Billy's Fifth Anniversary: $1 cupcakes today!

Dear readers,

If you're around the city today, stop by Billy's Bakery (on 9th avenue between 21st and 22nd)-- in honor of their fifth anniversary, they're selling their delightful cupcakes for $1 each. N.B.: it's cold outside, so if you're looking to put on a few extra pounds to keep warm this winter, this is a GREAT way to do it. For more on Billy's, see here, here, and here.

Janine

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

Dear readers,

I come to you with shattering and deeply, deeply disturbing news: NYC Icy is no more. I suspected something was amiss, since the store hasn't been open at all for the past month or so, but a walk-by this afternoon confirmed:

The saddest thing I've ever seen

I had valiantly tried to keep them afloat singlehandedly, but apparently my cup-a-day habit was not enough to pay Manhattan rents. The audible "NO!" I let out while walking alone on the sidewalk today barely touches the surface of my grief. NYC Icy, rest in peace: the world is worse off without you.

Veggies galore at Spring Street Natural

This afternoon I had the delightful privilege of having lunch with D and P from veggieplaces.co.uk, the Vegetarian site for which I'm a guest blogger. D and P are in NYC for a brief vacation and got in touch before they came, so we made plans to meet up at Spring Street Natural for lunch.

When I was interning in Soho a few years ago, SSN was the go-to lunch place, and I've been several times since then. As the name implies, the folks at SSN focus on natural/vaguely healthy foods and have a large number of vegetarian options on their menu. Their salads in particular are always huge and delicious (I was a particular fan of their herbed goat cheese salad, which is no longer on the menu, sadly).

Today, we started with their yummy bread basket, which includes two types of bread. Their seeded brown bread is really good, studded with sunflower, sesame, and flax seeds and particularly delicious with the spreadable butter. The other option is an orange-colored quickbread-- I estimate it to be pumpkin, but I really have nothing to back that up. It's almost cake-like in its texture, although a little less sweet, but rich enough that it doesn't even really need butter.

Bread with seeds and bread like cake

For an entree, P ordered the scrambled tofu, which came with a small mesclun salad and a hockey puck of brown rice covered in some sort of sauce. P said the scramble was relatively good, and you have to give SSN extra points for including such a creative dish on their menu.

Looks like eggs, but truly tofu

D had selected the veggie burger. This came with both a small mesclun salad and a side of fries, which both P and D enjoyed. D said the veggie burger was quite good, which is high praise coming from a vegetarian-food expert and former restaurant owner.

Veggie burger, buried in garnishes

My own selection was the steamed veggies, which came on a bed of brown rice along with a spinach-herb dressing. I asked for the dressing on the side and used a bit to season the veggies, which were well-cooked and tasty. There was a good variety in there-- broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, perhaps a few too many peapods for my taste, and a leafy green that looked like collards. With the flavorful dressing, this was a darn good dish (I promise... I know steamed veggies don't sound that great), and there was a large serving of brown rice to provide some heft to those with larger appetites.

Beautiful veggies bathed in light

All in all, I like Spring Street Natural for a good, healthy lunch. The dining room is bright and loud-- not highly atmospheric but certainly gets the job done. A similar rating could be given to the servers, who leave much to be desired in terms of the usual niceties of the job but usually succeed in bringing the food to the table. I wouldn't necessarily hit SSN for dinner, but as I said for a filling lunch it definitely works. It's a solid three Offset Spatula joint, good for vegetarians and health-oriented meat-eaters alike.

Spring Street Natural
62 Spring Street at Lafayette
212-966-0290

A little bit of everything at Bar Stuzzichini

On Saturday night, I scooped up my battered post-office-party body and headed down to the Flatiron district. My destination was Bar Stuzzichini, an Italian small-plates/tapas restaurant that I've been meaning to try for a while. I met my dining companions, AV and P, in the awkward entryway, and we were told our table was five minutes away from being ready, so we grabbed seats at the bar and ordered drinks (for me, a prosecco served in a generous two-glass portion; for AV and P, a Birra Moretti apiece). The five minute wait stretched to ten or fifteen, but finally we were fetched from the busy bar and brought, along with our drinks, to a semi-secluded booth, where we settled in for the night.

Stylish glass, with beaker of extra prosecco

A branded glass, so it HAS to be good.

