NYC eats: so many, oh dear god
- By Robyn Lee
- Jan 8, 2007
- Comments
My main reason for eating out so often is because...I like da foods. The process of shoving tasty things into my mouth and maneuvering my jaw in such a manner so that my teeth may best crush up the bits of tasty things and send them along the lengthy, squishy, mucus-lined journey through the series of digestive tubes so that I may reap the alimentary benefits or gain another subcutaneous layer of fat fills whatever part of my brain that feels joy with...joy.
[That sentence was much, much longer than I had planned it to be.]
But there's another good reason for eating out so often. (Of course, there are many good reasons, assuming your budget can handle it.) Going to NYC from my suburban home in NJ means I have a reason to get the hell out of NJ and be mildly distracted by food and friends in NYC. Which is nice. Especially since I just realized one reason why spending the past semester in Paris was so awesome; I had very little stress. Family problems were left behind, possible friendship issues were put on hold, and even if I did need cheering up, I knew just where to get a delectable baguette or macaron (which I would eat no matter what mood I was in) to make things superficially better.
I don't want to appear overly spoiled, but...I probably am. I think about it every now and then—that I have a lot, that I probably don't deserve it, that I feel guilty for not deserving anything I have, but I don't hate it enough to reject it all. [shrugs] I assume that karma will get me in the end and by the age of 35 after a string of failed careers I'll end up living in a ditch, clinging onto a plank of discarded wood that I'll name Stabby and regard as my only true friend.
...Wow, I really need to not write when I'm in a funny mood. This is why I sometimes go so long without updating, in case you're wondering. I do have a fit blogging state; this ain't it.
But I have a lot of catching up to do, so HERE I GO, OHH HOLD ONTO YOUR STOMACHS KIDDIES!!@!#!@
- falafel
Last Tuesday I went on a "let's revisit some of my favorite places in NYC" fooding tour with Lee Anne, one of my best friends visiting from Arizona. We met up with my friend Amy at our first stop, Taim, also known as my favorite falafel-rie. Unintentionally, we all ordered the same harissa falafel pita, the spiciest of the three falafel choices. Happiness is a warm, soft, slightly crunchy pita pocket filled with light, crispy falafels with just the right amount of whatever tasty sauce they put on it along with the raw chopped vegetable salad stuff and...yeah, I'm going to stop talking about it because my words will only bring down its quality. I want to put this sandwich on a satin pillow and gently fan it with an obscenely large feather plucked from the most beautiful bird on the endangered species list.
...uh, what did I say? I don't know. [shakes head]
- fries
At my insistence, we shared an order of long, skinny french fries presented in a curvacious, shining white porcelain bowl and accompanied by little tub of homemade saffron aioli that is roughtly 1035.6% better than ketchup. Do fries go with falafel sandwiches? Hell, as far as I can tell, fries go with everything. I know what would be even better—if the fries were inside the sandwich! Ah-ha, I smell a winner. TAIM, ARE YOU LISTENING? (...Probably not. Maybe I will experiment with my own fries-and-falafel sandwich. Uh huh, you know you want it.)
- chocolate chip awesomeness
With bellies full of fried chickpea mash, we went to City Bakery despite not being hungry at all. Then again, you don't have to be hungry to eat their chocolate chip cookie; your stomach will expand to make room for the crispy, chewy, brown sugar-and-butter laden disk of awesomeness. It's still my favorite chocolate chip cookie.
- hot choc!
Although the chocolate chip cookie has just the right amount of chocolate so that the rest of the buttery cookie-matter isn't oberwhelmed, CB's hot chocolate is likely to put you in a chocolate coma after a sip or two. (It actually takes me more than one cup to get to the coma stage, but this isn't something you want to learn from experience.) Lee Anne was quickly beaten down by the cup of molten chocolate and ended up asking for a cup of hot water to mix it with. After she mixed a cup of possible half water, half hot chocolate, the result was still disarmingly strong. Dude, that's scary. But at least you get your money's worth in liquid chocolate goo.
- tea n stuff
After parting ways with Amy, Lee Anne and I roamed around the Lower East Side and stopped at Teany for the sake of sitting inside somewhere for as long as we wanted to without having tospend a lot of money. Since I'm not much of a tea drinker, I ordered a red cooler, "a blend of mint and raspberry teas with cranberry juice". It tasted like...the description. Lee Anne ordered a pot of tea whose name I don't remember, but I suppose she really liked it since she refilled her pot once and took away the extra tea in a huge cup.
