaurants, Vegetarian

“It was destiny,” they said when two things came together tonight and we dined at Cookies Cream. One, a preference for vegetarian fare, and another, trying to tap into the wonderfully hidden subcultures of Berlin. Seeking vegetarian fare in Berlin, Cookies Cream is one that you would eventually stumble upon. It had good reviews on both Tripadvisor and The Happy Cow, although it’s “vegetarian fine dining” that you don’t really run into that often. I’d been to Vanilla Black in London, so I kind of knew what to expect. Trade off in quality for portion size, but that’s fine with me.

I’m pleased that our table of ten didn’t have too many problems finding the place. It is, after all, located right next to a set of dumpsters around the back of the Westin Berlin Hotel, and the least expected place you’d find. You walk through, what I think is, the club part of Cookies, ascend a staircase and open up into a warm and modern dining room with tables lit by candlelight. Exposed ceiling and industrial brick wall surrounded us although I noted a number of art pieces hanging.

Service was excellent for a place in Berlin, where I’m starting to expect even worse than that you’d get in the UK. Not because people are rude, but often because the wait staff seem to always be disproportionately outnumbered by the diners. We were offered a wonderful aperitif – the house cocktail made out of vodka and rhubarb. I hadn’t expected such strong rhubarb flavour, although I also wasn’t expecting the strength of the vodka to hit me so quickly.

Originally offered the tasting menu, I’m pleased that they opened up the a la carte menu where we had a lot more variety and the kitchen wasn’t going to be too fussed. We all had three courses in the end so saw a good variety of the menu. Many of the dishes made me think about definitely returning someday.

I started with the Vacherin Mont-d’Or in brick pastry with salad of Jerusalem artichoke with vinaigrette of truffles, and pears marinated in pepper. I had no idea what would come in the “brick pastry”. What it ended up being was a very thick custard filling where you could really taste the truffle infusion that I love. I’d definitely get this one again.

Many people also went for the red lentil soup with beluga lentils, apricot goat cheese and basil.

We also got some nice heavy bread to go along with a strong curd (ricotta?) in some sort of green mixture that we guessed as avocado mixture.

For mains, I ordered the parmesan dumplings with braised artichoke, a BBQ tomato sauce. After having this dish, I’m compelled to know how they made them. My dumplings were light, full of flavour and the artichoke and tomato provided perfect balance with that hint of bitterness and tang. I would have been very happy with the dumplings.

I liked the look of the brussels sprout cannelloni, cassis apple, black walnut and truffles cream sauce as well. Good choice Sha Sha. I think someone also got the Potato tarte stuffed with winter asparagus but I didn’t get a chance to take a photo.

I’m pleased that everyone really enjoyed their meal, even the self-proclaimed anti-vegetarian diner at our table. It must have been that good!

Everyone tempted by dessert, we got a good mix of all at our table including the toffee cheesecake, marinated kaki (persimmon) and raspberry sorbet.

I couldn’t help but go for the chocolate slice with acacia honey ice cream, cocoa tuile in old balsamico marinated blackberries simply because you don’t really find honey ice cream nearly as much you should. Without that, I would have opted for the final dessert.

Curd cheese dumplings with blueberrymousse, saffron vanilla sauce and butter cookie crunch. This last dish would have won me over with the saffron vanilla sauce and crunch providing texture.

We had fantastic wine recommendations, lovely surroundings and I’d definitely come back here for vegetarian fare you wouldn’t get every day.

Name: Cookies Cream
Found at: Behrenstrasse 55, 10117 Berlin, Germany (behind the Westin Berlin Hotel)
Website: http://cookiescream.com

Vietnamese at Monsieur Vuong

Patrick Asian, Berlin, Restaurants, Vietnamese

I’d heard so much about this great Vietnamese place during the week from my work colleagues I decided to check it out for a late lunch after my run in Berlin’s Tiergarten. Hoping that the place would still be open when I left my hotel for this lunch at 2:30pm, I was completely surprised walking in and finding it ridiculously busy. Thankful for eating by myself, I was seated almost immediately with a number of other solo diners at the circular bar surrounding the kitchen area.

I thought it would have been awful waiting for a table for four or more. With a menu in German, I managed to work out most of the classic Vietnamese dishes, noting a few different variations. Everything was cheap here, though looking at the dishes coming out, amazing value (less than €10) for the modern variations that emerged.