We were given an amusing verbal "tour" through of the menu by our waiter, who was friendly but seemed a little uncomfortable in his position as waiter (case in point: his response to an inquiry of whether there was calamari on the menu was "not so much." Right.). We puzzled over the several hundred possible permutations that could be created from the menu options, finally made a decision, and placed our order.

In the meantime, there was bread. A runner brought over a strawberry-style wooden basket lined with an awkward piece of butcher paper. It was filled with pretty standard white bread with a crisp crust, and it went well with the olive oil poured from the bottle sitting on our table. Nothing superlative, but a good start nonetheless.

Bread, in brown paper and strawberry basket

And then our first courses arrived. We had selected the Stuzzichini Misti, a selection of five of their Italian tapas offerings meant to feed 2-3 people. As I was informed by an anonymous member of our dining trio that I "don't count as a person" in terms of the amount of food I typically consume, the 2-3 person designation seemed about right. Our vegetarian selections arrived first: we had chosen the melazane, or marinated eggplant; the zucchini alla scapece; and the carciofi, or fried artichokes. Of this bunch, the artichokes were the standout, crisp and salty and addictive. The eggplant and zucchini were both tasty, tender with a liberal application of olive oil and garlic.

Marinated eggplant, with explicit grill marks

Zucchini, beautifully presented

Spiky and delicious fried artichokes

Then the non-veg stuzzichini appeared. AV and P had chosen the meatballs and the steamed clams; the meatballs came in a tasty tomato sauce (which I sampled with the extra bread that was cheerfully delivered upon request), and the tiny clams rested in a bowl of broth. Apparently both dishes were pretty good, although I guess they weren't very interesting to me because upon examining my pictures from the evening I realize I completely forgot to photograph them. Cue mental image of me single-mindedly sucking down vegetables while contemplating my status as non-person and ignoring everything else.

Annnnnd on to the entree course. As a widely acknowledged expert in Italian cuisine, P chose the gnocchi all'Amatriciana as a test of the kitchen's skill (bad restaurant = bad, bad gnocchi). But apparently Bar Stuzzichini, or BS as I like to think of it, passed-- the gnocchi were approved with a (literal) thumbs-up.

Tiny gnocchi under a parmesan flurry

AV selected the night's pasta special, some sort of composed pasta involving eggplant, cheese, some sort of meat, tomato sauce, and ziti stacked Lincoln-log style into a brick. Though I did not taste the special, it was also met with a positive review, and the intricate cross-hatch ziti stacking lent the dish an amusing air. Or maybe that's just me.

"Lasagna-style" pasta in a spreading pool of sauce

My own entree was the arugula and ricotta salata salad. This ended up being surprisingly, almost startlingly delicious. I do love both arugula and ricotta salata, but both ingredients were excellent in this salad, and the vinagrette was light and tasty. Plus, unlike most of the other dishes (the stuzzichini especially), the portion here was generous. I'd highly recommend this salad and would certainly order it again on a repeat visit.

Tasty shreds of salty cheese and peppery arugula, a perfect match

Of course, given that BS is a small-plates restaurant, we had room for dessert. While the group had a collective hankering for tiramisu, the brief dessert menu included no tiramisu (bad! bad BS!). So we settled for two orders of orange olive oil cake and one chocolate mousse.

The chocolate mousse, AV's choice, was a rich, coffee-inflected mousse packed into a cold ice cream dish, which itself was perched on another square of that bizarre brown butcher paper (why??), and topped with chocolate crumbles. The mousse was tasty and extremely chocolatey. It was good on its own but best when paired with bites of the olive oil cake.

Intense, cold, fluffy chocolate

....and more brown paper.

The cake dessert a huge hunk of olive-oil cake accompanied by a scoop of fresh, lightly sweetened whipped cream. The cake had a large, smooth crumb and a faint orange aftertaste; the confectioners-sugar-dusted crust was by far the best part of the slice. A forkful of cake along with a bit of chocolate mousse and a dollop of whipped cream composed the perfect dessert bite.

