How many pastries constitute a meal?

First of all, if someone could buy me these plates, that would be great. I think food would taste much better, therefore I would cook more and have more recipes to blog about.

Katie, Nick and I made the trek to NYC this weekend for some fun, and as per usual, it was amazing (minus the 6 hour bus ride and 7 total hours of sleep). First stop: Coronet, for pizza ACTUALLY as big as your face. It was everything drunk food (err, or completely sober) should be - greasy and full of carby goodness.

Saturday we finally experienced the glory that is the Shake Shack. Sadly, Dan & Co. didn't get there in enough time to wait in line and still make it to our 1 pm tour. I don't even really like burgers, but I gotta admit, they were pretty amazing. Maybe not mind-altering, but coupled with a black & white shake, a damn good lunch.

Dinner was at Boca Chica, a South American restaurant near Arlene's Grocery, where we were seeing a show later. Very cute, good size, and we got the U-shaped booth smack dab in the middle of the restaurant. (I'm also a big fan of the curtain sectioning off the entrywas from the rest of the restaurant, and therefore keeping the cold out. Perhaps this is everywhere in New York and I'm just too podunk to realize it.) We started off with some white sangria, which was very different than I had experienced before. It was more margarita than sangria, not that I'm complaining. AND we got plaintains and mole as our free beginning carb. WOW. I could have just had a giant plate of that plus the sangria and been one happy eater.

But alas, had to order an *actual* dinner. I ordered a corn souffle with chicken, raisins, and tomatoes. I've never had a souffle in non-dessert form, but the flavor combo sounded yumcious, so I went for it. Aaaaaaaand it was amazing! It was creamy and sweet, and there were golden raisins, but none of these so-called tomatoes. Whatever, it was great. I was afraid it was going to be grainy like polenta - which I'm not a fan of, since it's basically grits - but it was more like corn pudding, which I adore. Plus, it came with black beans, white rice, and a crunchy little salad that complemented everything quite nicely.

On our sleep-deprived walk to the subway on Sunday, we stopped by Sanuk (sp? I couldn't find a link), an organic high-end grocery for pain au chocolat and some intense juice. It's open 24 hours...as Vito said, "You'll never know when you'll want a pomegranate after coming home from the bars at 3 am." Well said.

We wandered around the city quite a bit, stopping at a Farmer's Market where we saw some crepes, which made us sad we had wasted our hunger on pastries, good as they were. Per Vito's suggestion, we headed to Magnolia Bakery for cupcakes, aka the lunch of champions. (N.B. Apparently said bakery was on Sex & the City, which makes my inner snob/wannabe non-tourist cringe.) There was a line outside the door, as the bakery is about the size of my bathroom, plus there was a Cupcake Bouncer, regulating which of us peons could enter. AWESOME. Standing in line you could smell the cakey goodness wafting through the vents...and we salivated, watching them whip up more frosting. The line moved fairly quickly, and we grabbed our dozen cupcakes and bounced. My only complaint is that the cupcakes weren't really labeled - granted, there were only combinations of vanilla & chocolate, but still. There should have been more selection, and I would have liked to seen some labels.


We went across the street to Bleeker Park and entered sheer cupcake bliss. Uberthick frosting, and not the gritty overly confectioners-sugared kind. Twas a beautiful thing.