Featured Desserts: Porterhouse Cake & Baked Potato Ice Cream

The Gluttoness — September 30, 2009

Dylan Prime’s Chocolate “Porterhouse” for Two: Red Velvet “N.Y. Strip,” Frozen Mousse “Filet,” and White Chocolate Bone, $24.00.

Porterhouse and a baked potato are a classic steakhouse combination. The steak’s bloody juices mix with the melted butter used to cook it, creating an obvious dipping sauce for the potatoes. Things don’t get more savory than this. But this classic combination of steak and potatoes is now getting even sweeter. Two restaurants have cleverly turned them into decadent desserts made to satisfy even the most demanding sweet tooth.

Dylan Prime’s (view) clever Chocolate Porterhouse is just as big as the real thing. The dessert even mimics the steak’s proportion of N.Y. Strip to filet: a white chocolate “bone” separates Red Velvet Cake and Chocolate Mousse Cake. Both are covered with a dark chocolate shell as if they had been seared on a flaming griddle, and raspberry purée replicates the natural juices that seep from a freshly cooked steak. A cross-section reveals how the red velvet cake emulates a rare steak, while the chocolate mousse appears more well-done. This cake can’t compete with what you’ll find in the best bakery, but whipped cream and raspberry sauce make everything better, and you won’t have to worry about taking your Lipitor.

Continue Reading >>

AlwaysInvestigating: CupcakeStop’s Cupcake Truck

The Gluttoness — June 25, 2009

You know you’re onto something when The New York Times and CNN feature you before you even serve your first cupcake. The idea for the CupcakeStop was dreamt up by Lev Ekster while studying at New York Law School. The cupcakes are baked in Brooklyn by a professional pastry chef, Manal Mady, and Ekster twitters the location of “New York’s first mobile cupcake shoppe”—a popular methodology of roving food trucks also employed by Wafels & Dinges and LA’s famed Kogi Taco Truck. The flavors on the day that we sampled CupcakeStop included: Red Velvet, Oreo Crumb, Peanut Butter and Jelly and Tie Dye.

The menu should immediately alarm any cupcake aficionado. CupcakeStop’s flavors are eerily similar to Baked by Melissa’s bite-sized confections. In fact, all four flavors can be found at her sliver of a storefront located on Spring Street near Broadway, where miniature cupcakes also sell for $1 (CupcakeStop’s full-sized sweets cost $2.25). Unfortunately for CupcakeStop, these carbon copy cupcakes don’t come close to the moist originals. The cake was dry, closer in texture to a stale muffin than a cupcake, and the icing wasn’t nearly sweet or creamy enough to overwhelm the average bottoms.

The best of the bunch was the Oreo Crumb, a chocolate-flecked vanilla cake with cookies-and-cream icing. We wouldn’t go out of our way to find CupcakeStop again but we won’t rule out stopping by to curtail a cupcake craving.

AlwaysPartying: Taste of the Village

The Hungry Goat — September 11, 2008

Last night’s Taste of the Village event was a block party perfectly befitting Greenwich Village as it celebrated both the neighborhood’s flavor and its spirit. Held in a large tent amid the construction site that is Washington Square Park, the 20-plus tasting stations attracted an impressive crowd of hungry Village locals, NYU students, and general food enthusiasts. Mario Batali even made a brief cameo— staying just long enough to stand for pictures and support the fabulous gelato kart provided by his restaurant Otto. Elettaria head chef Akhtar Nawab showed up as well, manning his own station in an impressive demonstration of pride and humility. But this event wasn’t about glitz and glam or which restaurant had a better reputation; for one night, high and low seamlessly integrated for the sake of celebrating cuisine. The station from the famed Blue Hill (which served a glorified tomato soup that was beyond disappointing) was right at home next the less-decorated La Palapa table (which offered a mean vegetarian tostada), while the 8th Street Winecellar hit it out of the park with its fiery Mac & Cheese and swine-tastic P.L.T slider (as in Prosciutto, Lettuce & Tomato).

Here is a list of the event’s palate-pleasing highlights:

• 8th Street Winecellar: P.L.T. (Pancetta, Lettuce, & Tomato); Baked Macdougal and Cheese
• North Square: Corn Chowder with Peppers, Red Chili Oil, and Parmesan Cheese; Heirloom Tomato Bruschetta
• Village Restaurant: Prosciutto with Arugula, Peaches, Hazelnuts & Balsamic
• Le Pain Quotidien: Crostini with Ricotta, Mission Figs & Honey drizzle; Mini Belgian Chocolate Muffin
• SushiSamba 7: Kampachi Tiradito; Chocolate Mousse Duo
• Café Spice: Chicken Achari Kebab
• Gizzi’s Coffee: Mini Red Velvet Cupcake; Chocolate Brownie