a Lunch and Dessert List for 2009

Every year there some meals and desserts that just bring ridiculous grins to our faces. Not necessarily the fanciest or most expensive, but somehow just incredibly satisfying. By no means exhaustive, some of the more memorable lunches and desserts from 2009:

Most Satisfying Lunches
Peruvian rotisserie chicken with secret green sauce at Pio Pio
rice cakes, shredded pork and preserved cabbage at Shanghai Cafe
pizza from Motorino in East Williamsburg
restaurant week lunch at Eleven Madison
more recent platter of roast pork from La Neuva Conquista
every meal we've ever had at the Stage
pork belly sandwiches from Num Pang
the first banh mi we had at An Choi
hoagies at the Redding Terminal Market in Philadelphia

Most Memorable Desserts
Momofuku banana cake
Sugar Sweet Sunshine red velvet cake
Xie Xie 1000-yr old ice cream sandwich
Oro Bakery brown sugar pecan bun
Cafe Select fruit tarts
Tate's Bake shop chipless wonders
Rheon Cafe cherry turnover
Petrossian fruit tart

And we could not let the year pass without paying homage to some delicious meals that no longer exist.
Meals which will be Most Missed
fish, scallions and ginger lunch special at Dragon's Gate
congee at Fu Kee
elbow pasta and ground beef from Cafe Select

The Crosby Bar

Yes yes I know we said we weren't going to post lunch this week but we received some fantastic news this morning so both a celebratory lunch and sharing it with you our readers is in order! The Laznia Contemporary Art Gallery wrote this morning to say that our project, the Invisible Gate, is finally nearing completion (5 years later!) and the opening ceremonies will be May next year. We're so giddy with excitement, Gdansk in the spring should be beautifully bright. To celebrate we indulged in a meal at the newly opened Crosby Bar below the hotel of the same name. In a table of small goodies we particularly enjoyed the crab cakes and the brussel sprouts. I would go back for the brussel sprouts.
The Crosby Bar at the Crosby Street Hotel, 79 Crosby St, NY, NY 10012 (above Spring)

4:00pm peanut butter cookie

Most of our cookie photos are classic detailed dessert shots but once in awhile an irrepressible urge overcomes us and the cookies emerge as mysterious and unidentified flying objects. Some of my other favorites are the Cookie That Ate the Girl's Head, the Cookie Visits the Upper West Side, the Cookie Stares down the Potted Plant and the Cookie Takes a Road Trip.
On an administrative note, no regular posting until the new year but we will be publishing some of our favorite lunches of the past year to tide you over. Happy Holidays!
Oro Bakery, 375 Broome Street, NY, NY 10013 (btwn Mulberry and Mott)

Lovely Day, with Hong

Whenever Hong gets back into town she usually has very specific food requests. They tend to be either localized like the ginger fried chicken from Lovely Day or global like congee or fresh vegetables. In either case they are always requests of things she cannot easily find wherever she might be. And since the entire eating world is more or less constantly at our fingertips, we are always happy to accommodate a more particular palate. Today that palate chose Lovely Day, which we are pleased to note has not suffered any loss of patronage despite being shuttered for almost all of the past year.
Lovely Day, 196 Elizabeth St., New York, NY 10012 btwn Prince & Spring

4:00pm chocolate chip cookie

Since I hadn't stepped outside yet today, figured I would go grab a dessert, but undeniably lazy when I saw all the sweets we've accumulated on our dining table. This cookie from Fresh Direct being one of them. They had gone hard and stale, but frankly the flavor was still a-o.k. and was a perfect afternoon snack along with the microwaved coffee.
Fresh Direct, http://www.freshdirect.com

Gobo

Group lunching with the Harvest crew is fun. With vegetarians outnumbering us meat eaters, today Shawn decided to place a delivery order from Gobo. I was surprised they deliver so far! Almost everything was pretty tasty, the pictured singapore stir-fry mai-fun with seitan skewers might have been my favorite.
Gobo, 401 Avenue of the Americas, NY, NY 100014 (btwn Waverly and 8th)

4:00pm cookies

It's always good to have office mates who receive generously filled boxes of prettily decorated candy cane cookies from Eleni's for the holidays. Especially good if they happen to be the sharing type. Which ours are.
Eleni's, 75 Ninth Ave, NY, NY 10011 (at 15th St)

