A warm one for the road

If there is anything better than a chocolate chip cookie, it is a warm chocolate chip cookie. This is something Jacques Torres knows.

On my final day of New York City binging (until December, that is), I wanted to follow up my Momofuku, Max Brenner and Dishes cookie sampling with a classic. So I went to Mr. Chocolate.

The plate of giant chocolate chunk cookies looked perfect. But perfection was realized with the warming griddle, on which a half dozen cookies were waiting to go. Genius.

Big, buttery, sweet and veeery chocolaty. It was clear the rest of the cookie was there just as the vehicle for eating melty chunks of dark chocolate.


I love New York.

I went in for the brownies

I mean, how could I pass them up after seeing this sign on the door of City Girl Café?

But I surprised myself; I didn’t get a “homemad” Valrhona brownie, even though they looked so fudgy and decadent and insanely delicious.

Because I saw the peanut butter balls.

Peanut butter balls?? “They’re like peanut butter cups, only more delectable,” the thoughtful barista told me. Sold. I plunked down my $2.50 for this seemingly small morsel of thick, gritty peanut butter covered in dark chocolate and bits of peanut. It was the snack that kept on giving: bite after bite of rich, savory, stick-to-your-molars chocolaty goodness.



Next time, I have to try the in-demand brownies. But the peanut butter balls will be hard to pass up.

63 Thompson Street b/w Spring and Broome
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Late night ice cream

How is it that I lived four blocks from Sundaes and Cones and didn’t develop a nasty little ice cream habit? This stuff is otherworldly.

I debated a lot between the lychee and black cherry and pondered the sesame. I skipped the tiramisu and hazelnut, and I sampled the banana ice cream. It was incredible. But finally, I opted for a scoop of strawberry. It just looked so creamy and whipped to perfection, with big chunks of strawberries hiding inside. Otherworldly.

I heart NY, too

I don’t know which is cuter: this darling mobile truck named Pearl, or the driver named Max.

Yet another mobile concept, this one feels really fresh and fun. Amee and I were too stuffed from lunch at Balthazar and dessert from Baked by Melissa, so we didn’t sample the ice cream and candy treats from around the world.


But everything about Hearts Challenger is too cute to pass up a second time.

50¢ a bite

It’s not always easy to quantify how much your sweet tooth costs you. But at $3 for three two-bite cupcakes, Baked by Melissa, makes it all but impossible not to.

It’s genius, really: selling mini cupcakes in volume (the price goes down, the more you buy) is a great way for Melissa to ensure she sells high numbers and makes more money. And it makes us feel like we’re not really being bad. Two bites? There aren’t really calories in two bites, are there?

Who knows the calorie count, but they hit the sweet spot.

Tie-dye, s’mores, peanut butter cup—they’re over the top like Crumb’s, that weird Duncan Hines goodness like Out of the Kitchen, bite-sized like Kumquat, and yet totally original.

Paris’ answer to Magnolia Bakery

Pierre Hermé, please don’t have a movie made in which an adorable movie star devours your beautiful macarons while talking boys with her best friend outside. Your reputation for the best macarons in the city is already persuasive enough. The magnetism of your Saint-Germaine boutique is already plenty irresistible. The lines snaking down the block are already plenty off-putting, making even a Sweet Freak like me flee for healthier snacks (or, shhhh, to your rue Chabon or Publicis Drugstore locations that are thankfully never mobbed like this).

Chocolate chip cookie hunting

After my dalliances with Momofuku’s day old cookies, Max Brenner’s double-chocolate chip cookie, and my own mom’s white chocolate chip and macadamia cookies, I figured why stop now? Might as well cram as many chocolate chip cookies as I can in my maw while I’m here in New York as I can. God knows, there’s a sweets shortage in Paris.

So it was that I found myself giving into the big, buttery chocolate chunk with walnut cookie at Dishes in Grand Central Station.

I’ve always loved Dishes’ savory salads. But I had never seen their arresting cookie selection. They have chocolate chunk cookies, with or without walnuts. There’s a classic oatmeal raisin, along with an oatmeal-hazelnut-chocolate chunk cookie (next time…). The gluten-free dark chocolate cookie also seemed a delicious option. But I thought a nice chocolate chunk with nuts would hit the spot.


In the grand scheme of chocolate chip cookies, this one would never move the earth but it was decent. It tasted similar to the Tollhouse recipe, and the walnuts—though I’m not usually a nuts in my baked goods kind of girl—were especially delicious. It could have used a minute or two less baking in the oven to give it extra doughiness.

Then again, I could have done with a half a cookie less—especially if I’m going to keep up this pace.

Double chocolate is double joy

When one of your favorite pastry chefs insists that you try a cookie, you try a cookie. That’s how I found myself with a 10-ounce “very dark and full of chocolate chunks” cookie from Max Brenner in my hand.

Pichet Ong, pastry chef of the once-was, soon-to-be-again delicious bakery Batch, is currently revamping the dessert menu for the international chocolate chain. After a much-too-healthy lunch together, he kept insisting that I try a dessert. I was honestly stuffed and kept demurely declining, but on the way out, I was finally persuaded (Shocking, I know). I opted the double chocolate chip cookie, and it was nothing short of heaven.

It was as rich and chocolaty as you’d expect. But the texture—at turns melty and crunchy—was better than I ever could have hoped for. Lots of chocolate chunks, indeed.

Luckily I had Alex’s help to power through this beast. It’s a beautiful cookie, but a bit much for one belly, no matter how well versed in rich chocolate it is.