Super sick egg tarts (Bread Talk)

Yeah see? They're the good guys. They are with us against inflation!

What exactly defines a 'good' egg tart? If you ask my idiot Korean former roommate, he'd tell you that "it should taste like eggs." Thanks a lot, dumbass. But indeed, what's the correct criteria for judging these gelatinous yellow blobs of arterial blockage? Is it a buttery and flaky crust that makes an insane number of minuscule crumbs on your shirt? Sure, that's probably part of it. Is it a a creamy center that has a pseudo-gelatinous yet custard-like texture exuding the scent of egg yolk? Yeah, that's pretty important. Or is it the cost? Because, let's be honest, you're probably getting jipped by some clever Chinese dude if you're spending more than 50 cents on a tiny puck of egg cream and crust that goes away in literally three seconds. Well that's definitely important too. The thing about egg tarts is... there are so many choices that all fit a subset of that criteria that as you're walking around, you'll almost always be content settling for one that's simply okay. Maybe the bakery closest to you is super cheap and has a dope-ass crust, but makes a custard all wrinkly like an old person's ass. Maybe they make the ambrosia of egg yolk custard, but they want you to whore out your family to pay for it. My point is, the holy grail of egg tarts is not so easy to find. Except... I've found it. The pinnacle of egg tart technology in Manhattan Chinatown. I'm talking about Bread Talk.

Let's run through those criteria again. Does it taste like eggs? Hell yeah motherfucker. Dumbass Korean ex-roommate requirement is fulfilled. Is the crust so buttery and tender that you'd be perfectly happy eating the tart by itself? Let's just say that there's no way you'll get through eating it without covering yourself in small golden flakes of rich and sweet dough. Shit. Just look at this sexy little tart. It's also weird how perfectly round it is, but let's not harp on the fact that it's achieved geometric perfection beyond what I can comprehend.



It's like a temptress. You know it's bad for you. You know that you should be watching your diet, that your cholesterol has been slowly creeping up year after year, but... how much damage could one small handful of egg-custard sunshine do? Those shooting pains in your arm? They've never tasted sooo good. I'll admit, they probably inject something into the dough to make it dope so damn consistently. The percentage of butter (or possibly lard) is probably best not measured, but whatever they do - this crust is probably worth putting out for. It's that good.



What about that custard huh? Does it jiggle like Betty White's sweet sweet assets? You bet your ass it does. In almost an unnerving fashion, their custard has reached a consistency almost that of a flan (but not quite). It carries with it a goldenrod hue that glistens like a miniature sun in your hand and tastes pretty much the same. There's a very distinct egg yolk flavor (some egg tarts just taste like a sugary jello baked in a tart shell) with just a hint of sweetness. Nothing in your face, just a series of very balanced tastes. There's almost never an inconsistency, it's almost always baked to perfection, and it doesn't do that lame-ass thing where the custard slides out of the tart and onto your favorite v-neck sweater from Uniqlo. Maybe that's just a 'me' problem... because I'm an idiot at eating egg tarts. Seriously, the owner very likely sold her soul (or her firstborn child) for this recipe, because it's some of the tightest shit this side of the Pacific.

The best part? It's two for $1. To put that in perspective, instead of getting a venti white chocolate latte from Starbucks, you could get like 10 of these shits. That's more than you can probably eat in one sitting. Not me though.

tl;dr - egg tarts in Manhattan are hit or miss. Bread Talk kills it. The crust is pretty much the greatest thing in baking since flour and the filling is like happiness and sunshine in egg yolk and cream form. It tastes like egg. My former roommate is an assclown.

Bread Talk
47 Catherine St, New York, NY 10002
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Best things I've had in my mouth (2012 edition)

This photo is unrelated to anything. I wish there really were a giant sized ice cream sandwich though...

Since I took ass-clown forever to write this post, I'm about two weeks too late to jump on the 'Best of' hash tag bandwagon. So just consider this a preview of posts yet to come... since I'm as backed up on posts as a geriatric who's lost their Metamucil. Anyway, as most of you are probably aware of, I did a pretty shit-tastic job of blogging this year. I'll admit it... my blog was about as successful as Betty White is sexy i.e. occasionally, but totally by accident. I posted maybe once a month and I have a backlog of unedited photos longer than one of Conan the Barbarian's legendary ass-hairs. That's not to say I didn't eat a metric ass-load of food (that's a real measurement), and that's not to say I didn't have my share of "oh wow, this needs to be made known bites." I was just lazy. Sorry. Without further ado... here's a list of five things that I consumed in 2012 that either 1. made me "turn my tighty-whities into frownie brownies" or 2. made me smile from ear to ear.

For the record, these aren't in any sort of order. I just randomly think of these things when I'm on the toilet. Actually, I guess you could say they're in the order I thought about memorable meals while on the toilet. I don't think anyone wants to think of it that way though.



1. Soup Dumplings at Nan Xiang (南翔小籠包) - Shit son. I like pork buns and I cannot lie. You other brothas can't deny. When a bun comes in with pork broth taste and a thin skin in my face I get sprung. Maybe not everyone's not like me. Maybe pork meatballs surrounded by a soup-laden bubble of carbohydrates isn't your thing. I say this with all due respect, but go eat a bundle of dicks. That should be everyone's thing. There are few things more glorious than the engineering marvels that are soup dumplings - from the dangerously delicate wrapper to the extremely volatile soup and meat suspension - these things defy logic. They are impossible structures of culinary masterpiece as well as literal flavor bomb. Nowhere in NYC will you find a better version than the one at Nan Xiang. Just be thankful that almost every asshat you come across will tell you that Joe's Shanghai is the place to go... it ensures the wait time here is shorter. Also get the deep fried beef scallion pancakes. Ermahgerd worthy.