Congee

Cold weather, slushy streets and a threatening sore throat is the perfect equation for a hot bowl of congee for lunch. We tried Congee last summer and thought it a good bowl but surprisingly hadn't been back since June of last year. How remiss. Quickly remedied and confirmed, the congee is still quite good. In fact I would go so far as to say a step above some of the others we have eaten.
Congee, 98 Bowery, NY, NY 10013 (above Hester)

4:00pm sweet treats

Get ready to welcome a new face to the local eating scene - The Village Tart. Currently in soft openings, we got a peek last night and walked out with a box of treats for dessert today. And we're happy to report the bits and bobs we just snacked on are rather delicious. If their savory menu is as full of promise as the sweets, then we're looking forward to lunch there very soon.
The Village Tart, 86 Kenmare St, NY, NY 10012 (at Mulberry)

Aurora

We were discussing at lunch today the tipping point when a restaurant goes from reliably good to occasionally disappointing to just not that great. We'll go back several times, especially since one disappointing meal could just be an unfortunate circumstance of one particular day. All that to say that since our last slightly disappointing meal at Aurora a year ago in September we hadn't been back until today. It's a good thing we did go again! The tuna tartare was a bit heavy handed but the two pasta dishes were perfectly al dente with lovely accompanying sauces.
Aurora Ristorante, 510 Broome St, NY, NY 10012 (west of West Broadway)

4:00pm leftover banana cake

We were rather bummed that our inter-office holiday party had no alcohol. But this addictive banana cake with hazelnut crunch from Momofuku Milk Bar, almost made up for it. While I wouldn't call myself an ardent proponent of the Momofuku empire, Mr. Chang and Ms. Tosi are some kind of team, creating some of the most tasty and original desserts out there. Everything I've tried there is mysterious, too sweet, and just delicious; and this cake is no exception. In fact, it's a prime example of their success. Yummm.
Momofuku Bakery & Milk Bar, 207 Second Avenue, NY, NY 10003 (entrance on 13th)

Red Egg

Holy Moly, too much heat! The stuffed pepper dim sum from Red Egg, was soo hot today, that we had to set aside the pepper part. We always order this plate, and usually it has a bit of a kick, but it was out of control today. And the rest of the plates seemed a bit out of it's usual control too. It wasn't all together bad, but nothing tasted really fresh, and we agreed that it was our first dissapointing lunch there. What's for dessert?
Red Egg, 202 Centre Street, NY, NY 10013 (btwn Hester and Howard)

4:00pm banana bread by Karen

A little while back, I'd been talking to Karen over lunch about our mutual love of baking and baking supplies. I even went as far as to "recommend" that she buy the baking molds she was eyeing, so that she could bake mini-loaves for her X-mas distribution. Must admit, I had some selfish hidden motives behind that, but how I was rewarded! The loaves have great texture, and a nice hint of sweetness that make it perfect for any time of day. Thank you Karen!

Xe Lua, with almost everyone

The great thing about working in a large open space is even when we're still too swamped to leave (eek yes going on day 3 now), we have a ready set of lunch companions. For the 3 vegetarians in the office, Saha, Matt and Karen plus 1 supporter of vegetarian foods, Spencer, we recommended the stir fry vegetables served over crispy egg noodles (not shown here). What's nice about Xe Lua is they deliver 2 separate containers of this dish so the noodles can be as crispy or soggy as you like. Comments included: "tofu was excellent", "noodles were almost too crunchy", "noodles were good crunchy [altho} I agree that more sauce would have been nice".
Xe Lữa, 86 Mulberry St, NY, NY 10013 (below Canal)

4:00pm brownie

Head yourselves over now to the not quite finished but fabulously revamped cafe at the wonderful independent bookstore, McNally Jackson in Nolita. Okay, so it's a bit of self promotion, as we are the ones behind the new re-design, but it's a great place to hang out regardless. As we were discussing the finishing touches with Sarah, she generously offered us their newly acquired brownies (chocolate tortino) from Sullivan Street Bakery. There's bits of bread crumbs baked in, and the resulting texture is wonderfully light yet toothsome.
McNally Jackson Teahouse, 52 Prince St, NY, NY 10012 (btwn Lafayette and Mulberry)