Tasty cake with the two best accompaniments, sugar and cream

Overall, I really liked BS. The food was solid (the arugula salad being a surprise winner), the service was friendly, and our booth was nicely secluded. The restaurant itself had good energy, from the lively bar back to the packed dining room. And there are rumors that the bathrooms sport black toilets, although my own visit to the ladies' revealed nothing more than a disappointing run-of-the-mill white toilet. Other reviewers have remarked that BS's food is a bit small and a bit expensive, even for New York standards, and I agree for the most part-- although my salad and certainly the olive oil cake were both very large. But the bottom line is if you visit BS, you'll likely have a very good meal and a lot of fun. And for that, it deserves four Offset Spatulas.

Bar Stuzzichini
928 Broadway, between 21st and 22nd Streets
212-780-5100

Sweet, sweet sugar at Dousoeur Patisserie

A week or so ago, I discovered that a brand-new French patisserie had opened just a couple of blocks from my apartment (thanks, Serious Eats). I was determined to check it out, and after a few false starts, last Sunday I finally made it over there.

I opened the door to Dousoeur Patisserie and immediately noticed how small it was. This place was seriously, seriously tiny: there was a pastry display case on one end of the room, three small tables, an end-board with some pastry-wrapping materials, and that's pretty much it. When I entered, two of the tables were occupied with patrons, but there didn't seem to be anybody working there. I poked around obnoxiously for a few moments, alternately standing awkwardly in the middle of the room and inserting my head through the swinging kitchen doors. There seemed to be two people in the kitchen producing food of some sort, so I figured if I waited long enough one of them would emerge. Sure enough, after about five minutes, a smiling (thoroughly French) woman entered the tiny dining room to help me with my order.

I asked several questions about the pastries on offer, and while she answered them patiently, I basically had no idea what she said. So I picked out three that looked yummy. You can't really go wrong with French pastry, so I figured I'd take a gamble.

With my pastries in hand, the woman led me around the corner towards the kitchen to process my credit card (at $5-$6 apiece, these pastries aren't cheap... it will be interesting to see how this place does in a recession). Mired in the paying process, I didn't notice another woman who had scooped up the pastries and was furiously wrapping them in the most elaborate food-encasement system I've ever seen. It reminded me a lot of this scene from Love Actually. Since I was just taking the pastries home for, ahem, personal consumption, I didn't need such complex wrapping, but she was too far gone to stop. So I emerged from the shop toting a bizarre pyramidal contraption with (ostensibly) three pastries inside.

How do you carry this thing? Seriously!

Once home, after dinner with AV, we furiously unwrapped the paper and dove into the pastries inside. They looked a little something like this:

A trio of delights

Turned out they were all, in one way or another, meringue based. The fruit-and-cream thing was delicious, with two light meringue wafers, a swirl of heavy whipped cream inside, and blackberries dotting the interior.

Side view-- glimpse the blackberry

The other two pastries were layered with crisp meringue and sweet mousse. The coconut pastry had light coconut throughout layered all over the sticky surface. The chocolate pastry had chocolate mousse and snappy chocolate jimmies (a.k.a. sprinkles) all over. While I tend to eschew chocolate in my pastries (oftentimes they're just too rich), this chocolate mousse bomb was the surprise winner of the bunch. The mousse was light and airy, and the jimmies were sugary and spectacular.

Dual meringue orbs

The verdict: Dousoeur Patisserie is a little bit weird and a little bit expensive. But the women working there are very nice, and the pastries are incredibly delicious. So if you have an extra $5 to spare, stop by and grab a bite. You'll leave on happy sugar high.

Dousoeur de Paris
652 Tenth Avenue, at 46th Street
646-596-3460

Pork, pork, and more pork at Irving Mill

On Tuesday evening, I met my team from work at Irving Mill for a project-end dinner extravaganza. I had heard good things about Irving Mill, particularly their burger (you know, for other members of the group), so I was excited to test out what the place had to offer.

First off-- it's a very pretty space. It's rustically decorated, has good energy but isn't not too loud, and has several different seating areas to break up the room. The hostess was extraordinarily flexible with our party as we adjusted the numbers and seating time right up until we finally started to trickle into the restaurant one by one. They seated our incomplete party happily (no attitude there, ahem, Kashkaval), and we began ordering appetizers.

In the meantime, a runner brought over a few platters of bread. The bread was really, really good-- tender and chewy on the inside with a good crust, all set off perfectly by the soft salted butter. I could easily have eaten several pieces of this had I a) been hungrier and b) not been anticipating the flood of dishes to come.

