Chickalicious Dessert Club!!!

So, today's indulgence (i try to visit a place on my "restaurants and famous places i must visit in the future" about once a week) was Chickalicious Dessert Club. And let me tell you, there are so many options to choose from! I wanted to order multiple things, but in order to not look piggy (and later become piggy) I stopped myself at one. It was really difficult but I decided to go with the Chocolate eclair ice cream sandwich because it was mentioned as one of the ten best desserts of 2010 by Serious Eats magazine so I was like that should be a good first sample of the place. Here it is.

MMMmmmmm. So basicall they take an e-clair shell without the custard filling and slice it in half. and then they add vanilla soft serve and then pour chocolate fudge all over it.... Soooo good. The e-clair part was actually somewhat crunchy despite mixing with the ice cream. I mean, when you eat it with the ice cream you get a crunch but then the pastry melts into the ice cream and its soft and creamy and with the hot fudge its like mmmmmm. the vanilla soft serve itself isn't outta this world, but the pastry with vanilla ice cream and fudge is an awesome combination. It kinda reminded me of profiteroles. After this baby, I am definitely going back to try all of their other desserts. I wanna try their chocolate lava cake, e-clairs, and ice-cream sundae, among the many others. Go visit!

Bouchon Bakery

I had heard a lot of good things about Bouchon Bakery so I was expecting it to be great. The most popular ones that I had heard about were TKOs (thomas keller oreo), Nutter butter, and Chocolate bouchon. This pic is the TKO (the bigger one) and the Chocolate bouchon.

I gotta say, I was expecting a lot more from Bouchon Bakery. I heard that the TKO was better than an oreo. It's dark chocolate cookies with white chocolate mousse instead of the standard creme found in oreos. However, it tasted just like an oreo. The creme was slightly better than that of an oreo obviously because it's homemade, but i just got oreo. The Chocolate Bouchon was like a tiny chocolate cake with specks of chocolate in the middle. Overall, I didn't really like it. It just seemed standard to me. Below is the nutter butter, two peanut butter cookies filled with peanut butter mousse.

If you're a peanut butter lover, this is your cookie! This ended up being my favorite of the bunch. The cookies were SUPER soft, and it was sooo peanut buttery. The mousse was like eating really creamy peanut butter. The taste was very dominant here. I thought it was ok though. I mean, I like peanut butter, but this was death by peanut butter. For me, at least. If you love peanut butter ( i mean like really love it), you'll love this. Although the cookies were very soft and the mousse very light, its too peanut buttery for me. But, it was the best of the worst. I don't think I would go back because all three cost $10!!!

Veselka

At Veselka,  I decided to try one of their award winning blintzes. A blintz is basically like a flaky crepe. It was folded over so that when you cut into it, you could see the many layers. Anyhow, I was in between their special of the day which was a three berry blintz. A blintz filled with a three berry compote and sweet sour cream on the side. I originally ordered a single cheese blintz with the berry compote on the side because I saw online that the portions were huge. However, being the cheapo that I am, I learned that it would be the same price to get the single with compote on the side as the plate with two blintzes with the compote and sweet sour cream. So I figured I would split it up and take some home later. I might as well get more for my money! When it came, this is what it looked like, with a side of sweet sour cream in a cup. (The size was slightly smaller than the one in the photo)

It definitely looked great, doesn't it??!! Anyhow, when you cut it open, it oozes out the berry compote. Sorry there's no picture my camera was being an idiot and was taking blurry photos. As it turns out, this does not come with the cheese inside. So i inquired about it, and the gentleman (maybe he runs the place?) was very friendly and accomodated me with the cheese on the side (after all, i ordered the thing because the original had the cheese!) and I found that to be very nice. I first tried just the blintz and it was so soft! And the berry compote was sweet and there were lots of fresh blueberries inside which was nice! I then tried it with the sweet sour cream and let me tell you, I 'm not a big sour cream fan BUT that. was. the shiz!! Together with the compote it was creamy and balanced out the flavors really well. I also tried all of it with the cheese and that was pretty good too. I abandoned my saving some for later plan and finished it! it was goood.

Saint's Alp Teahouse= YUMMY Bubble tea!

So today I hung out with my friend Dominique today and since she has never tried bubble tea, i felt it was my duty to make her first bubble tea experience at Saint's Alp Teahouse. Being that I had my first bubble tea here, I knew that they had a wide variety of very delicious bubble teas, both hot and cold. I'm not sure what is exactly defined as a buble tea, I would assume drinks that have tapioca on the bottom but they also have drinks with nata de coco but I don't know if one should call that bubble tea as well. I have had many drinks at this place and would highly recommend their natas. they are basically cold drinks with little gelatin cubes at the bottom that taste really good. you just have to try them. I think my favorite drink to get there is called the wild berry nata.

