We love this pie shop down the street and when we saw they had special Thanksgiving pies we ordered one just for the hell of it. We aren’t having people over for Thanksgiving but we’ll have an entire Four & Twenty Blackbirds Brown Butter Pumpkin Pie. The Salted Caramel Apple and Salty Honey are also VERY delicious but we’ve had them already and ya know, pumpkin.
You can order one here for pickup Thanksgiving week. Last year they didn’t have pre-order and the line was out the door at 6am.
If you want to join us for dessert on the 24th we’ll be having coffee and pie around 7:30 at our place. RSVP. We may even order a 2nd pie…
Breakfast at Clinton St. Baking (best pancakes in NYC) We got there just after they opened and still had a 45min wait. All these peeps aren’t just hanging out. They are all waiting for pancakes.
There was pancakes, there was scrambled eggs with grilled tomatoes.
Damn this place is good. We heard about it so many times and finally stumbled in a few weeks ago. I know its impossible to get into at night (2+hr wait) but we were nearby so we thought it couldn’t hurt to check it out. We had Asher but it was 4pm and there was plenty of room. They have no high chairs because its trendy and on the LES. They DO have homemade cookies and homemade ice cream they use for ice cream sandwiches.
We went back today while Asher was with the nanny. I HIGHLY recommend stopping by a)mid day, b) without a toddler.
I also recommend having a staycation with your husband while he has a few precious days off work!
*sorry for the camera phone photos, we left to clean our storage unit and ended up eating meatballs.
Today was a bit dreary to say the least. It poured off and on and never got the slightest bit sunny. It was windy and cold. At around 4pm I took a work break (I’ve been working from home mon-thurs) and went over to a new coffee place up the street to check out their wares.
Truth be told, I heard they had Robicelli’s Cupcakes and I haven’t had one since July. Now that there is a place carrying them in walking distance I thought I’d just mosey on over to their baked goods case and see what Allison and Matt are doing for fall.
Here’s Asher enjoying a Robicelli’s Tres Leches cupcake for his 1st birthday
Well fall is a rockin time in Robicelli land. I picked up an awesome looking Butternut squash cupcake:
Butternut Spice: Butternut squash cake with vanilla buttercream, spiced pumpkin seeds and butternut squash seed oil from Stonybrook Oils in Geneva, NY
and then couldn’t resist the Pumpkin one either, its Matthews faaaavorite:
Pumpkin Caramel: Pumpkin spice cake with caramel buttercream, candied pumpkin seeds, caramel drizzle & sea salt
Ok? Yeah I thought so.
Don’t worry, I managed to find something for myself:
Tiramisu: Espresso cake soaked with espresso syrup, topped with espresso ganache, mascarpone buttercream and dusted with cocoa powder
If you want to learn more about the adorable Robicellis they were featured on Food Curated today. Like Allison says, they are not just cupcakes, they are a desert in cupcake form.
This video is really inspiring – They sort of fell into cupcake baking and just want want to make people happy with cupcakes! They win!
Last week our friend Chana came over for dinner and talked and talked about this awesome dim sum in Chinatown. Now Chana knows her obscure food finds. She and her sister Becca always know where to eat the most random stuff, seriously. So when Chana says this is the best dim sum she’s ever had we believe her, and when she tells Matthew about the delicious peking duck that’s not even on the regular menu we solidify plans for later that week.
I don’t know if I really like dim sum. I don’t like food that are too mysterious or surprising. Like wraps, I cannot eat a wrap. What the hell do they put in there?? I like to see what I’m eating. So dumplings are kind of the same. But I trusted Chana and she of course came through.
The place is called Mandarin Court and its smack in the middle of Chinatown. We went on a Friday so it wasn’t too crowded. I would be scared to show up at this place on a Sunday.
I do like the part of dim sum where you are barely sitting down and the ladies with the food are already knocking each other down to get over to you with their delicacies.
We didn’t bother waiting for Chana to take some of the delicious looking items off their hands
The green ones are veggie dumplings, the white ones are scallop, the brown ones with Matthew’s chopsticks are some kind of beef meat thing.
Then Chana came and made us try things…
Left side - the long white noodley thing is something with veggies and sauce and the thing below it is chicken. The other long noodley thing on the top right is the same and the veg but with shrimp – it was my fave.
I mostly stuck to veggie and fish and man, everything was really delicious. Matthew gave the beef meatball things pretty high marks as well.
Then came the duck
So the thing about the duck is this, and the reason Chana rocks is that she knows things. She knows that when they bring you the duck it’s just a small plate of sliced meat so she asked the guy to bring the bones as well.
He came out and made little duck sandwiches on that thick pancake pictured below.
It consisted of duck, sauce, and scallions.
I really dislike duck so I just kept chowing on my veggie dumplings but these two went to TOWN on that carcass. They were passing the platter of nasty back and forth and enjoying themselves beyond belief. It was definitely enough for 3 or maybe 4 if you get some more dim sum. We had tons left over that Chana happily took home to share.
But first!
Before we left Chana ordered 3 steamed pork buns. Because THATS HOW YOU DO. Its a slightly sweet bun with a yummy pork center and it completes the meal.
Ok so now I love dim sum.
Surprisingly the pork bun didn’t really do it for me so I made Matthew stop at Doughnut Plant on the way home. While I have had Doughnut Plant doughnuts before I have never been to their store (plant?) and gotten a super fresh one directly from the oven. We were practically driving by so it made total sense to stop. I was pretty full but c’mon. After the baby comes who knows when I will be able to eat a doughnut again!!!