Feeling a cold on its way, I opted for the health restoring, Pho, that soon arrived as a steaming broth with gently cooked pieces of juicy chicken, rice noodles and plenty of greens. I was quite proud to order it in the small enough to be non-existent German I’d been accumulating through the week.

With flavours and value like this, it’s no surprise that plenty of Berliners streamed through its doors, even by the time I’d left.

Name: Monsieur Vuong
Found at: Alte Schönhauser Str. 46, 10119 Berlin, Germany
Website: http://www.monsieurvuong.de/

Hackesches Hof Theater Cafe

Patrick Bar, Berlin, Cafe, Coffee

We dropped into this awesome cafe near the Hackescher Markt. Attached to a theatre, or what I’m guessing is a bigger theatre, this small cafe offers all sorts of drinks from the teas and coffees, through to beers and wines. From what I could tell of the menu, it also offers a small amount of food to eat like sandwiches and cakes though we just dropped in for a drink.

Hackesches Hof Theatre is warmed by an array of theatre lights hanging for the ceiling. Some people won’t like the heat although it really worked for me because of the cold outside. This cafe, like many others in Berlin, is full of characters with old movie and theatre posters hanging from all walls.

Name: Hackesches Hof Theatre
Found at: Rosenthaler Straße 40, 10178 Berlin, Germany
Website: www.hackesches-hoftheater.de

Tom Aikens Take Two

Patrick British, Michelin Starred, Restaurants, UK

One of the problems about not writing up a food entry at a complicated tasting course is that you start to forget all of the various elements. Last year, I got another voucher to eat at Tom Aikens at almost a 40%. Given they had a special Christmas menu on as well, it was definitely worthwhile. This was my second visit to Tom Aikens (first review here), and the service and food still consistently as good. The descriptions are going to brief and this post is more of a reminder as to what I ate there than anything.

Here’s the first bread I ate, an onion bread of sorts.

An amuse bouche including a mushroom/truffle soup, cheese bite and a dish that was sort sort of jelly (that I can’t remember now).

Look at all that bread! This is exactly what I referred to when I talked about American restaurants didn’t seem to care so much about their bread. This is definitely a bit of overkill though.

I think the next dish was aubergine and foie gras. Can’t really remember this one either.

And a more seasonal addition, pickled reindeer with various beetroots and leaves. Poor rudolph!

Followed up by some roast squab. I’m glad to remember that this squab wasn’t very chewy and was extremely easy to cut and eat. Tasty too.

Next up. Desserts! First, this raspberry concoction including a fizzy raspbery sorbet and raspberry filled white chocolate “cigar” as they called it.

Finally the other seasonal touch, the pumkin dessert that served it four fives ways (pumpkin pie, ice cream, cream, cake and truffle). A pretty subtle flavour that works well.

Of course, they finish off with their wide selection of freshly baked madelines

And their just as diverse selection of chocolates (petite fours)

Another fantastic meal at Tom Aikens.

Name: Tom Aikens
Found at: 43 Elystan Street, London SW3 3NT
Website: http://www.tomaikens.co.uk/

Eleven Madison Park

Patrick American, Michelin Starred, New York, Restaurants, World's 50 Best

My sister and I had definitely splurged on food this trip to New York. I count myself fortunate to dine at these places and enjoy them all. Our final, and definitely the most impressive, fine dining place this trip was Eleven Madison Park. We figured it’d be worthwhile tasting their great valued four course meal for only US$74. Given the quality of the food to come, I still look at as a culinary experience bargain and highly recommend it.

Eleven Madison Park is easily found by following the trail of their four-leaf motif. It’s embossed into the door head and one of the lamp-posts in the park has the name and same four-leaf motif at the bottom of one of their hanging banisters. We were amongst the first to arrive for the lunch service arriving just before noon. I didn’t really want to wander too long to kill time considering how cold and windy that day was. Things already looked good when one of the maître de’s started spinning the rotating doors to help us get in. Taking our coats from us, it wasn’t long before we sat down at our table, fortunate enough to both be facing outwards into the grandiose setting, and soon to be, banquet room.