  

It tastes like a sweet berry juice and when you have those nata de coco with it, it's awesome. Since most people like juice, you can't really go wrong. I recommended it to her cuz she was in a juicy mood and she loved it. I had a lychee nata but there is no picture because it is a relatively new drink on their menu. It looks like the wild berry nata except it was clear. All i can say is that it screams lychee! Lychee's a fruit that I just recently stumbled upon when I tried it as a topping on my frozen yogurt and loved it so i had to try this nata and i was not disappointed!Another drink that I didn't get today but have had is their taro. I'm not sure how to exactly describe how taro tastes but its a milk tea that has a really dominant milk flavor. That's what really stands out to me and leaves that milky after taste. It has tapioca at the bottom which I love so i gobble those up too.

Taro

So if you're ever in the Lower East Side and it's a warm day, go cool off with some bubble tea at Saint's Alp Teahouse. It will not let you down!

Big Gay Ice Cream Truck: AGAIN!!!

So I have made yet another trip to the Big Gay Ice cream truck. Last time we ordered a Monday Sundae and a Gobbler.Now, I went with my sister to show her the truck because I really loved the Salty Pimp. The line was really long and was pretty slow. That happened last time I was on it as well, I’m not sure why it’s that slow because its just ice cream but whatever. So I wanted her first experience to be something good so I told her to get the Salty Pimp and I really wanted to try their mango passionfruit sauce which seemed temporary. Her Salty Pimp was, again, amazing.

 

It has vanilla ice cream, dulce de leche that’s laced in from a bottle, sea salt, and then the whole thing is dipped in chocolate. I know it sounds good. I think after you break the chocolatey shell you get the vanilla and dulce de leche which is sweet. You get a lot of that until you hit the sprinkles of sea salt. You’ll know when you get it when you taste something weird and well, salty. Now I know you would think ew! Salt and ice cream but no. It’s awesome. It’s like a really good weird. You’re confused when you’re eating it but at the same time you know its good. The Salty really goes with the sweet, and you really only get sprinkles at a time so its not overpowering. It’s a really good first choice. I got the vanilla soft serve in a cup with the mango passionfruit sauce. This isn't the picture but it's essentially the same except the liquid is orange.

 

I liked that the guy put the sauce on the cup before adding the ice cream. Then he laced it in to the vanilla ice cream. When I was eating it I was really glad for the sauce on the bottom because it was good. I can’t really definitively say I know what passionfruit tastes like but it was very mango flavored. I thought it was kinda good but I might have been biased because I really wanted something juicy cuz it was a hot day and I thought ice cream would do it but it didn’t so I dunno that probably affected my judgement. I mean it was good but I think I’ll stick with their signature concoctions.

Shake Shack

Ah, Shake Shack. If you’ve never heard of it, then you are really missing out on a really really great burger. The concept is a burger and shake place. They have different types of burgers, hot dogs, French fries, shakes, and frozen custards. I’m not sure if it’s the best burger I’ve ever had though, I would never claim that as I have not tried a number of burgers to make that claim. That and to me, burgers tend to taste the same, like beefy no matter where I go. However, I do have to say that of the burgers I have had, Shake Shack’s Shack burger definitely stands out to me.  I’ve had Five Guys and JG Melon’s cheeseburger but they just tasted like a hamburger to me. 

 

The Shack burger has a beef patty, lettuce, tomato,American cheese, and shack sauce. You can't see the shack sauce in the photo but it's there and it is glorious. What is shack sauce? Well, according to them its really mayonnaise mixed with herbs and spices but man oh man, that sauce. Is. Awesome. I think that’s what separates this burger from the others and why I remember it. You eat the burger and you get the beef and cheese not so much the lettuce and tomato because then you get that sauce and its creamy and when you mix it with ketchup (I like to eat my burgers with LOTS of ketchup) something magical happens. You get every component of the burger in each bite and it just tastes delicious. I would really recommend that you try it. My sister says the shroom burger is better which I have yet to comment on as I have not tried it. But anything really from that place should be good so it is on my list.