- FOOOOD
At 6PM we met up with Sarah, her sister, her sister's boyfriend, her friend, her other friend, and her other friend's boyfriend (check out how many names I can remember...dammit, I suck) for dinner at Cafe Mogador. Sarah (who you know, if you've been reading my blog for a while, was a prominent fooding partner during the spring 2006 semester) is originally from Kansas City and she and her friends (who aren't all originally from KC, but whatever) were only visiting NYC for a short while. Awwww. Poop. :[ Thankfully we got a good night of fooding in.
- duck!!!!
Although I would've loved to have eaten the tagine I had from my first visit to Cafe Mogador again, the "Hudson Valley Duck Confit served with baby arugula, balsami reduction and french fries" was obviously meant to spend its last moments of existence in my stomach. Aside from the fries, which were a bit limp, it was just as good as any duck confit I had in Paris. The tender meat practically detached itself from the bone and the skin had that intense layer of squishy fat coated by a thin shield of crispy fat that makes you feel all warm and happy inside...because of the impending factor of death. Or deliciousness. A bit of both, probably.
- so much foods
Annnd because I'm lazy and know you like photos, here are a bunch of photos of stuff other people ate. Many plates were cleaned, many stomachs were happily stuffed.
It was sad to part ways with Sarah, but she loves NYC so much that I'm sure she'll be back this year. Or should I visit Kansas City? [rubs chin]
Since Lee Anne and I were quite sickly, we slept in the next day with the plan of doing nothing that could be labeled as "productive". Oh, how we succeeded. GO US!
- chocs
She gave me a box of chocolate truffles made by her aunt and uncle's chocolate company in El Salvador, which has a website that I cannot remember because I don't have the box on me at the moment. I sucks. What I do know is that you can't buy them in America, so...eh. It's our loss. They're tasty! While I don't usually like fruit filled truffles, these fillings weren't too sweet or oddly sticky like I've found others to be. I ate them for breakfast! Hells yeah. I'm not a nutritionist, I don't care.
another long day of fooding
- Le French Diner
Even before I went to Paris, I wanted to go to Le French Diner more than any other French restaurant I knew of in NYC. Why? It's small. Accessible. Doesn't cost a crapload. Neighborhood-ly. Whatever that means. Basically, a place I could feel comfortable in. There I met Carol, one of my oldest friends from middle school, before going on a whole afternoon of wandering and eating.
- interior
Although I had a perfect spot by the window to get a photo of the whole interior, I was too slow and ended up chickening out. Oops. It's small. Check out Noah's interior shot. From that point of view there's a table for four, a two-seater on the left and a four-seater on the right if you really squish in. Carol and I somewhat awkwardly stood in between the filled seats (meaning that I repeatedly unintentionally poked the backside of a poor young woman) as we waited for people to leave.
[Please leave.]
[...Pleeease...we hungie...]
[...eatfaster...]
And then a party of four finally left as we uncomfortably hovered next to them. SCORE! It's sandwich time.
- chickeny
I ordered Le Poulet de Belleville, a toasted baguette filled with grilled chicken, melted goat cheese, and ratatouille. It kind of reminded me of Crosby Connection's chicken mama mia, but small and without the "innards exploding all over the bread" factor. I love a sandwich whose viscera don't splodge out all over my hands. The baguette was okay, not flimsily soft but without the jaw-aching chewiness of the crackled crust, hole-filled baguette that I quickly grew to love in Paris (if you looked in the right places, at least). Overall I enjoyed the sandwich for having just the right amount of ingredients to neatly fill its bready container and for being the perfect size to satisfy my stomach without making me feel preggers. I have nothing to complain about the accompanying crispy, salted fries. If only I could swoon over the baguette...
- mm, salmon
Carol ordered Le Saumon Fume Crudite, composed of smoked salmon, thick tomato slices, salady stuff, hard boiled egg, cucumber, mayo, and basil. I'm not sure what else to say about it besides that I liked the one bite I had. Yes, I'm feeling lazy again in my food descriptions.
Their menu is pretty huge; if you can't find something you like, you're too picky. I'm sure I have to go back just so I can try the duck confit. Bwahaha. That's my new goal, you know—to eat all the duck confit I possibly can. I don't have high aspirations.