2. Chahan at Naruto Ramen - As an Asian person, it's not often that I'm excited by something as plain as fried rice. I feel like I'm probably setting back stereotypes decades by saying this, but fried rice is part of my culture, I feel like I understand its most intimate desires, how it wants to taste, how it wants to clog my arteries with every grain of oil coated rice, how it should... be. As something of a fried rice connoisseur (note: holy shit, I surprised myself by spelling that correctly on first go...) Naruto Ramen does some next level shit when they decided to add 'chahan' to their menu. There's nothing complex about what goes into that pile of glorious starch and oil, it's a simple fried rice with roast pork, narutomaki, and scallions and eggs to finish. What I couldn't have expected was the depth of flavor such a simple mix would have over high heat. Fried rice is hard to fuck up for sure, but it's also damn hard to get this good. I feel like a dumbass for writing about fried rice, but this is some seriously dangerous shiz. Worth the trip up to the UES alone, and worth eating on its own as a standalone meal. Their ramen is good, but there's simply no point. It's a waste of carbs.



3. Fried potstickers at Tasty Dumpling - Woops. I fucked up. I admit it. Last year I might've told you that Prosperity Dumpling was the undisputed king of the dollar dumpling stores in Chinatown. I stand by the statement that at five for $1, that deal is something spectacular, but something happened this year. Something changed about them. For the first time in my life, I will go against the prudent economic choice and tell you that the best dumplings (according to this idiot at least) are five for $1.25. Yes. Even at a 25% premium on price, I'm telling you that Tasty Dumpling's dumplings are indeed the tits when it comes to pockets of meat. I'll eventually explain the full logic behind this statement in a post down the road, but for now - I feel like the fact that I'm willing to pay that much more per dumpling should be proof enough of Tasty's quality.



4. Sio Ramen from Minca - If you ask most people where the best Ramen in NYC is, you'll get a smattering of answers. Surely you'll hear Ippudo come up again and again, but honestly... waiting an hour plus for a bowl of noodles is pretty ridiculous in my opinion. Some will undoubtedly say Totto, Terakawa, or maybe Setagaya. I've been to all of them and as far as I'm concerned... none of their offerings can hold a candle to the sio ramen at Minca. Rich garlicy broth is mixed with springy noodles that stretch longer than a broken Stretch Armstrong doll. The crowning piece to this Pandora's box of flavor is the fact that they flame torch your bowl at the very end, bringing a slight and gentle charring to the char siu they lay delicately on top. The layer of rendered pork fat on top glistens in the soup acting as a mirror so you can see your own 'O-face' when you've taken your first bite.



5. (RIP) Cake cuts at Hong Cafe - Yeah, I'm cheating here. This shit doesn't exist anymore, but that doesn't diminish how wonderful it once was (during 2012). What was once the glorious Hon Cafe - not just a restaurant, but an institution of brilliance and efficiency and the best source of cake cuts in the city - is now a lame-ass over-priced joint called Mottzar Kitchen. What the fuck is a 'Mottzar' anyway? Once upon a time, Hon Cafe used to take its cosmetically challenged cake nubbins and would bag them up in an orphanage of sorts. They'd slap a $2 price tag on each bag, each special... full of unique defects, and sell them in the front window. Most people walked by, disgusted by the non-homogeneity of these bags of freak cakes. Not I. I saw their inner beauty. I knew that those non-symmetric rings of cream, sugar, and flour were just as good as their supermodel cousins, but at a fraction of the cost. I would make it a point to save these 'B+' cakes, discarded in a harsh Asian 'tiger-mom' world and save them - eating an entire bag with each sitting. Alas, they are no more. If someone has any leads on cake cuts... I will pay you a king's ransom for that knowledge.

So what's going to happen in 2013? I'll start blogging again. As much as I hate to admit it, I like to write, and I like getting in random internet arguments with strangers. Yes, to some degree I'm an attention whore. Aside from that? Maybe I'll use my recently discovered non-allergy to seafood and take it for a test drive. Maybe 2013 is the year of shrimp. Lots of shrimp. Less pork. Ha, unlikely. Realistically this year will be more of the same. More artery clogging, more catching up on posts, not enough money.

tl;dr - here's a bunch of things that I was uncomfortably excited to have in my mouth in 2012. Number 5 makes me sad. If someone can help me find cake cuts in Chinatown, you will be my new best friend. Or if you don't want to be my best friend... go eat a dick. Seriously though, tell me.
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Good Ol' Fashioned The (Donut Pub)

Oh shit, it is October already. It has been forevertown since I last posted, but fret not sweater-monkeys, this second-rate food poet has returned. Today, I will tell you a tale about a friend of mine. Some people are addicted to alcohol, some people are addicted to drugs, some people are addicted to sniffing markers back in grade school when they had cherry scented white erase ones (oh lord the cherry ones were the best). My friend Tia, she is addicted to DP... by which I mean doughnuts... from Donut Pub. Being addicted to doughnuts is not so different from the other three - the debilitating reliance upon a substance to give you that thrill of 'feeling alive,' the constant reminder about how long it's been since the last time you used, and the withdrawal you go through when it's not there. It's all really the same. Now this post isn't me being judgmental of my friend's choices, actually the opposite, the first step to recovery is to admit that you yourself have a problem - well here it is: I too am addicted to DP. By which I mean Donut Pub.

I've been in CA for the past week - it has been eight days since I last used, and I am currently in withdrawal, feelbadman.jpg. You're probably wondering - "Why don't you just go to Dunkin' Donuts or something and eat some doughnuts?" With all due respect, eat a bag of dicks. How dare you compare Dunkin' Donuts, Tim Horton's, or any other chain doughnut restaurant with Donut Pub? How dare you. Sure NYC has Doughnut Plant (another kind of DP), which is pretty great in its own right, but kinda tries too hard, and also Peter Pan Bakery, which is assclown far out in Greenpoint - seriously, not going to wait on the G for that one, but none of them have the same OG goodness that Donut Pub possesses. Plain and simple, if you want old fashioned and cheap wads of fried dough smothered in sugar, then there's no other option than to go to Donut Pub. It is one of a kind, irreplaceable, a crutch in my day-to-day function.

Remember how I wouldn't shut the hell up about Donuts Plus (another DP? Is this some sort of fucked up joke I'm missing?) back in Philly? Well Donut Pub is like that and more. Also it's in Chelsea so I'm less likely to get mugged.



