Back to basics at Amy's Bread

It's been a tough few weeks for the cupcake eater in me. First I tried to squelch the craving with a non-cupcake pastry from Andre's. Then I gave in to the siren song that is Crumbs. Where's a Billy's red velvet or banana cupcake when you need one? Down in Chelsea and Tribeca, sadly. So when the craving returned last week, once again I turned to a local option: Amy's Bread.

Now, while my heart certainly lies with Billy's, I won't pretend I was unhappy "settling" for Amy's. I wrote about the black and white cupcake at Amy's a while back, and when I get a local craving for a chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting, it still can't be topped. They've changed the wrappers to French cupcake liners since I last wrote, making the quarry look a little something like this:

The frosting got squished in transit. But still good!

When you pull the paper off the cupcake, it falls away in a neat halo, not unlike this dinosaur from Jurassic Park.

I realize this picture doesn't look much different from the one above it. But trust me, the cupcake liner mechanism works well.

And then when you cut into the cupcake, it reveals its true magic: A moist, fine-crumbed, intensely chocolatey cake that neatly straddles the line between cake and brownie. The center is always a tiny bit underdone, aptly delivering that fudgy-brownie hit, while the base of the cupcake brings the cake. Oh, and the frosting is perfect, sugary and mild, a classic foil for the rich cake.

You can see the moisture throughout and the layer of fudginess right below the frosting

While the other cupcakes at Amy's can't hold a candle to the goodies at Billy's, their black and white cupcake is tops. My unequivocal recommendation remains.

A new UES wine bar experience

Upon the recommendation of one of his friends, AV and I paid a visit to Balon Wine Bar on the UES Friday evening. It's pretty much the perfect first date place: Incredibly cute and romantic with a beautiful back garden, low lights, and well-groomed people. We chose a table near the back, each got a glass of red wine, and settled down to chat and relax. But of course, one can't really have wine, conversation, and relaxation without food, right? So we resigned ourselves to the fact that a cheese plate was in our future.

The food at Balon uniformly looked and smelled delicious, but it was relatively expensive. Our cheese plate was no exception. They have a relatively large selection of cheeses of all kinds, and I chose manchego, brie, and taleggio to bring us on home. The plate provided olives (delish), some sort of cherry-tomato-and-balsamic salad (a little weird... I would have preferred some sort of fruit), and two kinds of olive-oil soaked bread. The olive oil was of such high quality that even soaked into the bread, you could taste the nuances. And the cheese, of course, was creamy and soothing and fresh. Well done.

Wedges of all kinds

With our cheese polished off and our wine thoroughly sipped, we grabbed the check and made our exit. The final verdict? Balon was incredibly cute, bordering on precious, but somehow not all that comfortable-- we could never really envision Balon becoming our regular hangout. Plus, it was a bit too expensive to be a weekly destination (two glasses of wine plus a cheese plate came to ~$50 or so). But if you're looking for a lovely place for a date or a girls' night (there seemed to be quite a few girls' nights going on while we were there), and you're in the neighborhood, Balon is your bag.

Balon
245 East 81st Street, between 2nd and 3rd
646-641-2282

Back to Beppe

Last year, before my firm's holiday party, the girls, our dates, and I had a prom-style quintuple-double-date dinner at Beppe, a cute Italian place in the Flatiron district. During that dinner, I consumed a salad (shocker!). And ever since my consumption of that salad, I have been thinking about it... and craving it. Well, since Beppe is seasonally-driven, the autumn salad left the menu and I felt I was out of luck. But lo! Once again it's fall, and so I checked the menu online, only daring to wish... and hope... and there it was! My salad! Well, Saturday evening, AV and I made our way there to slay my white whale.

Last time, our large group was seated in the tiny, quaint upstairs area. But this time, AV and I were given an expansive, four-person table in the main dining room, which is anchored by a large fireplace and several interesting decorative chandeliers.

Things happened incredibly efficiently at Beppe. Our orders were taken, and I barely had time to make a quick trip to the bathroom (delightfully warm due to baseboard heating) before bread was delivered. Two kinds this time: a light sage focaccia (mild but mercifully ungreasy, needed a bit of salt on the crust) and a plain white bread. The olive oil was flavorful and was poured with a flourish by the exuberant runner.