Sophie's Cuban Cuisine

We kid ourselves in thinking that this time of year should be nice and slow, with everyone's head in holiday party bliss (or hangovers). On the contrary, we are scrambling for every minute available with stress levels accelerating, but we must eat, or else... Take out from Sophie's - roast pork sandwich on top and the Cuban sandwich below. A bit heavy on the almost dry meat, but their spicy green sauce makes up for what it lacks.
Sophie's Cuban Cuisine, 805 Third Ave, New York , NY 10022 Lower Level Food Court (btwn 49th and 50th)

4:00pm red velvet cake

There are few things better than discerning parents who order cakes from Sugar Sweet Sunshine for their son's 2-year old birthday party. And even better when there is enough leftover for me to usurp a thick slab for our dessert today. Yesterday's piece, like today's day-old slice, was an incredibly perfect piece of cake. I am already dreaming of more.
Sugar Sweet Sunshine, 126 Rivington St, NY, NY 10002 (near Essex St)

Calexico

I love that in Portland hipster food trucks take over empty parking lots; like a temporary version of a shopping mall food court, but infinitely cooler. Here we have twitter to tell us where and when the trucks will be a-roaming. And I particularly like the new list feature that lets me categorize all food trucks under one heading. A quick check today reveals the Calexico cart is on Crosby just south of Broome, temporarily relocated nearby their usual spot.
Calexico, Broome St near Broadway, NY, NY 10012 (north-east corner)

4:00 doughnuts

I know nothing about Matt except he sits at a desk on the other end of the office, is a friend of Harvest and oh yeah, best office mate ever because he brought in a box of Doughnut Plant doughnuts fresh from Grand Street this morning. What a treat!
Doughnut Plant, 369 Grand St, NY, NY 10002 (near Essex)

Eight Mile Creek, with Josh

The next best thing to failing to arrange a large group lunch is Fish Fridays! Which works out fortuitously since (1) it's Friday, (2) it's bitter cold outside, (3) Eight Mile Creek is less than a 5 minute walk away and (4) they serve a very respectable fish and chips.
Eight Mile Creek, 240 Mulberry St., NY, NY 10012 (btwn Spring & Prince)

4:00pm banana bread

Fresh butter cures all, especially several days old, homemade banana bread.

Bun

Once in awhile we have a lunch so surreal we have no coherent response. Bun has been in our once or twice a year rotation but each subsequent visit has been leaving us more and more puzzled. Today we tried the $14 lunch special consisting of 8 "courses" of such a strange mixture of tastes and textures that we left in a daze of confusion.
Bún, 143 Grand St, NY, NY 10013 (btwn Lafayette and Crosby)

4:00pm holiday cookies

We generally avoid Dean & Deluca as the inefficient service, crowded store and inflated prices can be frustrating but today we lucked out and it was remarkably empty or at least sufficiently so. A leisurely perusal through their ever changing selection of desserts and we walk out with a set of nice snowflakes from Art Girl Cookies. Yum.
Dean & DeLuca, 560 Broadway, NY, NY 10012 (at Prince)

Cafe Select

This morning the handwritten lunch special at Cafe Select was"roast pork loin sandwich", 4 words we cannot resist. And even though the cold, wet weather is perfect for short lunch walks, by the time we sat down something more substantial was in order. We split the ever reliable bratwurst and the new to the menu tagliatelle. And then miracles of miracles, the sun peeped out a little after lunch so we took a stroll around the block.
Cafe Select, 212 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012 (at Kenmare)

4:00pm fried mochi

Apologies for the crap photo today, but frankly this dessert was kinda crap too. Mochi and red bean paste are a delicious combination, however this one tasted slightly funky, fishy even? Could tell if it was a problem with my palate or the fault of the dessert. Oh well.
Koryodang, 31 West 32nd St, New York, NY 10011 (btwn 5th and 6th Ave)

The Stage

128 Second Ave, NY, NY 10003

Rating: 1 - Wonderful
Visit #: 6
In brief: This narrow little Ukranian diner is the greatest source of comfort and happiness. We die for the meatloaf platter, the pierogi, the kielbasa, chicken soup and the same friendly faces behind the counter.

Few things make us happier than pierogis and chicken noodle soup from the Stage. And even when it's eaten in take-out form and not at the narrow friendly counter of the Stage, it still brings cheshire cat grins of contentment. The only other thing we could possibly say about the Stage is GO. GO NOW.