Like I said, simplicity is the name of the game here. Most places do a standard glazed doughnut, with a plain sugar coating. Donut Pub doesn't deviate far from that design, but their plain glazed doughnut is actually dipped in a combination of honey and syrup. The end result is the tits. A marvelous blend of pure sweetness with a subtle hint of honey that stays moist even hours later, the glaze is literally the perfect mate to the pillowy soft fried dough it's draped on. While people always praise how Krispy Kreme doughnuts yield to biting and melt in your mouth, Donut Pub hits that perfect consistency where the resilience of texture is balanced by the softness of the dough matrix. If it sounds like I'm getting a stiffy just by writing about this ring of pure sensuality - you'd be right. My pants are little bit tight now. Mostly due to the weight I've gained by shoving these in my mouth, but partially because I'm flavoroused right now.



"That's too plain" you say? You're 100% wrong, but I respect the fact that you're entitled to your own dumbass opinions. Well maybe the Boston Creme is more your thing. Same concept applies here - a simple implementation that doesn't deviate from the expected, but is done so well that you'll feel a certain kind of warmness when you bite into it. A certain kind of tranquility that everything around you is okay, along with a slightly accelerated and painful heartbeat. This doughnut will get your blood pressure up, for better or worse.



They don't really fuck around all stingy like most doughnut places do. More often than not, a Boston Creme doughnuts are incredibly sad creations - half-filled and on the brink of collapse. Not theirs. Built upon the same fantastically chewy dough platform, they do nothing more than a simple dip in honey syrup, a heavy-handed application of chocolate glaze, and a ridiculous piping of creme that would shame everyone in the porn industry. They stuff that shit with way too much creme, and top it with way too much chocolate glaze, but that's part of the appeal of Donut Pub.



"But I need my daily fill of fruit and junk so I don't get Scurvy!" This is actually a concern for some people I know. No worries, Donut Pub has you health nuts covered too. In the form of their oh-so-scintillating jelly doughnuts. Not that it really needs explaining, but this is the exact same doughnut shell, but this time stuffed to the point of explosion with grape jelly and then dusted with just enough powdered sugar to make it look like you have a cocaine addiction, to distract people from the shameful fact that you're actually addicted to something like doughnuts.



Remember the "Whitest Kids You Know" skit about the Grapist? Their jelly doughnut is just like that. It'll grape you in the mouth, and leave stains all over your shirt. And you'll like it. There's really nothing special about the jelly here, but when combined with the doughnut and with the glaze, something magical happens. The synergy of sweet upon sweet upon tart makes for a refreshing departure from their other offerings. I don't normally like fruits in my desserts, but when I do... it's at Donut Pub.

So now you know my shameful secret. I am addicted to this hole in the wall doughnut joint. I go there late at night so people don't see me buying a half-dozen at a time to eat in my office with tears of ecstasy and regret streaming down my face. It is both the greatest doughnut place I've found as well as my greatest weakness. My only hope is to drag all of you into this same situation so I'm less embarrassed at my reliance on fried rings and pockets of dough. Sighs all around.

tl;dr - I love DP. Which again - in this context is referring to Donut Pub. They don't make fancy pants doughnuts containing Foie Gras or anything, they just make doughnuts. Their doughnuts are the tits. It has ruined my life in ways I cannot describe.

The Donut Pub
203 West 14th Street, Manhattan, NY 10011
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Cake cuts, may you rest in peace (Hon Cafe)

So I haven't been writing very much lately. Sorry to disappoint the few of you who actually read this shiz, but I most likely won't be quitting my job just so I can accelerate heart disease and live penniless as a food blogger. Plus, I kinda like the whole 'free food' thing at work. Anyway, I know what most of you are thinking: "I don't need to hear your BS excuses, dance monkey! Dance!" Yeah yeah, I'm getting to the part where I shove food in my mouth and write about how it arouses, and then exits, me for your super great enjoyment. Okay, let me ask you something... have you ever had cake cuts? No? How does it feel to have never lived, loved, and experienced life to the fullest? I bet it sucks. Now you might be asking yourself "what the fuck are cake cuts? That just sounds straight dumb." Well, jokes on you - cake cuts are the single greatest thing that could ever happen to (and disappear from) Chinatown in the history of forevertown.

Growing up... one of my guiltiest pleasure foods were those Swiss roll cakes that Chinese bakeries make - beautiful 10" logs of nothing more than porous sponge cake spread with a delicately thin layer of some sort of cream. Mmm - dat cream. I could easily kill two or three of those things in a single sitting (have I mentioned I was fat) without any ill effects. Shameful? Yes. Delicious? Also yes. The fact that they were so deceptively light meant it felt okay shoving slice after slice after slice in my mouth as if I were Zeus and I was just slaying bitches left and right.



That's besides the point. The point? When you roll up a cake, the ends inevitably look like retarded nubbins of browned bits. Not very aesthetically pleasing. Once you cut that shit off though - boom - your cake looks straight sensual again. But what of those cake nubbins... what happens to them? Hon Cafe (now replaced by some ass-clown generic Chinese restaurant) used to do something magical. Each unfortunate looking orphan cake butt would be set aside and placed in a bag along with its fellow rejected brethren. They would then sell these gigantic bags of deformed Swiss rolls for $2. What a deal. "Shut up about your bag of dumb looking cakes!" you say? I can understand why you might not entirely appreciate how spectacular a bag of cake is, and all I can say to that is... eat a dick. A whole bag of them. You don't understand what it's like to have something so special, so sensual, taken from you shortly after discovery. Some things in life. They are not fair.



Hon Cafe wasn't a one trick pony though - not that they really needed to be good at anything aside from collecting rejected cake cuts and selling them to me at drug deal prices - they were actually a full fledged restaurant, that did other things moderately well too.



