New York City (one month late)

Apologising to you, my readers, has become something of a cliche on this blog. What was meant to be an online record of my experiences in cooking has become a bit more than that, and I get that there's some responsibility I hold to post consistently. I'm sorry, the last 4 weeks have been (frankly) insane. It's not because of exams or anything one would expect to slow down the posts, but rather it's because I've been busy with a lot of other projects. In fact, this is the week before my midterms and yet now is when I've managed to find the time to write. Either way, once again, I'm sorry for having dropped off a bit. The blog is something that I try to do consistently, but I hope that you can forgive my lapses the pauses that keep happening. 

Let's talk about food! I was in NYC for only a couple of days, but I tried to go to all of the places I'd been meaning to go to for a while. Here's my review of everything I ate (and all the coffees I drank) in New York!

Tal's Bagels: I got a simple bagel with Lox and Cream Cheese. It was PHENOMENAL, but it was also hellishly expensive. Manhattan pricing is wild, and at $18.50, it was definitely the most expensive bagel I've eaten in my life. To be fair to them, the lox was incredible and deliciously smoky. That being said, given its insane price, I give Tal's Bagels a solid 6.5/10

ABC Kitchen: (Long review below, tl;dr: Not a SINGULAR good dish. Chefs don't seem to understand flavour balance and subtlety, conversely some dishes had no flavour to them at all. DO NOT GO HERE)

Oof. This one was bad. I'd heard a lot coming in about this place, so I knew I had to try it, and so I went with my cousin and her boyfriend to get dinner. All three of us were super excited to check out this place, which is why we were so disappointed. To start, we ordered the skillet sweet potato bread, chicories and chrysanthemum salad and the housemade ricotta. The sweet potato bread had a good texture and flavour, and the leek butter that came with it was possibly the highlight of the meal (it was legitimately incredible...wish they sold it). That's kind of where it started going downhill. Even the bread wasn't perfect, they covered this gorgeous loaf in WAY TOO MUCH parmesan, which masked the flavour and ruined it for me. Then came the salad. OOF, somebody must've accidentally dropped the entire bottle of vinegar in. The dressing actually did taste nice, and because it was tossed so badly, there were parts of the salad that weren't completely coated in vinegar, which is where you could taste the flavours they'd intended when they first came up with the idea for this dish. That being said, the vinegar was so strong that nobody wanted to take a second helping, and getting through the remainder of the salad caused our throats to burn from the acid (and the excess pepper). Finally, the ricotta. The flavour of the cheese itself was actually half-decent (nothing special but nothing bad either), the problem was that they'd put it on possibly the toughest danish I've ever eaten. It felt more like a dog bone than it did a good quality piece of bread, which again sucked because in theory it sounded like a good dish. Also, there was WAY too much rhubarb on top, which completely masked the flavour. The mains were stunningly mediocre too. The Farro Risotto had too much citrus in it, and the grains weren't cooked properly. The Spinach Malfadine had nothing special about it. The sauce was basic but edible. As for the nettle pesto pizza, it had TOO MUCH SALT, and the flavour of those gorgeous morels was lost to the lack of balance in the dish. On the whole, well done chefs, you actually almost made me hate food. 2/10

Frenchette Bakery: Got the Pain au Chocolat here, got to frenchette a bit later than I intended, so their main attractions were sold out (I really wanted to try the pistacchio croissant) but either way, not the worst. I will say that the quality of chocolate was good, but the bread was average. 6/10

Do Not Feed Alligators: +1 for the name alone. Got an iced latte here, coffee was good and honestly even the vibe of the shop was pretty solid. The coffee was good quality, beans were a nice medium roast, on the whole I liked it. 8/10

Mama's Too: Absolutely a good place to go. I got the Angry Nonna, my cousin got the Vodka pizza, both were pretty solid although I am a bit partial to the spicy salami/hot honey combo, so I loved my slice. Line was a bit long, and wait was even longer (the entire thing took about 40 minutes). The bread was decent, although it was a bit burnt on the bottom. Tomato sauce was a bit sweet but that's also on account of the honey (a bit too much of it IMO). Great salami, though, and the bread was pretty decent. Overall, 7/10

(Unknown Cafe, opposite do not feed alligators): Whoops, forgot the name of this one. Either way, I remember the coffee. I got a cortado which was very good, loved the beans and the hot coffee was just what I needed in that moment, so everything worked out. If you find it, let me know and I'll change its name here. Until then, it's the mystery cafe, but I'd give it a strong 8.5/10

Mah-ze-dahr Bakery: Admittedly I missed one of their main attractions, the donut, but that's okay because I got the olive oil cake. The cake was a tiny bit too sweet, and I think the olive oil wasn't as prominent as I would've hoped, but I vibed with the place and the cake's texture itself was spot on, so I was pretty happy. Besides, I got a coffee to drink with the cake, and the bitterness countered the sweetness (I know that's cheating, but I was just there to get good food). 100% would go again (but not to get this cake) 6.5/10

Partners Coffee: Got myself a cold brew here to end my food rampage. It was just what the doctor ordered, because by now all the walking had me sweating, so I wanted something chilled to cool me down. The coffee was good, I asked the barista for her recommendation and so she added some milk to the top, which (kinda) didn't work, but even so I appreciate the quality of service, and the coffee was very good. Either way, it was a good ending to this trip, so I'd give it an easy 7/10

And yeah! That's all I have to say about New York. Bonus if you stayed here till now, my aunt lives in Connecticut, and so we all went to get crepes one day for lunch. 

Meli-Melo Creperie (Greenwich, Connecticut): Their Tatin Tarte crepe was very good. Slightly sweet for my taste, but it was an indulgence, and one worth the calories. The ice cream was nicely made too, so overall a pretty decent meal. 7.5/10