- Sugar
We walked about a block to Sugar, a narrow bakery/cafe on the corner of Allen Street and Houston Street. Carol had a craving for iced coffee while I had a craving for nothing in particular, but bought an apricot hamentashen (or technically hamentash, but Yiddish is not a strength of mine) for the sake of eating something that I knew I'd like. Why do these simple, dense, tender, brick-like triangular cookies taste so good? Maybe it's the buckets of butter packed into each mouthful? And the eggs? And sugar? And whatnot? I'd be perfectly happy without the filling, but I do love the poppy seed filled ones from Moishe's Bake Shop. Which reminds me, I really have to go back there.
- make way for the egg custard tarts
Despite being sickly full by this point, we walked to Egg Custard King Cafe at the edge of Chinatown seeking egg custard tarts, one of my most favorite foods in the world that I hadn't eaten in months.
- I get 50% of this!
We played it safe by deciding to only share one 75 cent Portuguese egg custard tart. Which was dumb because we could totally have eaten a whole one each. Or two. Like CB's chocolate chip cookies, your stomach will make room for the comforting warm, soft eggy goo in its flaky pastry shell.
- CHOMP
I would love to see egg custard tarts take over the world as much as I'd love to see macarons in every pastry shop. COME ON, GUYS! Create the demand! For my sake! And for the rest of the world. Um. Yes.
- Chinese cakes
I was amused by the cakes in the rotating display at Egg Custard King Cafe. They were no different from cakes at any other Chinese bakery, but if you've never seen them before then you may think they're funny. Or not. There's something about the way they're decorated that seems intricate and well thought out...but at the same time, not intricate or well thought out. I guess it depends what your design sensibility is. And don't get me wrong; I'd totally eat that cake draped with uniform mango slices. With help from a few other human beings, preferably.
- PARIS SAMMICH
Behold, the new sparkling jewel of Chinatown: Paris Sandwich. Oh my god. It's so not Parisian, but what matters is that they tried! And by "tried" I mean that their logo has the Eiffel Tower in it. SCORE!
- partial menu
The stars of their menu are the sandwiches (I would assume from the name of the place), but they also have various spring/summer rolls, meat and rice combinations, lots of desserts involving coconut milk and...baguettes! Probably not the most French of baguettes, but still...they have em. Carol bought what I think was labelled as a sweet baguette, a name that left out the key ingredient of "garlic" that the bread was seemingly soaked in. She said sweet garlicky things were common in Asia, so I'll take her word for it.
- numero 29
Carol departed for dinner, but I was joined by John, Pete, Aleks, Diana, Lee Anne, and her two friends from school in Arizona for pizza gorging at Numero 28. I will be beaten in a later life for being too lazy to link to all these people's websites and for forgetting the names of Lee Anne's friends. Oh yes. [sigh]
- 18 incher
Our party of eight ordered four 18 inch pizzas, each one to be shared between two people. Lee Anne and I went with half margherita reginella (tomato, buffalo mozzerella and basil) and half pere (pears, gorgonzola, mozzarella and walnuts).
- good stuff
Charred, thin, soft, chewy crust of yum! Not overwhelmed by toppings! Yay! The gorgonzola was strong, but the mozzarella mellowed it out. Sweet, juict slices of pear and two-cheese goodness punctuated by crunchy walnut bits equates to AWESOME PIZZA. It's like a party in your mouth! With cheese! And fruit! And nuts. And dough. It's a weird party, I won't deny that.
- dessert?
If you can believe it, I didn't actually plan for us to eat dessert out after dinner until my friends suggested it. Yes, someone else had to implant the idea into my head of mobbing a sugar-laden eatery post-pizza coma. Although I led a beeline towards Cones, Lee Anne spotted the magic "GELATERIA" word in the awning for Pasticceria Bruno, so that is where we ended up finding frozen treat happiness.
- gelato!
Bruno loses for giving scoops instead of paddling multiple flavors into one cup and for reeeaallly not wanting to give out samples, but they win for having a $1.50 one-scoop cup (take-out only). That's cheap, yo. And it's damn tasty, so the negative points don't matter that much.
- pistachio
Pistachio is a good way to mark the awesomeness of a gelateria, in which case Bruno wins...something. Something good. The pistachio gelato is a non-scary greenish-yellowish-brownish color ("pistachio", essentially) and the flavor has that roasty feeling along with the...pistachio-ness...