They do all the standard HK diner type dishes, including a savory guilty pleasure of mine... 乾炒牛和 a.k.a. beef chow fun. Look at that shit. By shit I mean oil. This motherfucker is so greasy I can see my reflection in the noodles, which is the only way I want to eat chow fun. Now I've explained this dish so many times already that I've lost count, but it's worth reiterating. The complexity of this dish is non-existent. You stir-fry marinated beef, onions, bean sprouts, and rice noodles together in a wok over a giant fire, you coat that shit with more oil than the Exxon Valdez, and boom - the combination of high heat, integration of fat, and the Maillard reaction happen. Non-enzymatic browning of carbohydrates. Tell me that phrase doesn't turn you on in the least. No? You're a goddamn liar. Science is sexy.



Rice noodles don't get you all greased up and hot and bothered? That's chill. Hon Cafe also made one of my favorite 'burgers.' I put quotes around burgers because I'm sure some dickweed will call me out on it not being a true 'All-American beef burger with lettuce cheese and tomatoes.' It's true, the Hon Cafe cheeseburger isn't that... instead, it's a wonderful concoction built on a light seeded bun (which is kinda a bummer since they used to use a spongy white Chinese bun thing baked in house which was delicious in its own right) that has a patty concoction formed by a mix of beef, pork, sweet soy, garlic, and onions - which gave it a sweet garlic-laden aftertaste that can only be described as similar to a five-spice meatloaf. Marry that to a slice of American cheese and a layer of lettuce and tomato and you get a non-generic 'burger' that I don't think will be replicated by any other restaurant anytime soon. This is honestly one of those cases in which the subtle differences overcome the simplicity and generic nature of a food. Short story, it is dope. It tastes like China.

What's the point of this post? What are the five stages of emotions you deal with after trauma? Denial, check. I saw the metal door down once and thought those peeps were straight chillin'. Gonna fuck up some more cakes to give me the next day. I was wrong. Anger, check. I was furious at myself for not going every day after work to pick up a bag of glorious cream cakes. Bargaining, maybe not this one. Depression, hell to the yes. Tears were shed. Does that make me less manly? Fuck you. I love cake. Acceptance? Yeah not yet. This post is supposed to be for me to vent. Hopefully I can come to terms that something I had fallen so hard for (so fast) is gone forever. I know that feel bro.

tl;dr - Hon Cafe, you were the shit. You made my life infinitely better by collecting orphan cake rejects and selling them for well below market-value. While most people probably didn't see them for their worth because they were unfortunate looking, I knew that each and every one of them was special. Special enough to be shoved in my mouth rapidly. Also, you made really good beef chow fun and a weirdly sugary burger. I miss you. Goodnight... sweet prince. You were a gargantuan amongst men. By which I mean bakeries.

Hon Cafe (closed)
70 Mott St, New York, NY 10013
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PB&J Doughnuts (Doughnut Plant)

I'm a big proponent of people who take normal foods and make them unhealthier. That dude who decided to fry Oreos the first time round? Awesome. The first Chinese guy who decided to pan fry noodles instead of just boiling those bitches? Pioneer. Those bros on Epic Meal Time? Renaissance men. Whoever the fuck decided to sell fried sticks of butter at the Ohio state fair? My goddamn hero. Now, I think almost everyone has a soft spot in their heart for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches - the old standby for when your parents didn't know what to make you for lunch. And possibly every meal... if they hated you. For some stupid reason or another... when I was a kid, I absolutely hated pb&j sandwiches, not because they tasted bad to me, but because... um, I thought they were too healthy. Yes that logic is idiotic. Sue me. Good thing Doughnut Plant (which my friends affectionately call 'DP') has taken care of that problem. While they're not really quite in the same league as those peeps I mentioned earlier, they're not doing so bad themselves.

By making a peanut butter glazed jelly doughnut, Doughnut Plant basically stripped away all the healthy shit from a pb&j sandwich. No more wheat bread and no more wack-ass crust. Instead of hearty wheat-filled nonsense, you get a surprisingly moist, yet fluffy, fried dough exterior... with the center pocket occupied by blackberry jelly. I paid $3+ for this. Me. Super frugal clench-my-buttcheeks-in-pain-when-spending-money me. I was smiling like an idiot from the first bite to the last. Take that how you will, but this shit is dope beyond recognition.



There was also some banana on pecan action going on in the form of their banana pecan cake doughnut. It's like banana bread... but dipped in sugar. Not that banana bread was ever really healthy, but I'm pretty sure anything dipped in a sugar glaze is worse for you. By my retarded logic, that = awesome. I'm not in love with their cake doughnuts - mostly because they look smaller than the yeast ones (i.e. a lesser value) - but that has nothing to do with taste. Honestly, this was pretty sick in terms of flavor and texture. Tastewise, it's basically as I described... a slice of banana bread with a heightened level of sweetness. From a texture standpoint, it has the consistency of a muffin with the moistness locked in by a saran wrap layer of liquid sugar... dotted with chopped up pecans. If that doesn't ridiculous to you... I'm sorry you're dead inside.

tl;dr - Foods that are bad for your health generally taste better. You can take something really average and make it incredible by doing little more than frying it and covering it with sugar. Doughnut Plant gets this. They make these two awesome flavors that are eerily reminiscent of normal foodstuffs simply by glazing them over. Good job... DP, twice the calories (probably), twice the pleasure.


Doughnut Plant‎
220 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10011
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Mooncakes, I eat them (Kwong Wah Cake Co)

Know what those bitches are? Of course you do. Those are fucking mooncakes. Look at that shit... there's two of them gettin' all intimate on that plate. Goddamn. You might be wondering (if you're not Asian) - "what the fuck are mooncakes?" Let me lay down some truth on you. They're only the greatest thing to happen to Asia since fireworks, paper, and possibly even Mulan too. So check it, Chinese people like putting things inside of things: pork inside of dough, carbs inside of carbs, meat inside of egg , rice inside of squid... holy shit those bitches will put anything inside anything ಠ_ಠ . Some bro-dude in the olden times decided that it'd be a dope idea to put some egg yolk inside of some sweet-ass paste inside of some golden brown crust for some legitimately sensual three-way action. Apparently then they made up some wack-ass reasons to eat them to beat up on the Mongols. Not that I care. It just gives me an excuse to buy boxes of this stuff without being judged.