Basic bread

In a blink of an eye, our entrees were upon us, descending in capable hands down the staircase leading from the kitchen upstairs. AV had chosen the "Norcino," described as "'butcher's spaghetti' with crumbled pork, garlic, Chianti, rosemary, and tomato." It was a small portion, but with the requisite coating of fresh grated parmesan, AV was incredibly happy.

Strands 'n' shavings

And while AV enjoyed his pasta, I savored-- yes, savored-- my salad. It came on a clear plate, which was oddly distracting, but was just as filling and delicious as I had remembered. Anchored by roasted squash and littered with scraps of radicchio and a handful of pumpkin seeds, the salad's starring ingredient was the stracchino cheese, like a creamier, stretchier, more comforting mozzarella. Put all the ingredients together and you have one hell of a salad.

THE salad

And that was it. I will confidently say that I do love that salad, and I'd happily eat it every night if I could. I'd recommend you seek it out, and even if you're not a salad devotee, give Beppe a try if you like Italian. It's a great date place, good for groups, and just a welcoming, warm, four Offset Spatula port in this long storm we call winter.

Beppe
45 E. 22nd Street, between Broadway and Park Avenue South
212-982-8422

A rocky start at Stecchino

As I reported last week, Stecchino just opened on 9th Avenue in Hell's Kitchen. With the Mom in town on business and looking to get dinner with the bro and me, I chose Stecchino as our destination.

I will preface this by saying yes, it just opened, and yes, to some extent we should give new restaurants a break. But Stecchino really didn't have its act together. When I called last week to make a reservation, I was instructed to call back the next day when the man on the phone had a reservation book in which to write my request. Okay, fair enough. But we visited when the place was open for real, and everything still screamed soft-opening. Maybe Stecchino just needs some time?

Perhaps. Our server was friendly but almost cringeingly unsure of herself. We placed our orders and bread appeared, sans bread plates, with a tiny pot of olive oil in a receptacle that wasn't conducive to dipping. The bread itself was dry and a tad burnt. Oh well.

No go

Ten minutes or so passed, and Mom and the bro got their salads. They had both chosen the Caesar; Mom without dressing, the bro with. The review was thoroughly "meh"-- it was basically just lettuce with one creative parmesan crisp and standard Caesar dressing. No croutons or anchovies, the bro pointed out. Point taken.

Nothin' special

Salad course down, we waited for our entrees. And waited. And waited. Almost fifty minutes had passed since we sat down at the table before our entrees arrived... and for context, there was ONE (yes, one) other occupied table--a two-top--in the restaurant during that time period. No matter; we were ready to eat. The bro had skipped an entree since apparently he had just consumed chicken pot pie a couple of hours earlier. Mom went for the salmon with warm roasted sherry vinaigrette (roasted sherry? huh?); she substituted asparagus for the brussels sprouts. It was a relatively small portion, but she enjoyed it.

The star of the night

My choice was the fennel and artichoke salad with celeriac, pecorino, parsley leaf, and lemon. This salad was just plain weird. The texture was all crunch, with nothing to offset all the roughage, and the taste was uniformly bland. There was no zip, no punch--not even the few shards of pecorino could perk it up. About halfway through I found myself wondering, when is this going to end? There needed some textural and flavorful contrast-- like green apple, or olives, or something with some zing. At least this portion was ample (perhaps a bit too much so).

Just too much texture

Since the entrees had taken so long to arrive, we decided not to risk ordering dessert and instead asked for the check. My mom threw down her debit card and was informed, in a manner apologetic bordering on ashamed, that the restaurant was cash only. Apparently they're getting a cash machine in but it hasn't arrived yet. Oy.

So, let's examine the pro-con breakdown here. Pro: relatively extensive menu; reasonable prices; a pretty dining room (check out the diorama-like installation in the floor opposite the bar); friendly staff; good location (for me); pricing transparency (our server informed us of the one-free-refill limit before charging us for another one). Cons: food not great; bad bread; way, wayyyy too long for entrees to arrive; no salt and pepper on the table; cash only; booth was bach-achingly uncomfortable; only one free refill on the shot-glass-sized beverages before they're $1 apiece. So basically, I don't know what to think. I want to give Stecchino a chance, because if it evolves into a great restaurant, it will be a huge asset to the neighborhood. As a result, I'm going to hold off on awarding spatulas at this point; I hope to visit again once they get their act together. Stay tuned.

Stecchino
765 Ninth Avenue (between 51st and 52nd streets)
212-397-2377

A curious (and chocolatey) sight on Saturday night...