The restaurant certainly has some style. Describing the room with tall ceilings doesn’t really do justice to just how far the roof from us was away. To our left, long bright windows let plenty of natural sunlight in. Facing forward, we could see a number of tables and they set them plenty away from each other to avoid pretending not to overhear conversations. Further forward, we see a raised floor where even more tables sit and all the way to the right, the bar where we notice people welcomed to dine as well.

As a frequently travelling solo diner, I was also happy to note a rather poised lady dining by herself (food critic perhaps?) on the other side facing towards us. She seemed to be treated just as well as everyone else. Now, on to the meal. We found the tasting menu hidden underneath our dining napkin. Our waitress explained it very simply, “You may choose three courses or four courses. You effectively get to compose your own tasting menu based on key ingredients with the final accompaniments changing with availability of food. Each one will be fully explained on arrival. The first row are all cold dishes, the second and third all hot and the final one dessert elements. You may choose to even skip some of the dishes and, for example, go for another hot dish instead of a cold one.”

Whilst deciding on what to eat from the menu, the first thing to appear were these light gruyere puffs. Probably slightly bigger than a thumbful, these bite-sized morsels really started the appetite going.

When my sister and I dine, we don’t normally drink wine. Matching wine sessions are out of the question when dealing with tasting menus – there would be simply too much alcohol for our poor little Asian systems to deal with. Nevertheless, my sister picked a non-alcoholic drink and I, intrigued by numerous selections decided for a Hot buttered rum with the help from one of the waiters. As he put it, “This is the perfect winter drink. This is a classic drink that is resurfacing and will help you warm up.” It took some time for the drinks as they made it fresh and it was so good I’ve decided to try to replicate the recipe at home while the winter months are still upon us. It came in a wonderful beer-stein like container for the glass.

Here’s the first non-alcoholic drink, an Orange Julius.

And then the amazing tasting hot buttered rum. It reminded me a little bit slightly of those butter menthol sweets you suck on when you have a cold but only in the good way (they are just too tasty to have just one).

Our amuse bouche soon arrived. Here was a lightly toasted brioche with truffle butter and chives. I have to admit the truffle flavour wasn’t the strongest in the butter (it never is) although I could tell some earthy undertones separate to the chives. This went with the next dish.

A small tea cup of chicken soup. They even poured the lusciously creamy chicken soup out of a tea-pot like construct. The soup had everything you could ever want in a chicken soup. It was creamy. Packed full of flavour. Perfectly seasoned. I just wanted more.

Soon after that dish came an American Sturgeon Custard. It arrived in these immaculately cut and cleaned eggs where we used tiny spoons to pull out spoonfuls of flavoured custard. I have no idea how they cut the eggs so clean. It almost looked like they used a laser, or sanded down the top to get a consistent edge. I almost thought they weren’t really when they first arrived.

Continuing the theme of small bites for appetisers, a small glass bowl soon arrived. Explained as “poached egg with truffles”, they explained the slowly poached egg sat with the truffles to absorb their flavours and then they topped the cooked egg with a truffle infused sauce. Imagine a luxurious version of an eggs benedict (minus the ham and English muffin) and this pretty much captured the essence.

With all of these small plates brought out, they finally brought out the bread and butter. Here you can see the disc of butter etched with their signature four-leaf motif. This small round was the standard American butter that we cut into for our bread. This butter looked much more yellow than what I’d seen most American butters to be but I still think the English or French butter is the best so far.

One butter isn’t enough for this place. They also had to serve a Goat’s Milk Butter. Whilst my sister didn’t like the distinctive goat’s milk flavour, I liked it better for its strength of taste compared to the rather bland American stuff. Using the goat’s milk butter helped me avoid putting [fleur de sol] salt when using the other one. They don’t really stop at just two butters if you really want. We heard the table next to us explain a whole list of food allergies (poor them!) and/or food dislikes. We saw the attendants bring olive oil to the table instead of butter.

Compared to a number of the restaurants in the UK, bread doesn’t tend to play a strong part in many American restaurants we ate in. Eleven Madison Park did two types, that they brought to the table, one being some sort of olive bread, and another sort of white bread. Both served freshly warmed but nothing to write home about.

Here is where it starts to get complicated where I’ll tell you about the parts of the dishes that I can remember but when you’re having so much good food, it’s hard to note down all the elements. My sister ordered the turbot to start off with, accompanied by some soy beans, shaves of fennel and I think it was sun dried tomatoes. Pretty good from what she said.