Yummy, yummy bread

One by one, the apps started to arrive. First-- the marinated olives. These were tasty, fresh olives, not drowning in olive oil (which is nice), and dangerously poppable. I ate a significant quantity of these.

Covered in little olivey bits

Then came the pork toasts with egg salad and caviar. These were deeply friend and suspiciously square. General agreement was that they were tasty, but I must admit I am wary of anything that looks like a filet-o-fish sandwich at McDonald's, even if it has caviar on top.

They look like coasters

The salt and pepper pork ribs were next. Surprisingly, especially at a restaurant that is so pork-centric as Irving Mill, these weren't all that popular. I'm not sure why-- maybe it was something about gnawing on a bone at a work function, but whatever the reason, there were ribs remaining at the end of the night.

The last kid picked in dodgeball

The group also ordered the crudo of fluke, which came with beet tartare, pecans, and grapes. The fish lovers among us had quite positive things to say about this dish. Props to Irving Mill for diversifying its portfolio with this fish offering.

This pretty crudo wasn't just a fluke. Or WAS IT? Yuk yuk yuk.

Annnnd... back to pork. Perhaps not surprisingly, the spicy pulled pork sandwiches on potato buns were wildly popular. I mean, who doesn't like pulled pork? Except for me, I mean. But that doesn't count.

Porky innards on fluffy buns

As another concession to haters (i.e., vegetarians) like me, we ordered the eggplant and ricotta bruschetta. Sadly, this was disappointing. The bread was thick and had clearly been toasted but was now slightly soggy. The ricotta had absolutely no flavor, and the eggplant was also oddly flavorless and a bit chewy. Perhaps some sort of spice would have livened this up-- or some sort of change in texture (some sauce?) or temperature (the slices were tepid when they arrived).

So sad, as I love eggplant, ricotta, AND bread

So much for the appetizer course, and on to the entrees. For mine, I had selected the spinach, baby shittake, and artichoke salad with tomatoes and pecorino (dressing on the side). Sadly, there were several problems with this salad. First of all, there were no artichokes, something I just realized right now when looking back over the menu descriptions. Second, the mushrooms were gross-- huge chunks of basically raw mushroom, not seasoned, not cooked, not sliced, nothing. The tomatoes were standard, and the pecorino was good but paltry. So mainly this salad tasted like raw spinach. The dressing was mostly oil and didn't add much. Definitely wouldn't recommend this menu item.

Where, oh where, are the artichokes?

Other people were more successful in their entree selections. SG had selected the sunchoke and hazelnut soup to start, and I sniped several tastes of this delicious, incredibly creamy, hearty, and filling soup. I wish I had ordered this, frankly.

Stunningly beautiful AND delicious

SG followed up the soup with the herb and parmesan chicken with artichoke barigoule and black olives, which he shared with ES in exchange for some of her Loup de Mer (which came with quinoa, preserved lime, walnuts, and soybean). Both dishes were declared delicious.

Chicken, with some artichoke action going on underneath

Gorgeous loup de mer on a smear of green

DC had selected the all-important burger, which he thoroughly enjoyed. My only (vicarious) gripe with the burger is that the portion of fries was tiny, and they were the kind I don't like as much (skin-on wedges as opposed to crispy shoestrings). But DC approved, and since he was eating it, that's what matters.

Burger hiding behind fries

The Niman Ranch Bavette Steak also made an appearance at our table. Didn't get much of a review on this one, but at least it looked pretty.

Well carved

The surprise star of the meal, at least from my perspective, was the side of mac & cheese PB ordered. He offered me a taste, and I ended up sniping a good portion of this (sorry PB!). Yes, there were pork rinds in here (natch), but I picked them out and focused on the pasta and cheese. I haven't eaten much mac & cheese in the past few years, but good lord, this stuff was heavenly. The pasta was fully cooked-- none of this "al dente" BS that always ruins good mac & cheese-- and the sauce was mild and thick and rib-sticking. This is certainly the best mac & cheese I've had in a very, very long time, possibly ever, and I might venture to nominate this humble side as the best mac & cheese in the city. Take issue with that designation? Prove me wrong, people. Prove me wrong.