Last Saturday evening, AV and I were wandering east from Chelsea on 20th street when something curious caught my eye:

A welcoming sight...

Having gone to college in Cambridge, MA, I'm very familiar with Burdick's-- it was the local chocolate shop, known equally for its incredibly decadent almost-bitter hot chocolate, delicious pastries, and tiny handmade chocolate mice. Could this be the same Burdick's? A quick trip inside and a few questions to the shopkeeper later, the verdict was: Yes! Apparently they opened only a couple of weeks ago and are slowly rolling out their full line of pastries. They plan to have wines available in addition to shelves and shelves of incredible chocolate. Too bad AV and I were on our way to dinner, otherwise we would have stuffed our faces with chocolate in all its forms. Rest assured, we will be back.

L.A. Burdick
5 East 20th Street, between 5th Avenue and Broadway
212-796-0143

LWF&D goes all Benedict Arnold at Crumbs

As I mentioned earlier, I've been battling a rather severe cupcake craving since my departure from Billy's. Today I was at the office planning my post-dinner indulgence. I got a window of time to duck out for a quick cupcake-shopping trip and realized my only real option was... Crumbs. Crumbs, the McDonald's of cupcakes, whose pastries are the size and shape of softballs and come in as many colors and flavors as Sanford Mr. Sketch markers (don't pretend you never ended up with colored dots on your nose from smelling those markers as a kid). Sigh. Off I went to the Crumbs by Bryant park.

After dinner, I unveiled my prey. It was a Butterfinger cupcake: vanilla cake, filled and frosted with Butterfinger buttercream and edged in chocolate chips. Overkill, much?

Looks innocent, but was almost as big as my head

I cut it in half and chose one of the halves, wrapping the other one for later. The filling job went admirably deep, almost all the way to the bottom of the center of the cake. I took one bite of the cake by itself, and... well, it was actually pretty good. Really moist, with an almost artificial vanilla flavor. Very much like cake mix. The Butterfinger frosting was totally intense, with a true Butterfinger taste and even some of the shattery texture, all thanks to the pieces of real Butterfinger mixed in. I could have done without the chocolate chips around the edge, but hey, they made it pretty. I ate half the cupcake and was full; ten minutes later I had stomach cramps. The other half went in the trash.

Well filled and frosted

While I'll never go to Crumbs if I can help it (i.e., if there are other, better cupcake options nearby), this particular cupcake was actually not as bad as some of their others-- I think the Butterfinger pieces actually helped mask the usual shortening-y taste of their frosting. But regardless, eating Crumbs is very much like eating McDonalds (in theory... I haven't eaten McDonald's in well over a decade): it tastes good, but it makes you feel both crappy and slightly guilty afterwards. Oh well. Consider the cupcake craving sated.

Back to Cavatappo for reliable classics

On Sunday night, pre-pastry binge, we swung by Cavatappo grill for some classic and delicious Italian food. The place was surprisingly hopping for a Sunday evening, but we squeezed into a tiny table along the wall and settled in.

We skipped drinks and apps and nibbled the bread while we waited for our entrees. Maybe it was just the way it was sliced, but this bread seemed different from their usual carb offering. This was substantial but dry and oddly flavorless; it seemed to lack salt. Perhaps it was authentic Tuscan bread?

Plain bread

No matter; our entrees arrived promptly. AV had selected an entree portion of the tagliatelle bolognese; he loved it. Especially since it was buried under a mountain of parmesan cheese. Mmmm.

Freak snow squall

My choice was the cremini mushroom salad. Since I wasn't really that hungry, I chose to omit the fontina cheese, which left greens, pears, walnuts, and mushrooms. With the truffle-oil-dressing on the side, I will admit self-evidently that the salad wasn't as good this time around as it was last time. However, that's my own fault. Next time I'll make sure I'm hungrier and get the salad the way it's supposed to be.

Better as the original

Pastry-bound, we skipped dessert and skipped out the door. Cavatappo is definitely our go-to UES Italian restaurant: it's reasonably priced, it's delicious, and the atmosphere is enjoyable. In its own genre, it's a definite four Offset Spatula joint. If you haven't been, try it out; it's a good date place, but no matter whom you're with, it won't disappoint.

Cavatappo Grill
1712 First Avenue, between 88th and 89th Streets
212-987-9260