Dammit, my brain is blanking out now because I know it's the end of the entry. I AM OVERLY EXCITED TO HAVE FINALLY REACHED THE END! Not that I don't enjoy writing blog entries, but...my god...this is long...aren't you tired?...I feel sleepies...
ZzZzZz
Oh wait, before I officially end, I'll have you know that I am so out of shape that I nearly threw up while moving into my new 6th floor apartment (the home of Jo Jo) today! Hehe! HEHE!
...My god, that is so disturbing.
For years I've had no problem walking for (flat) miles and feeling fine, but present me with a few flights of stairs and I may be ready to die. Thankfully my dad and Jo Jo did most of the lifting while I was left panting and bent over in nausea on the 4th floor, my entire body coated in a film of sticky sweat.
But I'm all good now. Back in NYC! I need to buy groceries!
addresses
Taim
222 Wavery Pl
Cafe Mogador
101 Saint Marks Pl
Le French Diner
188 Orchard St
Sugar
175 E Houston Street
Egg Custard King Cafe
271 Grand St
Paris Sandwich
113 Mott St
Pasticceria Bruno
235 Bleeker St
Comments
I feel your pain about the stairs thing. Walk 10 miles? No problem! Bike 20 miles? No problem! Climb several flights of stairs? GAH HOO HOO *dies*
hi robyn,
i'm glad you're back in NYC (sorry if you're not >.). i will definitely plan on visiting places you feature!
welcome back to nyc!! IM excited bc i get to read more of your entries!! :) its so cool that you can now say, with expertise, "well in paris, they do this....and the bread tastes just like it does in paris...." ;)
Your wonderuful pictures of food make me hungry! I'm an ex-New Yorker living in Las Vegas and your pictures of food make me miss NYC. The next time I go back to the NYC I'm going to every single one of those places.
Hey Robyn!
Yay! You're back! I wish I was there :) You did some crazy fooding in the past few days. I'm exciting a new banh mi shop opened up...I kinda like the asian style baguettes. I used to go to Brunos for gelato every thursday after my food & society class, cause it just happened to be on my way back to the dorm. It was the best $1.50 I spend weekly! (and they're sooo generous with samples there, hehe :)
damn, i'd love to be in chinatown right now...egg custards...i have yet to find a good one here in taipei (i know there are, still haven't found it).
OMG, those harissa falafels look yummy! *drool* :p And I already ate breakfast a few minutes ago. Your talent of taking photos of food and taking it to extraordinary heights of yumminess.
Ooh! I love CB's cookies and hot chocolate. I can't wait for their Hot Chocolate Festival in February!
O. M. G!!! What a perfect looking pizza! And topped with buffalo mozarella no less?!?! *DROOLZ* And what? You ended it with pistachio gelato?!?! What an orgasmic night!!! I'm sooo jealous!!!
If you continue to climb the stairs you can continue to eat the egg custards and gelato and falafel and whatnot. I'd say it is a fair trade.
Love your blog!
I'm getting ready to leave on a flight for Paris this afternoon, and thanks to you I won't just be eating macaroons at Laduree, but I have a whole array of tasty suggestions! Glad I found your blog over at Parisist! Thanks for all the tasty advice!
Adalmin: Bike 20 miles? Whaaa? NOOO!!
Irene: Yup, I'm back! Eating too much! Yay! I hope you like all the places if you get to visit em.
Jane: HAHA, 4 months in paris and I KNOW EVERYTHING! ...Okay, not quite. I just know what my favorite baguettes are. Mmm. Mmmmmm. Sigh.
Ramsey: Ahh, Las Vegas can't compare to here!...not that I know much about LV. I have a feeling it's not big on the egg custard tarts. :)
Kathy: Why did I only find out about Bruno's gelato this week? AHH I SUCK!! It's not like I didn't see it before; I just skipped it for some reason. Buh! And why did we get a lady who didn't want to give us samples? MRAH WHATEVER! I'd go back.
Donny (who's comment I accidentally deleted instead of approved, crap!): Hell yes of course you can join me on my duck confit quest! Now I just need to figure out...where I'm getting all this duck confit.
Rose: Ahh look harder! And then tell ME where to find them when I eventually visit Taipei. :)
Tina: CB's hot chocolate keeps reminding me of the time that it made me soo sickly..eeeuh..and it was during the hot chocoalte festival. Ginger hot chocolate, methinks. I coated my stomach with it. Oh god. OH GOD WHY.