Oh, sweet and lovely mac & cheese, how I miss thee

I wasn't able to stay for the entire dinner, so I missed the dessert course. But during the time I was there, we certainly had a good time at Irving Mill. Aside from minor service mishaps (involving the mis-pouring of red wine all over the table and onto members of our party), the experience was delightful, and for lovers of pork, the food was spectacularly porky. If the vegetarian food (the bruschetta, the salad) had been as good as the meat courses, Irving Mill could be a four Offset Spatula restaurant, but from my perspective I think it will have to settle for three. If you love pork, go to Irving Mill and go (ahem) hog-wild. If you like mac & cheese, go try that beautiful dish. But if neither of those appeals, there are probably better options for you.

Irving Mill
116 E. 16th Street, near Union Square East
212-254-1600

A brush with greatness at Tabla's 10th Anniversary party

Late last week, I received a surprise phone call from my friend AR at Union Square Hospitality Group (the illustrious owners of such awesome NYC food establishments as Union Square Cafe, Eleven Madison Park, Tabla, Shake Shack, etc.). He wanted to know if I wanted to join him at Tabla's 10th anniversary party Monday evening. Hmmmm, did I? I thought for a while, weighing the pros and the long, long list of cons, and finally gave up and agreed. I figured I'd take one for the team. And by "the team" I mean myself. And by "take one" I mean "do something immensely enjoyable and thoroughly awesome."

So on a chilly Monday evening, I met AR at the bar at Almond, a newish restaurant in the old Borough Food and Drink space on 22nd Street. We caught up at the bar while munching on a few appetizers. The arugula, beets, and roquefort salad was quite tasty, with the candied walnuts playing a starring role. I liked the multi-colored beets-- a nice touch-- but thought they could have been cooked a little bit more (as I quote one of the Foo Fighters on Top Chef two weeks ago: they were a bit "al dente-- meaning not cooked all the way through").

Looks like orange supremes, but actually golden beets

Next we tried the cauliflower gratin. This ended up being sort of like macaroni and cheese, except with cauliflower in place of the macaroni and a thin cheesy sauce. The bread crumb crust on top was tasty, and the little stone pedestel the bartender set up on which to perch the gratin was very cool.

Faux mac 'n' cheese

Finally, we went for the cheese plate. I'm not sure which cheeses were included here-- there was definitely a chevre, some sort of brie-like soft cheese, perhaps a hunk of parmesan and a bit of blue cheese, but I don't know any more specifics than that. The accompaniments were delightful as well, adding dried fruit, nuts, and figs stewed in red wine to the mix as well as buttered toasts. A good cheese plate overall, although it would be nice if they specified the types of cheese at some point in the cheese-plate-ordering cycle.

Busy, and rustic

After we had sampled all three apps, we packed things up and dashed over to Tabla to join the party. On the way in we bumped into the GM of Gramercy Tavern (swoon, swoon), which was quite awesome in itself. Finally, we made it into the restaurant. I've never been to Tabla, and for most of the party I stood around admiring the incredibly beautiful space. Downstairs is the Bread Bar, an incredible room with colorful, playful details such as the conical light fixtures hanging from the ceiling. Upstairs, the dining room was cleared of all tables, most of which usually center around the circular balcony that peeks down over the Bread Bar. The restaurant is simply stunning, with lots of different levels, a beautiful floor, and decorative touches all around.

And then, of course, there was the food. Runners dashed around offering tiny, beautiful plates of food, which we grabbed, photographed, and gobbled. Below is a sampling of the delights:

Oxtail on tapioca pearls

Shellfish salad

An Indian-spiced onion ring. That's my hand.

Pumpkin soup (delicious) with tiny floating pepitas

Crabcake on some sort of guacamole-like puree

Meatloaf (?), next to an Indian spice installation

Naan! Dripping with ghee and tasting of chewy cornmeal. Accompanied by spicy tomato dipping sauce, which was FANTASTIC

While sampling these culinary delights, we wandered around the room greeting USHG luminaries, from the chefs and GM at Tabla to the GM at Eleven Madison Park (triple swoon!). I couldn't stay long so dashed out just as Danny Meyer himself was arriving, but even the small taste I got was surreal. And I'll add that Tabla is an incredible place-- the food was spectacular, and the space itself is stunning. I can't wait to return, even absent the food celebrity set.

Almond
12 E. 22nd Street, between Broadway and Park Avenue
212-228-7557

Tabla
11 Madison Avenue
212-889-0667