4:00pm vanilla cupcake

Cupcake Cafe's butter based cream frosting and dense vanilla cake remain consistently in our most favorite of cupcakes but it just occurred to me that perhaps they are always so delicious because we have them so infrequently. The 18th St location isn't out of the way, but it's not around the corner either, so months may pass before we get our hands on some. And you know what they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Applicable for cupcakes too.
Cupcake Cafe, 18 West 18th St., NY, NY 10011 (btwn 5th and 6th Aves)

Fatty Crab, with Brian

A late lunch but thoroughly enjoyable as we hit our third Quarantine Studio lunch, another fellow architect, Brian. Since Fatty Crab encourages family dining, we agreeably split an array of dishes arriving to a common consensus on the watermelon and pork belly dish (best!) with the green mango salad second. A minor nit-picky note about the Char Kway Teow, which is intentionally incredibly salty and intensely spicy. But if it's so salty that not even the chef telling us this could eat a plate by himself, then maybe it should either be served with a rice chaser or the server should highly recommend a rice accompaniment to cut the salt. Still, all in all, a tasty lunch with very good company. Worth repeating.
Fatty Crab, 643 Hudson St., NY, NY 10014 (above Horatio)

4:00pm butter cookies

What's nice about lunch at Menkui-Tei is its proximity to Cafe Zaiya. We can have a hearty lunch followed by a wide array of dessert options. These butter cookies or refrigerator cookies or icebox cookies or whatever you want to call them are a solid choice for an afternoon treat.
Cafe Zaiya, 69 Cooper Sq., NY, NY 10003 (near Astor Place)

Menkui-Tei

We stopped for a break today, stopping by the site of our latest installation at the McNally Jackson cafe before walking up to Menkui-Tei for lunch. Some really lovely flying books and walls covered in printed pages will soon accompany your visit to the bookstore. If you didn't already love the store, now hopefully the renovated cafe will make you even happier to spend time there. A brief report on lunch: the broiled mackerel with rice lunch special was pretty tasty but the oyako don just ok.
Menkui-tei, 63 Cooper Sq., NY, NY 10003 (near Astor Place)

4:00pm dark chocolate drop

We don't know what we did to deserve this, but Karen decided to bring us some afternoon goodies from Oro Bakery. The are always good, but unusually good today. They are like mini brownies, but with a nice hard crust and a soft and moist center.
Oro Bakery, 375 Broome Street, New York, NY 10012 (btwn Mulberry and Mott)

L'asso, with Josh

We are in the final run of preparing for a presentation happening in 2 days so it's busy busy busy around here. But still a girl's gotta eat so we popped over to L'asso for some DOC pizza, Josh's choice of sustenance for today. Good food feeds our brainstorming activities far better than late nights in the office. The clear light of day mingled with the tart aroma of marguerita sauce succeeds when all else fails.
L'asso, 192 Mott St., NY, NY 10012 (at Kenmare)

4:00pm citrus tart

Ooooh we have a new favorite lemon tart. Supremely smooth, faintly tangy and with a delicate, crumbly crust that was the perfect underlay for the filling.
Caffe Falai, 265 Lafayette St, NY, NY 10012 (below Prince)

Caffe Falai, 265 Lafayette St, NY, NY 10012 (below Prince)

Caffe Falai

The spaghetti with chicken liver and bottarga is a new addition to the Caffe Falai menu, or at least new since our last visit. The pastas at Falai are typically very well balanced, delicate portions, which is why we were surprised by the heavy handedness of chicken liver to pasta. Maybe it's typical of this dish but it could easily bear the title "A shallow plate of Chicken Livers with a bit of Spaghetti mixed in".
Caffe Falai, 265 Lafayette St, NY, NY 10012 (below Prince)

4:00pm chocolate cake

Ah shockingly remiss in our dessert post for yesterday, and especially after Shawn lovingly made this chocolate cake by hand! Yes folks, he mixed the batter the old fashioned way, by hand. I occasionally mix batters by hand too but mostly because I'm too lazy to drag out the big heavy mixer and then wash the beaters afterward.

Despana

Quickly, is how we must eat our lunch today. Sandwiches from Despana in one hand, pencil and paper in the other, talking about the over abundance of Purell hand sanitizers. We here happen to think that a bit of dirt and germs goes a long way to a healthy immune system. Neither of us have gotten sick in a long time, knock on wood...
Despana, 408 Broome Street, New York, NY 10013 (btwn Lafayette and Centre)