Maria: The night paralleled a night in Rome! :) It was good, oh yes.
Auntjone: That's my reasoning too! More walkie? MORE EATIE.
Lisa: Oo, we're switching places! I'm so glad I could help out. YE GOTTA GO TO PIERRE HERME, BWAHAHAH! Eat tasty bread and croissants for mee (or yourself, more like!), I hope you have lots of fun!
me + stairs = HEART ATTACK OMG NOOOES!
But I walk 5 miles to work when the weather's nice. Which, in Portland, not so often. :D
ATTACK OF THE CUTE EGG TART PLUSHIE!
holy moly those falafels look AMAZING. you should probably go to Kansas, so long as you get to stop at Gates BBQ. it's definately worth the trip.
Those guys do make a pretty damn good pizza...the "pizzaiolo" like we say in Italian is a good friend of mine, well let's say he makes me pizza, we chat and he remembers me! So I'm glad you like it and I hope you're happy to be back in international food land :D I really hope I'll have the honour of meeting you one day and perhaps go on food tours :D
Love always
Happy New Year
Lots of joy
Gaja !
oh my god! I LOVE THAT YOU'RE BACK IN NYC! This post was hilarious, I really didn't think it was possible for me to smile knowing how much work I have to do right now, but you did it.
I swear, if I do not get to City Bakery by the end of February, I am going to die. I have been trying to get a hot chocolate/ choc. chip cookie combination for months now, and I can't find the time. Mark my words, hot chocolate month here I come! I heard theres this one variety they're making this year called "sunken treasure" and apparently theres edible caramel coins at the bottom of the cup (!!!). So insane!
That French place is adorable! Like a hole in the wall, except clean. And don't worry, I can't walk up stairs either, ha.
ROB!!!
HEY YO NEW YORKER FOOL! LOL. Ok less crass and more class now.
I just wanted to let you know I'm still barely alive and out there. I got your postcard a few weeks ago, got lazy, meant to write and so now here i am.
Anyway I'm sending you a letter ok? I loved your Paris posts!!! I could eat the entire country.
Mary Sue: 5 miles! 5 MILES?! Jebus! That would take me ...nearly 2 hours, if I'm not walking very quickly. Eeuh!
Oh my god, those plushies are ridiculously cute. Argh! My eyes! They buurn! Must hug egg tart!
Allison: Yes I WOULD LOVE KANSAS BBQ!!! My heart would leap with joy. Meat...joy. But right now it just sobs.
Gaja: International food land is awesome! If it had a flag, I'd wave it around wildly...and eat it...assumem it's edible..
I'd go back for more pizza! Mm mm? That's one way to get lots of joy.
Your first paragraph.....genius. And is why i love you so....you put things in such a whole new perspective!
And a big welcome back, Girl! I have been cooking at home more often (because of so very little money in my pocket; partying at the Hotel on Rivington so over for now). Anyway I confitted some duck and the first batch was pretty good but not better than NOT confitting duck, if you see what I mean. I think I will keep on trying. So glad you're back. Will you meet me at the Japanese market on 23rd st. some time and explain things to me? Like the white bread? I don't understnd the white bread.
Wow, thanks for such a great list. I just moved into the East Village in New York. I will definitely check out Mogador!
Robyn,
I've been reading your blog for a while with jealous envy as it's been many years since I've lived in New York (came back to Hawaii in '95).
That said, you make me want to jump on a plane and visit everytime I read one of your posts! Nothing beats NYC for food....I just read that one of my favorite places, Jerry's, will be closing soon...and it makes me sad (I used to eat there twice a week!).
OMG...Robyn, everything you ate looks amazing. Esepcially the falafel and fries. Yum. Your pictures are always so beautiful, I feel like the food is right there in front of me if only I could reach through the computer and grab it.
Oh.
My.
God.
I'm slightly shaky from the hyperglycemia your post induced in me, but I just have to comment. I love that you love food. I love that you eat lots of food. I love that you photograph food. Holy cow.
Do you have any tips for taking good interior-of-dark-crowded-restaurant photographs? My restaurant pics are only so-so.
I'm going to be back in NYC in February. Will have to use your blog as a food guide. (screw the Voice!)
Kaitlin: I'm glad you liked it! It came out like a gushing stream of bacteria-ridden sewage from a broken pipe! ...Uh. Um. Yes!