Carmines

So, my family and I made a recent trip to Carmine’s to celebrate my mom’s birthday and because my sister had a $100 gift certificate to the place. It was a fancy Italian restaurant that received good reviews so we decided to try it out. We had reservations for 8pm and the place was packed! It was so busy and noisy, it’s one of those popular places where there’s always people at a table. I had read reviews online as to what to get and was warned that each plate can easily feed three people so I was sure to tell my sister that because she was the one who made the order. Originally, we decided that we should do an appetizer, one pasta, and one chicken dish. I had heard their chicken parmesan and meatballs were good, while my little sister mona had heard that the lasagna was good. So we told my sister to order that although she was skeptical and wanted to order a third dish since we were a party of 6. We thought that she had ordered the meatballs as a side but when the food came it was on a HUGE plate over spaghetti. I think she ordered it as a main dish, which was a big mistake. The plate could have fed the 6 of us! On top of that, there were SUPER HUGE chicken parmesan slices. The only somewhat small one was the lasagna and even then when the waiter divided it into 6 it was a hefty portion.  I tried to avoid ordering too much as I had been warned but it ended up happening anyway. We first had the lasagna cuz it was the first that was served and it tasted like traditional Italian lasagna. 

I didn’t have much of it because I knew I wanted from the meatballs and mainly the chicken parmesan. It was ok. Next up were the gigantic meatballs. 

They were a mix of veal and beef. I thought they weren’t great and the rest of the table hated them. I didn’t hate them, they just had an odd flavor. I guess I don’t like the veal beef combo. The chicken parmesan was last and it was the best.

It was cheesy and saucy, and just great. Looking back, I wish we just ordered two of those and we would have been happy. Most of the table finished that. Then to celebrate my mom’s birthday we decided to get a tartufo.This is not the actual one but to give you a visual of what it looks like.

They put a candle in it and the waiters came and sang happy birthday to my mom which was nice. Surprisingly, the tartufo was rather small. Given the rest of the food I was expecting it to be huge. I’ve never been a huge fan of tartufos. It’s an ice cream ball that’s half vanilla half chocolate that has a cherry in the middle and the hwole thing is dipped in chocolate. It tasted like what it is. By then we went home really stuffed. Overall, Carmine’s is a family style Italian restaurant. It’s a really good deal if you go with a group of at least 8 people. I don’t see myself just coming here with a friend or two because the portions are too big. I think it was an ok place, but nothing really stood out to me as being exceptional so I probably won’t be back because it’s also expensive.

Creperie

Since we didn’t  really like the dessert menu at The Spotted Pig, we decided to venture out to find a dessert place that was open late and not too far away because we did not know where we were.  I knew a place called Creperie was open til 4am (it was about 12:45am then) and the waiter told us it would be a 6min cab ride so that’s what we did. We made sure the cab driver didn’t look creepy because we’re paranoid after watching criminal minds. We found someone who looked nice and he turned out to be very friendly. He took us there and we were ready for crepes! They have savory and sweet crepes with coffee and other drinks. I had the chocolate lover’s crepe before and being a chocolate lover, loved it. My sister has never had crepes before and since my first experience with crepes was here and I liked it I wanted her to try one from here too. We were in between a crepe with tiramisu, strawberries, nutella, and whipped cream. The Chocolate lover’s crepe has brownie bites, hot fudge, banana, whipped cream, and a scoop of ice cream. My sister hates bananas and luckily we were able to swap it out for nutella, which was a very good idea. We got the crepe and when we were eating it all you could hear was om nom nom nom nom. It was that good. The crepe itself was somewhat sweet and the cake pieces with the fudge and nutella were just made so they were hot and went really well with the cold ice cream on top. When you get every component together it’s an explosion of chocolate that’s cut through by the ice cream and whipped cream. It. Is. GOOD. The nutella proved to be a very wise decision, I’m not sure how the bananas would have affected the taste as I don’t remember what it tasted like before. You should really try this place. Next time, I’m gonna try something new and try the tiramisu crepe but if you’re there for the first time, the chocolate lover’s crepe is a good first crepe to try. 

P.S. Sorry about no picture- i didn't have my memory card. You will have to trust that it looked and tasted good :)

The Spotted Pig

As a heads up, the following blog posts DID NOT all occur on one day. I just forgot to blog about them, and wanting you to experience deliciousness, I finally got around to blogging about them. So here we go. First up, since it's most recent, the Spotted Pig, and Creperie.

The Spotted Pig:

After not being able to see the Hangover 2 and being supremely pissed off at about 11pm, I still wanted to do something memorable so we went to the spotted pig. It’s nothing special, but I like visiting places that I have seen on tv and I had seen that this place had a really good hamburger. I didn’t want to go alone because it was a very casual place that you just don’t go to by yourself. It was on my list of things to do and while my sister was with me I saw it as a good opportunity. First off, I will say that it was somewhat of a trek to get there! We were on 11st and 4^th avenue. I knew the place was on 11st near 8^th avenue and assumed that it would just be a 4 block walk. Boy, was I wrong! We stayed on 11st and were walking down the avenues. After we passed 6^th avenue it got kinda weird. The avenues switched to names and I was like huh? Cuz then when I called them they said it was on 11st and Greenwich st. so not knowing where we were we did what any sensible person would do: we asked for directions. The people in that neighborhood were surprisingly extremely friendly despite the seemingly creepy nighttime air. Many people genuinely tried their best to lead us there and it was very refreshing. So, once we got there it was about 11:30pm and there was a table available (there was a 1hr wait at about 9:30pm). So we sat down and I originally just wanted to split the Roquefort burger with shoestrings with my sister but we saw the sheeps milk ricotta gnudi with brown butter and basil pesto which sounded good. We asked the waiter about it and he described it as a cheesy ravioli like thing which was “really good” and we were sold.