She’s not really a fan of cold food so she skipped the first line. I decided to take one dish from each line and I’m really glad I went for the Foie Gras dish. Served in two parts, the first was a creamy foie gras terrine served with pearl onions and pineapple. Very similar to our dinner at WD-50, the chefs knew about cutting through the richness of the foie gras with a slightly tart fruit sauce and it worked really well.

The second part to the dish was definitely one of the best dishes, made up of a toasted brioche and foie gras brulee. It sounds a bit strange but here, they somehow made a savoury brulee that worked amazingly well. The caramelised top gave away hints of bitterness that worked well instead of being too sweet and the natural creaminess of the foie gras fooled the mind into thinking about the perfect set custard. I enjoyed every last spoonful of this dish and, after talking to our attendants, it was one of their most popular dishes.

Here’s the lobster dish served with walnut and squash.

My second dish, the crab with fresh Meyer lemon juice and fresh Tagliatelle pasta. At first glance, it seemed like a simple dish but I could tell immediately the pasta had been freshly made, and they were extremely generous with the amount of crab throughout. I wasn’t left twirling pasta without any crab by the end of the dish. I did find two small pieces of crab shells but that’s a risk I’m happy to take with any seafood dish.

For round three, my sister got the pork three ways. The belly part, fatty as usual, had the perfect crisp top, and the loin still moist with each bite.

It seems like Americans are getting more of a taste for lamb which is why I wondered how they might prepare it. My dish was a lamb collar with garlic, apple and crispy bits and some sort of green and lamb jus. I can’t remember exactly what the crispy bits were but they tasted like toasted garlic mixed with some other nuts. Whatever it was, it went with the lamb very well. I thought the apple seemed a bit strange with this dish but overall a very nice one.

It seems like Americans like their lamb not excessively rare. Whilst still juicy and slightly pink, I do think that the lamb was slightly overcooked.

On to desserts, and the first was a pre-dessert of champagne foam a top a number of other elements including crushed meringue and a raspberry sorbet. I tend to dislike the trend with playing with “foam” but I have to say, this one really worked. It seemed a bit closer to almost a thick creamy whip than a foam but what worked really well is they kept the champagne flavour and they somehow kept its fizz. The fizz and the tart sorbet worked to prepare our palates for the upcoming dessert.

My sister got the coconut dish made up of toasted coconut, coconut ice cream, pineapple and chunks. All elements tasted great and it almost seemed tropical for a moment.

I ordered the dessert based on lemon. To be honest, I though it as the most disappointing dish. Good but just not wondrous. They had a lemon curd, lemon sorbet, light flakes of lemon and poppy seed shortbread and lemon cake crumbs. Looking back, they had enough textures to make it interesting. I think what took it away from me were the cake crumbs that seemed to blur into every bite.

Post dessert, they still had more things to come including a peanut brittle, and a chocolate covered milk ice cream lollipop. Both very small bites and both very good.

We asked for the bill and when we opened their four-leaf motif covered folder we discovered…

An impressively hand written bill. Simple and elegant, just like everything else that we experienced that day.

Just as we asked for the bill, our waitress seemed a bit thrown off because she had planned to take us for another treat. She asked us if we had time for another course and a tour of the kitchen to which we both replied almost immediately in unison, “Of course!” It really came as a surprise and definitely made it the highlight of our, already wonderful, meal and trip. We paid the bill and then followed her past the streams of people coming out of the kitchen to arrive at a high table covered in a white table clothed tucked against an inset in the wall. From this vantage point, we could see the whole workings of the kitchen. Although Noma boasts an open kitchen where many of the dishes are finished, here we also got to witness all the chefs preparing for the dinner service. Two things struck me immediately. Firstly, there were a lot of people in the kitchen. At a good guess, I would say almost a hundred people, each one working on some small element for each dish. Secondly, I can’t believe how immaculately clean everything was. Now, I’ve watched a lot of cooking shows, many of which go behind the scenes of kitchens but this one looked almost impeccable. Even though there was lots of action going on, the kitchen almost looked like it was in a unused state, waiting to kick off for another day. Very impressive.

The person who walked us through explained each of the different stations and the hourly roster, answering many questions that we had. I’m still humbled from the experience but that wasn’t all. In front of our high table sat another work station, this time for their pastry chef to make another dessert. Using liquid nitrogen, she made our final dish of the meal.