Annie: You confitted! Somewhat. Well, I've never even tried so you're a step ahead of me. I'd faaail.
I'd love to go JAS Marting! JAPANESE WHITE BREAD IS AWESOME! That's all. Bwaha.
Yen: Oo there are so many great eats in the East Village! You've got the Japanese stuff...eastern european stuff...otherstuff...actually I don't know the area that well. You'll be more of an expert than me, hehe.
Reid: I'm jealous that you live in Hawaii and that you eat ALL THAT AWESOME STUFF, oh god. Are we even? ;)
Ooh, I read about Jerry's too! But I've never been there, only passed it a gazillion times. Should I try it before it closes? Eeek.
The Home Cook: Maybe Apple can invent the next generation of monitors where PHOTOS OF FOOD COME TO LIIIFE!
So scary. So many calories. :)
bazu: I'mshaky too! Eeehe! Oohh the sugar ooOHOHOWW MY BLOOD.
I'm gonna die soon ye know. Hehe!
My tip would be to not eat in a really dark restaurant. I did that today and my photos came out like CRAP. Probably unusable. I'm too afraid to look at em. :( In those cases I have to use flash, as much as I don't want to. Otherwise I just gotta hold the camera reallllly still with a slow as mud shutter speed and photoshop it into something that doesn't look so dark.
wow, you've been eating a lot! i felt full just reading the entry haha
we should go fooding again sometime soon, yeah?
p.s. 10 points for that second sentence in your first paragraph.
ouch...i got deleted.. OUCH
Robyn,
I've been reading you're blog for quite some time now. You're writing is a hoot! Hope you had a great time in Paris. Welcome back to the big city (that I love!) I read something about a cookie diet and thought you'd find it funny.
http://www.nbc4.tv/irresistible/4971849/detail.html
Please don't ever stop blogging. You write like a food-crazed Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is a good thing. I love your photos - especially the innards - and all those half-descriptions of wonderful sweets and sandwiches and strange Mexican cookies... in other words, you rock!
saw the egg custard/taiwan comment above. whenever i go back to taiwan, i always go to KFC for their Portuguese style egg custards. i love slightly caramelized things.
Donny: Hey, I didn't delete you this time! YAAY!
Christian: Haha, COOKIE DIET! Those cookies definitely aren't the chocolate chip cookies I love. I could use a diet...[sigh]
Jo: I'm a food crazed maniac, OH MY GOD, who wouldn't want to hire me? "Ahh she's insane and she eats a lot; we can't let this opportunity pass us by."
Ah whatever, it only matters that readers like me, yes? Yay. :)
Irene: KFC has egg custard tarts? Holy shizz! ...EEK, I found it? They didn't have that when I was in Taiwan, waaaybackwhen. Now I have a reason to go to KFC.
Ah! I was in NYC last week and wished the clocks turned back now that I've seen this post. I meant to try falafels out in NYC, but totally forgot and distracted by everything else. I love egg custards from ECK, but hamentashen are not quite my sort of thing...
Everything else is making me super hungry...
In Paris they like french fries in their falafels, so maybe you were channeling Paris?
I saw this at L'As du Falafel in the Marais.
Happy eating in 2007!
oh god, this is just too much for me... you know, i'm on a diet. well, kind of. not really. anyway, this looks REALLY delicious.
i was reading your blog's archives and, i have to say that, i've never tried a macaron. what does it taste like? can i find macarons here in italy?
lovely blog, as always.
xxx
Tommy: I guess it's easy to get distracted in NYC; it's not all about falafels. [sigh] No hamentashen for you? Aw...well, at least you have the egg custard tarts.
Lisa: Oo, I never had a falafel sammich with fries! I had those ridiculous gyros with fries, hehe. Oooh when I go back to Paris I'm getting me one of those...and the falafel thing. Mmhm. :)
kia: What does a macaron taste like? Eek...I hope I described it well enough in one of my archived entries cos it would take a while to get into here. It's. Um. Yummy! I wouldn't have any idea if you can find them in Italy unless you come across a French bakery there? :) You could always try to make them yourself. But hey, France isn't far, juust fly over! Bwahaha.
Gaaah i hate how i always fall in love with food images and decide i DEFINITELY have to try this, only to remember i live in Scandinavia and have very little hope of ever getting to the US, or finding the restaurants.. v.v