Pure sex. All yellow and loaded with cholesterol and other good shit. Fuck.

Look at that. Starting with the outside, you have a hella flaky layer of what's basically pure lard and flour. Mix that shit together and bake till golden. Brush it with egg... or something. Aww yeah. Then you have a thick layer of lotus paste (or whatever your heart desires really). That's basically nothing more than ground up beans mixed with sugar. Also more lard. Can't have enough lard. What would a mooncake be without a core of solid yellow egg yolk. Shitty. That's what. Combine all parts of the equation and you get a puck of culinary brilliance. A celebratory cake that actually tastes good (unlike those nasty fruitcakes white people send around at Christmas).

The only problem is... these bitches are expensive as hell. Chinese people are shrewd business people - possibly as cunning as Jewish people. They know that every year, without fail, there will be a steady stream of old ladies rampaging their doors asking for mooncakes like Godzilla raping Tokyo with morning wood. Demand dictates price, and with essentially infinite demand, they can charge whatever the hell they want. Sometimes you see boxes of four cakes going for $50. Who do they think they are? Ladurée? Bitch please, I'm not made of money. I can't pay $12.50 per mooncake no matter how delicious it is. Solution? Go to Kwong Wah Cake Co. They sell them individually there, and even the "super deluxe lotus seed with egg" option - yes that's really the name - is only $4.50. To be honest, they're not that far off from the super classy stuff I had in Taiwan when I was a kid. Not too bad for under $5.

What's the point of this post? I'm not really sure. I ate some mooncakes on Monday to celebrate this bootleg holiday that I know nothing about, and I just thought that I'd share how delicious these things were with the world. Actually, you know what you should do now that the mid-Autumn festival is over? Go buy yourself some cheap-ass mooncakes. They're delicious regardless occasion. Do it.

Kwong Wah Cake Co
210 Grand St, New York, NY 10013
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Pumpple cake (Flying Monkey Bakery)

Does anyone else remember that show "Pimp My Ride" in which the cultural hip-hop icon Alvin Nathaniel Joiner IV (better known as Xzibit) would take sorry-ass excuses for vehicles and pump them full of electronics worth well more than the sticker price of a brand new car? Yeah, that was some quality television. Perhaps the one good thing to come from that show was this awesome meme where Xzibit puts stuff inside of stuff so you can do stuff while you do other stuff. I wrote that and I'm not even sure if it makes sense. Why is this even relevant to food? Well... somewhere along the line, someone decided that Americans weren't fat enough. The solution to this grave injustice? Yo dawg, I heard you like to eat pie so we baked a pie in your ca... yeah I won't even bother... it's a pumpkin pie baked inside of a chocolate cake stacked with an apple pie baked inside of a vanilla cake frosted with vanilla buttercream that gets covered with rainbow sprinkles. Bitches love rainbow sprinkles. That's about as America as you can get.



what wonders lie inside this magical box?

Disappointingly, what I got was not pumpple cake. Apparently pumpkin puree is crazy expensive outside of Fall (screw you simple economics), so they make seasonal variants of their layered monstrosity. For Spring/Summer they substitute out the pumpkin pie for strawberry pie. So it's really a "strampple" cake? I don't know. I don't care. All that really matters is that the only thing standing between me and 1800 calories of cake-pie mashup is a flimsy cardboard box. I like those odds. Cardboard... ain't... shit.



A slice of pumpple/strampple... whatever you want to call it... will run you $9. Most people aren't as cheap as I am, and I realize how much prep work and time goes into making each one of these things, but goddamn. That's a lot to pay for a single slice of cake. That's the equivalent of 3 doughnuts from Doughnut Plant (or as a lot of my female friends call it... DP facepalm) or even crazier... something like 15 doughnuts from Donuts Plus! Do you know how much pleasure 15 French crullers can bring me? Unspeakable pleasure. Peep this, I'll quantify it for you. This cake is 1800 calories per slice. That is 200 calories per US dollar. If an average French Cruller has 250 calories, 15 doughnuts has 3750 calories, or 417 calories per US dollar. If there is a strong correlation between calories and deliciousness in baked goods (and I suspect there is), the cost efficiency of pumpple/strampple is less than half of that with doughnuts. In other words... this cake had to be tantalizingly delicious. With that kind of price tag, expectations... are basically impossible to meet. But I've been surprised before so...



For the first half of the equation, the strawberry pie/chocolate cake combo. I'm not the biggest fan of strawberry. Something about all those seeds sloshing around in my stomach just isn't kosher with me. Plus it just all seems so slutty. All the other fruits are perfectly okay with keeping their privates hidden inside, but nooooo... Ms. Strawberry has to go around giving up the goods prior to purchase. Strawberries... they are morally defective. Also they're kind of tart and not as sweet as other fruits so I don't find them as palatable in pies. Flying Monkey's was okay. The crust is nice and moist... slightly dense, but not unappetizing. The cake? Super heavy in chocolate flavor with a rich darkness that stayed around for a while after eating. Put together, this half was pleasantly mellow on flavor. Just a nice smooth mixture of sweet and tart.



The other half? It's a standard apple pie with vanilla cake. The pie itself is pretty generic. It uses the same crust (unsurprisingly) as the strawberry pie. The filling is pretty tame on the sugar, so you actually get a fairly distinct apple flavor rather than overly sweet cinnamon. The vanilla cake is much like its darker cousin. Rich, moist, and pretty subtle on flavor - it's really just there to act as a container for the pie. Nothing more, nothing less. When you slap the two halves together with freshly whipped vanilla buttercream, you get a fairly distinct dessert. Is it delicious? For sure. It's 1800 calories I definitely don't regret eating. Is it worth the price tag of $9? No... but keep in mind I'm a tight-fisted cheap-ass who hates spending more than $5 for lunch.
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Ice cream, doughnuts, and éclairs (Frangelli's Bakery)

I figure I should probably write another post for old times' sake since the rapture is tomorrow, and I am 99% sure I won't be invited to party with Jesus wearing a tuxedo shirt. It's all going to be a moot point soon, but lately I've been paying a lot of attention to my weight. Why? Maybe it's because I'm a bit chunkier than I was just a year ago... and one of my greatest fears in life is getting super fat again. This is problematic since I want to eat pretty much everything (I think it's clear from most of my posts that I am not the picture-of-health when it comes to my dietary habits). Anyway, lately I've been rationalizing everything I eat as to whether or not I feel like the calories are worth the equivalent effort in burning them off, because... well, losing weight is hard. Sometimes that decision is really easy, for example I stopped eating at McDonald's and I no longer go to Dunkin Donuts for mediocre doughnuts. Sometimes that decision is super hard, for instance... an ice cream doughnut sandwich. I think I just blew an artery typing that. Is it worth it?