Raspberry meringue, popping candy and sorbet. I’m sure they told us more details about the ingredients but there was so much to take in I just decided to sit back and enjoy this one. This rounded off an already perfect meal.

This restaurant made it on San Pellegrino’s Top 50 restaurants in the world list to which I’d easily agree to. From what I can tell, they have at least one Michelin star, but I really do think they deserve two. From what I understand about the guide, the second star is often about the service, and I have to say that Eleven Madison Park did a great job. Water constantly topped up, people constantly attending to you but not excessively so, and everyone was polite, helpful and friendly. It seems like I’m not the only one that thinks they deserve more.

Name: Eleven Madison Park
Found at: 11 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10010
Website: http://www.elevenmadisonpark.com/

Tuck Shop New York City

Patrick Aussie, Fast Food, New York

It’s not every day that you stumble across a place called Tuck Shop and not stop to have a classic Australian meat pie. We stumbled across this one whilst visiting the Chelsea Markets in a newly developed area that didn’t exist last time we visited. Almost walking straight by it, my sister and I shared a meat pie (with tomato sauce of course!) to test how good it was.

Although pretty close, we though the pastry could have been a little bit lighter. There’s nothing quite like juggling molten meat and gravy with each bite or the anticipation of when, what should be, the delicately light crust bursts like a fresh volcano eruption and trying to avoid searing to any other parts of your body.

A pretty reasonable pie, but it seemed a bit pricey at US$5.

Name: Tuck Shop
Found at: 75 9th Avenue (Between 15th and 16th Streets), New York, NY 10011
Website: http://chelseamarket.com/tuckshop/

A Meh Visit to Momofuku Ssam

Patrick Asian, Michelin Starred, New York, Restaurants, World's 50 Best

I subscribe to a number of food blogs that cover New York and David Chang seems to get rave reviews for his Momofuku set of restaurants. My cousins took us to the Momofuku Ssam restaurant where his dishes, are frankly, vegetarian unfriendly. Except for the pickled vegetables (see below), everything else has some sort of meat or seafood in it. Oh, and no, I don’t count seafood-eating vegetarians as vegetarian. The correct term is pescatarian and seafood are animals too.

We got there a little early, so we did a bit of a walk around the block. Here’s the outside of Momofuku Ssam (conveniently with their address picture perfect too!) We waited in their milk bar next door (where we later had desserts) whilst we waited for a table.

You can only really book if you go for this special Bo-Ssam (pork butt) that you need at least 6 people (my cousin tells me from experience you need much more). Unfortunately we were Bo-Ssam’ed out by two other parties dining so just turned up. Even with a group of six, you can’t make a reservation. In true Chinese style, we shared everything we had though. We started with the pickled vegetables and then their “famous” pork buns. Here is their traditional one made with pork belly, more pickles and some hoisin sauce. Whilst good, it seemed all a little bit too squishy and could have done with some more texture.

Fortunately they had another bun on special, this time made with a crispy pork belly, different pickles and avocado. I think what the other pork bun lacked, this one definitely made up for.

We then tried the short rib sandwich. I liked the sound of it. It arrived on a crispy bun, different to the white fluffy steamed rolls although this time, my cousin Kathleen tried to split it up between the six of us with only a bread knife. What are we? On a plane?

My other cousin, Penny hadn’t had a chance to try sweetbreads. She missed it at Gramercy Tavern where it was found on the tavern side menu, and nowhere to be seen on the restaurant side. Fried crisp, this one tasted just like fried chicken. I’m not quite sure what the white mayonnaise-like spread on the bottom was but all it seemed to add was creaminess, not necessarily that much flavour.

We asked if they had any Bo-Ssam left (as on the menu it still said to ask). Our waitress checked with the open plan kitchen not more than fifteen metres from us and came back with a disappointing no. Instead, she recommended the rib eye which would be plenty to share amount us all. As you can see, it was immaculately cooked – juicy and pink on the inside. They served it accompanied with some “juice” – i.e. drippings. Whilst very tasty, I was a little disappointed it didn’t seem to have any other signature flavours or spices that made it something else, other than a very well cooked rib eye.

They did serve it with this anti-Atkins diet potato filled ravioli. The starch with starch combo seemed a little bit weird and once again, very well executed. The portion size definitely doesn’t go with the size of the rib eye though.