We tried a few. The pink one is blueberry (made with real blueberries, that’s like their thing) The brown is banana pecan.
But the most exciting one of all…Raspberry Jelly
Holy moly, these are so much better fresh from the oven.
We were invited to celebrate Passover at our friend Chana’s parents house. When she asked we got so excited because for the first time ever we had absolutely nowhere to go. Chana is a college friend of ours that has been helping Matthew kick-start his new hobby of running. Outside. While not even being chased.
On the drive to their house we got super excited remembering that they OWN A RESTAURANT and the food was probably going to be really good.
It was so good in fact that it wasn’t until we left that I realized I didnt actually take photos of any people, even us. This “pregnancy brain” crap seems to only affect the taking pictures portion of my brain which is good I guess, but it is slightly debilitating for my blog posts.
We had the best time, and felt so welcome by the whole family at their Seder. We were invited back for next year already and if we can’t be in Jerusalem we might as well be in Bellmore!
Ok, I know I said I have all these things to blog about and I do! Its just that Matthew’s sister Jaime came to town Thursday and we’ve been having too much fun to sit down at the computer.
Today was a great day in NYC. After pouring rain yesterday the sun finally came out and even thought it was pretty cold (40 deg!) it was at least pleasant.
We had a really fun day today, not a typical Easter Sunday for most but maybe a typical one for us. Family, friends, good food. No egg hunting this year, but I’m sure its something we can look forward to in years to come.
This morning Jaime’s friend Stephanie, who goes to NYU, came over for brunch. Matthew made an amazing frittata, potatoes and turkey bacon and Steph brought over pastries to go with our strawberries for dessert. I am seriously having issues with remembering to take photos so we have none, its pretty sad.
In the afternoon the 3 of us went to see West Side Story which was awesome. We walked around the village for a while before going to dinner at Blue Hill NYC. We treated ourselves (and Jaime of course!) to the tasting menu in honor of her stay. Not only did I forget to take pictures, I didn’t even bring the camera. Its PATHETIC. One of the specialties at Blue Hill is their use of “this morning’s farm egg”,err…an egg from this morning. They bring it over from the farm and it is so delicious! As a speacial Easter gift they gave us this basket of this morning’s farm eggs.
I was onsite Monday-Wednesday in NYC so even though I got to sleep at home I had to be at work in midtown by 6:30am, home around 8pm and right to sleep. Last night Matthew scored some free tix to Guys and Dolls so after I finished up at work we grabbed a bite to eat and went to the show.
Today is a very rare, very exciting day not only because I have the day off, but because Matthew is working from home! He got up early, made coffee and walked the 4 steps to the office but I lounged with my snoogle and stayed in bed for as long as possible. Basking in the glory of not having to get up at 5:30am.
Around 1 o’clock we decided to go out for lunch together and headed to Defonte’s. Its just a deli about 10 minutes away that’s been around since 1922. They have all kinds of hot and cold food but the only thing we ever go for is their fresh hot delicious roast beef sandwiches. They recently opened a branch in the city but please, it can’t possibly be the same.
I’ve been pretty out of it the past few weeks. 10 days were spent in Vegas working many, many hours. I got home Friday night and caught up on TV all weekend. Feel free to talk to me about the following:
True Blood
Weeds
Gossip Girl
90210
Project Runway
Mad Men
Supernatural
and, um, Tabatha’s Salon Makeover.
I know what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas but thought I’d share some of my highlights…
So I know it seems like I didn’t leave the hotel. That’s because I didn’t. We got there Wednesday night and walked to the Wynn for dinner. After that we just grabbed dinner at the hotel after work, or went directly to bed.
Here is the single photo I took while there – It’s a pic of my friend Carolyn at Woo on our last night in Vegas. Shortly after ordering this drink we left because it was too hard to understand the menu.
Attn Woo: Your food is delicious but overpriced and confusing. CHEERS!
I mentioned that we had spumoni the night my mom was here but I did not explain. L&B Spumoni Gardens is an Italian restaurant and pizza place that is known for their amazing homemade spumoni and Italian ices. It was a special request from our very special guest so as soon as we finished our dinner we headed out.
Tim came over for dinner so he joined us for the 15 minute ride to Bensonhurst (or Real Brooklyn as we refer to it)
We pulled up to the place and it was packed as usual with tons of people in line at 9:30 on a Sunday night. As we were walking through I caught a whiff of what is arguably one of my favorite slices of pizza and thought to myself, hmm, too bad we just ate dinner.
Not a minute later my mom said “I think I might have to get some pizza for later” Poor Sha misses her Brooklyn food almost as much as her kid. Then Tim chimed in with “I think I might have to get some pizza for lunch tomorrow” and it was sold, off we went to the pizza line instead of the spumoni line.
*note on this pic – do not feel sad for my mom that I posted a photo with her eyes closed. She does not know how to behave in front of a camera.
And how could we resist
We picked up our “pizza for later” and got in line for spumoni.
I ordered (me: Tim, what do you want? Tim: Spumoni…in the little white cup) and then turned around to witness this exchange:
Tim: I’m so excited about this pizza
Matthew: I totally know how you feel
Tim: I think I might have to eat it now
Matthew: Interesting thought, let me ponder how that will go over