I thought that it was pretty good. The sage on top actually added to the cheesy dish. There was a sauce on the bottom and they were so pillowy and soft. Those were filled with cheese as well which I found to be quite good, not sure which cheese though. My sister thought it had a kinda bitter aftertaste but I liked it. Then the burger came and it was topped with like a cheese that I think was romano or blue cheese? It was weird but not bad. It came with shoestrings which are very thin French fries. Some of them were so crispy that they almost tasted like chips they were so thin! French fries rarely disappoint and I think this had something green which is probably some herb that actually added to the flavor and it tasted like no fries I had before. They were good. Toss in some ketchup and call me happy! Overall, the staff was friendly and the food was very unique. I tasted many flavors that I hadn’t before. I really liked that little garnishes actually really added to the flavor of the dish both in the French fries and the gnudi. I liked this place.

Jmaba Juice: White Gummi Bear!

For all of y'all out of the know, I am going to let you in on a secret. Jamba Juice has a secret menu which you can look up the flavors online, there are too many to list here. Basically, theyre smoothies that they can't put on the menu because of copyright issues and they are very unhealthy (and thus, are very yummy). A lot of them are inspired by candies like Pink Starburst, gummy bear, sour patch kid, etc. Anyhow, I got the white gummi bear and boy, it freakin' tasted like a white gummi bear. Unfortunately, i cannot describe what a white gummi bear tastes like so you're gonna have to try that for yourself. The drink itself really screams white gummi bear flavor, especially at the end when you have that aftertaste. It was really sweet and just. good. even if you never had a gummi bear before, if you have this smoothie thingy, you'll fall in love with the flavor. It was seriously good. Now go get some.

Welcome to my food blog!

Hello! Thank you for visiting my first ever food blog! It was suggested by my bestie Megan since I'm always taking pictures of food. My name is Youssra, even though it says posted by Mona (I used her gmail account). I like looking at food. so there are many new places that I love to try after hearing many reviews about them and i figure that once I try these places, i could let y'all know if they really are worth the hype and a general review of each food item. I am a hard-core foodie. I try to eat healthy though so you might not see cookies and cake and ice cream all the time but I'll basically be documenting anything that tastes good (and sometimes looks) good. Just to fill you in on all things delicious in new york city. So, read on, and see my opinion about all of the foods that new york has to offer as I devour them one by one. Happy Reading!

The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck!

First off, my name is Youssra. I'm using my sister mona's account to make this blog simply because im too lazy. Now that that's outta the way. My first post is about some yumminess called The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck!So after a lovely day at Coney Island walking along the beach and enjoying our fill of amusement park rides, me and my bestestest friend Megan decided  to go into Manhattan and have some more fun. So, first we got a real good burrito bowl from Chipotle that was filling and sooo good. Then, for dessert, the ice cream truck was a block away. I had already tried the Salty Pimp and loved it. So I brought her along to try it and I like bringing friends so i can sample new things without buying the whole thing hehehehe. So I got the Gobbler.

It has Vanilla Ice Cream, Pumpkin Butter, Crushed Graham Crackers, and Whipped Cream. That is a good combo. It is literally a pumpkin pie in ice cream form. seriously. the crackers were like a crust and the ice cream and butter were like the filling with some whipped cream on top. Yummmmm. Megan got the Monday Sundae.

It has Twist Ice Cream (vanilla and chocolate) Nutella Lined Waffle Cone, Dulce de Leche, Sea Salt, and Whipped Cream. I know what youre thinking. Sea salt? Trust me. it's a killer combo with the ice cream. The guy laces the ice cream with the dulce de leche so its in every bite and when you get to the salt its kinda weird but in a good way. really, you just have to try it. and then u bite the cone and its filled with nutella and youre just like mmmmmmm. i mean all of the components are great. i liked it better than the gobbler just cuz im more of a chocolate person and pumpkin pie is ok to me. Now that i have tried two, there are only two creations to try before I can just have the soft serve with their funky toppings. i wanna try mango passionfruit puree and lindenberry puree. Next, Cococone and Bea Arthur!