With all of that out of the way, we then moved into the milk bar portion where they had cookies, pies, whole cakes (pictured below), soft serve, milkshakes and “adult” milkshakes (i.e. concoctions with alcohol). I really wanted a slice of cake but they only sold them whole, or rolled up into what they called truffles – imagine cake crumb mashed into a ball and you get the idea. Probably quite tasty but not for me even though a bargain at 3 for US$3. I went for their “Old Fashioned Donut” soft serve after having a taste. Light flavours of cinnamon and slight hints of jelly without being excessively overpowering. Delicious.

I enjoyed the food and the evening. Service was pretty reasonable and considering the lack of space, they did pretty well. I like the fact you can see into their open kitchen as you walk between the restaurant to the milk bar and I don’t think we ever felt rushed. I did tweet later that it didn’t quite live up to all the expectations of the “David Chang” empire but I hear his noodle place is the much better place to go. I don’t think it really has a place up in the San Pellegrino Top 50 restaurants in the world list.

Name: Momofuku Ssam
Found at: 207 2nd Ave. (Corner of 13th + 2nd), NY, NY 10003
Website: http://www.momofuku.com/ssam-bar/

Clinton Street Baking Company

Patrick American, Brunch, New York, Restaurants

Anyone who knows me will know I tend to get up early in the morning. Therefore, breakfasts for meeting people is something I’m happy to do. New York does the breakfast meal much better than London. Perhaps it’s the intense pace of the city. Or maybe the gyms on every corner of Manhattan work because of calorific-guilt based workouts. Either way, I’m much happier that many more options for eating breakfast meals exist. I’m less happy about how crazy busy some of them get.

I’d read about the Clinton Street Baking Company having one of the best Manhattan brunches so I went ahead and organised for a breakfast there. Informed by Alex, the New York local, it’s best to get there 45 minutes to avoid waiting for a table.

We got there at 8:15am and I guess it’s a winter thing but we were first in line. In fact, they didn’t start taking names down until about twenty minutes before opening. Nevertheless, I had good company waiting in line catching up with Alex and his wife wondering how the breakfast would go. Despite needing to wait, they’ve got a pretty good system in place with a person taking names with alloted times and options to walk around and come back or stand in the very tiny premises.

If there’s anything that strikes you about this place is just how small it is. You walk in and a takeaway counter full to the brim of American-sized cakes, pastries and goodies abound for those not willing to wait for a table. The tables, placed along the walls and the booths between the door and the counter probably do not seat more than twenty people. No wonder a good place like this will have a queue.

On to the breakfast. Coffee of the morning was a latte because flat whites still haven’t taken to American stores, only found in those few Antipodean run coffee stores. It was very milky, large and I probably should have ordered it with an extra shot. Nevertheless, it did the job of waking me up to peruse the menu.

We took our time eating, both perusing the menu and eating our food, probably to the chagrin of the line-taking waitress and the people waiting. We outsat two or three other groups of people behind us and, to their credit, I never felt rushed or put out of place. Being the first table, we were placed at the booth by the door and immediately visible to people waiting in queue who almost stood over our table but I didn’t really mind.

Although their pancakes are apparently their signature dish, my breakfast at Norma’s still left me feeling “full” of pancakes so opted for something a little bit more different – the Southern Breakfast made up of three eggs done any style, country ham, hash (mashed potato grilled on a skillet) and then a very large biscuit (think scone). It came accompanied with butter at the table (meh – clotted cream works much better) and their home made raspberry jam. The jam, closer to a compote was great – not too sweet, and you could still see chunks of raspberries as you spread them on the biscuit.

Someone else got something really different, the fried chicken with waffles and maple butter syrup. A southern dish, the syrup apparently was really great and went well with rich dish. Definitely a hearty way to start the day.

Looking around, I wish I had enough of an appetite or more time to try their pancake stack. Not only did they look huge, but they looked like the perfect American-style fluffy light pancakes. I saw plenty of them cooking on the griddle as we exited, no doubt to be consumed very quickly by everyone. They’ve even published their own cookbook, something that I think I’ll try to get a hold of in order to test out some of their highly raved about recipes.

Name: Clinton Street Baking Company
Found at: 4 Clinton Street (btw. East Houston & Stanton), New York, NY 10002
Website: http://www.clintonstreetbaking.com/