Absolutely. Imagine this - a freshly made powdered doughnut with a center formed by a network of miniature pockets of fluffy dough. Cut that shit in half while still warm and pillowy. Now shove in a block of ice cream over an inch in thickness (your choice of Neapolitan OR chocolate). Smoosh it back down. Tell me that isn't mind-blowing. It makes regular ice cream sandwiches look like embarrassing failures that shouldn't even be classified as "desserts" (not the It's-Its though). Take one bite and you'll experience the blissful union of fried dough, sugar, and cream. You'll also look like a crack addict, but who the hell cares. Your taste buds... they will be aroused. It is sensual. I promise.



Where might you get such a magical thing you might ask? In the deep South. Of Philadelphia I mean. Way way way past the Italian market at the intersection of 9th and West Ritner (why the hell would anyone go there?) is Frangelli's Bakery. They've been around since 1947. That's old as shit. Older than my parents. Ancient. They're your standard mom and pop bakery that does old-fashioned cakes, cookies, and pretty much anything that is a mixture of sugar and flour. They don't fuck around and try to put chocolate inside more chocolate topped with more chocolate... and that's fine, because they do what they do well. No-frills baked goods. Except sometimes they put ice cream inside, and that's fine by me too.



They'd be a pretty shitty bakery if they only did one thing well (but I'd still go). GOOD THING IT'S NOT! Their other doughnuts are pretty bangin' too. Bam, raspberry filled jelly doughnut. Their stuff's all made on premises, so that raspberry jam you see spilling out? Yep... pumped in on the spot. The doughnut itself is pretty much the same as the one they use for the ice cream sandwich, so there's nothing bad about that part of the construction. The only downside with this one is that, once again, you'll look like a drug addict after eating it. Powdered sugar goes everywhere. Who cares? Judge away. It's delicious.



And some plain glazed action yo. The standard by which all doughnuts should be judged. Theirs was... okay? It might've been because I had already eaten a buttload of fried dough by the time I popped this in my mouth, but it was borderline too sweet. There's absolutely nothing disappointing about the way they fry their dough, this one possesses the exact same chewy and airy framework as its powdered cousins, but the glaze was just a tad heavy for my tastes. Maybe another day and paired with a cup of coffee it'd be fine, so I'll reserve judgment for later. It was passable.



I also ate éclairs. In case you haven't figured out my stance on food restricted dieting (it's stupid), this should cement it. Frangelli's éclairs are... quaint. I don't really eat éclairs that often, unless you count the crappy Entenmann's kind, so I don't really have any metric for comparison, but I was down with theirs. The choice in glaze really makes no difference, you really can't taste the chocolate or vanilla on top, so the overall flavor profile is pretty neutral. It just kind of tastes like sweet bread to be honest. The cream though, that part's pretty fun. Instead of a fluid mass of whipped heavy cream, theirs has the consistency of a viscous marshmallow. You can squeeze it out like toothpaste (sounds appetizing right?), but it has a certain chewy resilience that I don't normally associate with the word "cream." Texturally, it's awesome. As for the taste... I'm kind of indifferent.

As for the rapture tomorrow... am I bummed I can't party hard with Jesus and his bros? Not really. While the idea a bro icing the son of god is pretty funny to me, I think I'll just make a trip to Frangelli's to get a doughnut. That's a decent consolation prize for not having my soul saved.

Late game edit: Someone just told me how the rapture works and apparently Jesus stays and parties with the heathens. This evidently makes my post not make sense. I don't care, I'm not really religious.
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Pepperoni bread (Sarcone's Bakery)

Remember those stupid Lunchables things from Oscar Mayer? The ones where kids could "assemble" their own lunches out of components so idiot proof that not even a dumbass could make a mess? Yeah, I'm not ashamed to admit I used to cream my pants over those things. There was one in particular that made me pop a food boner instantaneously... every time. Pepperoni Pizza. Little more than a doughy disc of cardboard like flat bread, some marinara sauce in a plastic packet, and a small package of small pepperoni pieces - it actually didn't taste great, but to my adolescent brain, that ish was the best... I thought I was basically an 8 year old Emeril Lagasse makin' some bitch ass pizza. What's the point of this stupid story about my sad/demented childhood? Sarcone's Bakery in Philadelphia serves up something called pepperoni bread. It tastes nothing like the crap that my fat stubby hands used to churn out from Lunchables.

Sarcone's has been around since 1918 when it was opened by some dude named Luigi. It has been passed down from generation to generation to generation. They are boss. Sometimes if you go too late in the afternoon (by which I mean 3 pm) there will be no bread left. If that's not proof enough of how awesome they are, then I don't know what is. Maybe a sensual photo of pepperoni stacked inside of oily bread... aw yeah.



Fuck yeah... look at that. Pepperoni bread in all its glory. The bread itself is kind of hard to describe. Somewhat flaccid and oily on its own, it's really nothing to behold until you fill that cavity full of processed/fatty cured meats. When you get up in there with a fist full of pepperoni - then it's on. Count them stacks of pepperoni. I'll wait. You done? That shiz goes like 8 deep. I don't think Oscar Mayer even gave you 8 pieces of pepperoni - period - per box (thinking back, those things were a real ripoff). Basically... Sarcone's pepperoni bread is an oiled up giant rod of layered bread stuffed with 8 full layers of pepperoni along the entirety of the cross section. There is nothing in that equation I don't like. Oily bread... check. Pepperoni... check. It's not fancy (it probably falls under the stupidly simple category), but it gets... shit... done.

Disclaimer: I felt pretty awful after eating the entire thing for dinner, but whatever. Going in, Sarcone's pepperoni bread is more awesome than a robot ninja punching a dinosaur in the dick. How many other things can make that claim?
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Open-faced pies (Tartes Fine Cakes & Pastries)

I've often said that Philadelphia architecture is "quaint" and "homely." If you read closely between the lines of how I truly feel about Philly, that actually reads... "old" and "ugly." Yeah yeah, I'm a heathen for insulting historical landmarks. National treasures! Whatever, that -ish happened like 200+ years ago. It's time to move on yo. The British aren't going to attack us again in the near future. They have more pressing issues... like weddings and the dreaded fight against dental problems. Anyway, in the middle of the craptacular backdrop of Old City is a bright pink brick shack. It takes balls to paint an entire building bright pink, but that is exactly what Tartes bakery did. Just a lonely bright pink shack with no tables and no chairs... just a window and an old lady. Why? Because she runs everything OG style - barebones. What a baller.

OT - I like thinking of tartes (it feels weird spelling it this way, but that's how the store does it...) as mini open-faced pies. I once said this to someone and they actually went on to correct me about how the crust or whatever makes the two distinctly different. Fuck that. Wikipedia says "the categories of 'tart', 'flan', and 'pie' overlap, with no sharp distinctions, though 'pie' is the more common term in the United States." The hivemind of Wiki is surely smarter than any singular person. I will continue to refer to tartes as open-faced pies. I'm just being a good American.



Behold! A glorious blackberry almond tarte. To be honest, I don't really know what went into this thing, but let me try to explain in my own demented way. The crust is flaky, buttery, and everything I want in a pastry. It's not without sweetness, but it's not strong enough to cover up the heavy-handed use of butter. It's curiously uneven in thickness and texture, but I guess that happens when shit's done right, by which I mean homemade. Inside this cup of flour and butter goes a brilliant blend of some custard-like filling, blackberries, and slices of almond. You know what? I don't even really like blackberries, but this shit was heavenly. It's like if you forced Keebler elves into slavery and caught a unicorn to fart rainbows into pastry bowls. Magically delicious yo. Lucky Charms ain't got shit on Tartes.

Their stuff is a little bit costly, with their single serving (ha!) tartes all teetering around $5, but goddamn it is good. It probably costs a lot to catch Keebler elves... so I guess that's fair. So... I know I harp on Philly all the time for being a crappier version of NYC, but once in a while there's things that make me feel otherwise. Like Tartes.
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Gettin' diabetes at SE:HQ (Doughnut Edition)

Mmm, DP in the morning, DP for lunch, and DP after work... that is the life for me. Fellow food bro Danny got it right when he conceded that doughnuts are the most sensual thing since Betty White starred in "Golden Girls." Move the fuck over cupcakes... doughnuts are here, queer, and you should get used to it. Wait, that's not 100% what I meant... but the concept is the same. Doughnuts are finally getting their moment in the spotlight and they have staying power. End of discussion. Serious Eats, aside from graciously financing my accelerated death, is always on the edge of revolutions in dessert, so they held (yet again) a taste test of the best doughnuts in NYC. Seeing as how I have nothing better to do with my free time, I dropped in to be the best freeloader I could.



Oh yes, this happened. Basically, a list of places was constructed (not including sit down restaurants of course), and doughnuts from the all five boroughs were assembled. Sort of like a UN of doughnuts, or a Justice League of doughnuts, except less useless and way more delicious... zing! There might've been discussion going on about things like texture and flavors or whatever, but I was kind of just eating things when they appeared in front of me. Sorry I can't really offer more insight on what goes on at SE:HQ, I was too mesmerized by the sugar.



Oh hai Robyn! Yeah, unsurprisingly I wasn't allowed to just walk in to the office and eat stuff. I had to wait for photographs of everything to be taken. I got suckered into plate cleaning and doughnut piling duties (which I was more than fine with since I got out of the instant oatmeal taste test).

Now onto the doughnuts...!



This was not a doughnut. But it was on the table. So I ate it. I was actually the only person eating it, which is embarrassing considering the fact that nearly 1/4 of it disappeared before the actual doughnut tasting began. When I showed up the next day, it was still there... I ate some more. It was still good. It's really just a giant raspberry danish 10" across that's super flaky on the outside, intimately moist on the inside, and in general... delightfully fruity. I have no clue where it's from, so if someone can point me to where this fantastically over-sized danish is from, you'll be my friend FOREVER. Thanks.



Doughnut holes from dough. Admittedly, I remember nothing about them, but the SE people seemed to be smitten. I can confirm that I put them in my mouth at some point, so I must've been down with how they tasted. Honestly, it's fried dough coated in sugar. It was going to taste good from the onset.



Then came more doughnut holes... this time from Donut Pub. These were denser, chewier, and all in all heftier (much like Brawny vs. generic paper towels). They were memorable indeed. I did get to try every single one of the varieties, but after a while it they all kind of tasted similar i.e. sweet. The texture was nice though, and the moistness was definitely appreciated.



Oh shit! Surprise... more doughnut holes. These were from Panya. Again... fried dough + sugar = good to me. Other people didn't seem to like them, and yeah... they had a bit of a weird aftertaste. The texture was cool though, I think they might've been infused with mochi so they were definitely chewier. I guess the Asian idea of "QQ" is applicable. Maybe the mochi accounted for the weirdness in flavor, but honestly I don't know.



No clue where these were from either. I just didn't want people to think that I spent the day poppin' doughnut holes in my mouth. I did more than my fair share of hard work aside from that... using my front teeth eating ring shaped doughnuts, jelly filled doughnuts, and even poop shaped doughnuts...



I bet Panya thought it would be cool to make a mochi doughnut in the shape of a twist. Slight oversight on their part - people who eat doughnuts are often immature. Can you honestly tell me that thing doesn't look like a Japanese cartoon poop? Just the general shape of it. Anyway, looking like a swirl of shit was no deterrent for me, I gladly ate it. While it is definitely not good by any means, it is for sure the most delicious poop-shaped object I've ever eaten. That's pretty damn good in my book.



I was responsible for bringing bombolinis from Sullivan Street Bakery. Holy shit these things are expensive. Like $3.25 for a small puff that lasts all of three bites. Two if you're a honking fatass like me. I know on the SE slideshow they had a tie for the "battle of the bombolinis," but that's absolute horse crap. Falai's are lighter, more subtle, and all in all... more sexual overall. Know why I don't have pictures of those? Because I was too busy eating them to care about pictures. Anyway, this isn't really a good comprehensive list of doughnuts, or anything really, I just really like eating doughnuts.

As for the aftermath? When I got back to where I was staying, I basically plopped myself down on the bed... then I curled up in a ball. That sugar high nonsense? Yeah, way past that. I didn't want to do anything, I entirely frozen by the charms of glazed sugars, jelly fillings, and fried dough. The thing that really sucks is that I don't distinctly remember that much about any of the doughnuts. Shiz, I knew which ones tasted good (basically all of them), but their nuances were lost on me. Apparently shoving bite after bite of fried dough from different places with little time separating each bite is not good for taste testing. Moral of this post? Doughnuts are delicious, photographing sugary delights is hard, being a food writer is even harder yo. People might just think that I just snap some pictures, eat some food, then write about it... well let me tell you something. That's pretty much it, but it's still more difficult than you'd think, but yeah... go eat doughnuts. They're good?
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The true value of a doughnut (Doughnut Plant)

In case I you haven't heard the news (you NEVER listen to me *cries*), I'll be working for Google next year. This is awesome to me for several reasons: Duh, winning... it's Google, I never have to pay for food ever (ice cream sandwiches - all.day.long), I get to move back to NYC where 99% of my friends are, and as icing on the cake, the office is just a few blocks away from the new Doughnut Plant location, the happiest place on earth not filled with pedophiles dressed in mouse costumes. But wait, this doesn't make sense. "Aren't you a champion of mid-quality and questionably low priced food products" you say? Why certainly. I love my Wawa's doughnuts with a fiery passion that burns like gonorrhea, and yes... I can buy half a dozen doughnuts there for little more than the price of a single creme brulee doughnut from "the plant," but it's just not the same. Doughnut plant makes doughnuts that break my value function in ways I can't explain.

But I'll try anyway! Dunkin' Donuts and Wawa both sell doughnuts by the half-dozen for $3.99 on a fairly consistent basis. That's six generic doughnuts at a cost of roughly 67 cents each. I have a fairly sizable appetite and that proves to be a pretty decent meal. My utility curve probably peaks at around the third one, flattens by the fourth, starts going down at five, and is borderline regrettable at six. Now the alternative is say... a place like Donuts Plus, where the curve broadens and only starts diminishing at the sixth doughnut (based on quality). But doughnut plant is like crack. After the first doughnut at $2.25-3.00 my pleasure vs. cost ratio actually gets steeper. I MUST HAVE MOAR. So I buy another one... and curiously enough, I feel the need to consume more. In the case of Doughnut Plant, my pleasure never plateaus, I'm simply limited by the amount of cash in my wallet or vacant real estate in my stomach. While I do end up spending upwards of $10 on four doughnuts, my mind doesn't think of it that way. Pleasure to cost ratio is basically asymptotic. While I would never spend more than 75 cents on a doughnut from DD or Wawa, I would spend ungodly amounts at Doughnut Plant.



Last time I went was actually around Chinese New Year w/Robyn and Tia (to give you an idea of how slow I am at blogging), hence the existence of the crystallized ginger doughnut on the menu. I guess they were trying to attract Asian people to the store, but it kind of failed (except for us). Most of them were several blocks West at the parade.



Also the standard menu in case you've never seen it. I know... doughnuts should not cost $1.50 per bite (as is the case with the creme brulee one), but if a poor cheapskate idiot like me is willing to pay that, then you know you probably should pony up too.



I am Chinese. I am obligated to get the Asian doughnut. Despite my aversion to ALL THINGS GINGER, this wasn't bad, but it was pretty forgettable. It really is just a standard glazed doughnut that has a coating of ginger syrup and specks of candied ginger instead of the traditional glaze. Like I said, it was okay, but I'm glad it's not on the regular menu wasting oven space that could be reserved for shit like...



The blackout cake doughnut. Imagine a super dense chocolate cake doughnut thats glazed with chocolate, sprinkled with chocolate crumbs, and filled with chocolate cream. It's the most sensual ring of dough I'll ever insert into my mouth. Truth. What's weird is that I didn't used to like it. I thought it was too chocolate-y if that makes sense. This time it was spot on. A slight bitterness from the cake balanced by a smooth sweetness from the cream led to a nice evenness to the flavor, while simultaneously providing three differing layers of texture from outside to center. It's like layers of happiness made with chocolate.



Fucking $3 doughnut. It is all of two bites. I actually split this with Tia, which was an awful idea since, well... it is all of two bites. I assure you that those brief moments of chewing are of pure ecstasy. From crunching through the thin outer crust of sugar all the way through to the delicate and cream filled center, the entirety of the cross-section is pleasing in one way or another. Do I feel bad that I basically shoveled a dollar bill and two quarters in my mouth? Yeah, a little bit. Is there buyer's remorse? Not at all! The creme brulee doughnut is the bees knees when it comes to the selection. It is hedonism at its finest.

There's not really much left for me to say about how awesome doughnut plant is that isn't already obvious. Basically, their doughnuts are fantastic and worth every penny. Even to a poor graduate student like myself. I think everyone should go there and get fat?

Oh, and this is a note to all my female friends... ladies, please stop referring to Doughnut Plant as DP (I know they do, but I swear they're trolling everyone). I am insanely childish, and while I know what you're talking about, there is a very inappropriate second abbreviation that should never be associated with baked goods.
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