The Girl Who Ate Everything

Blogging about food and whatever since 2004.

fooding tour: Rice to Riches, Il Laboratorio del Gelato, Bouley Market, and Once Upon a Tart

As of right now (May 16th, 10:38 AM), my website isn't working. I'm writing this entry in gmail (thank god for autosave) figuring that my site will come back to life soon. Or else...

...I'll be really sad. And want to kick servers and stuff. Website failure-induced violence is not pretty.

Before I get onto the fooding, take a listen to Band of Horses. I'm listening to them right now and surprisingly liked them right away. It's surprising because 90% of the time I listen to something and think, "Crap, I think I should like this, but I don't." On an unrelated matter, I probably like 90% of the cookies I eat.

Ah, let's check the ol' website again. [clicky] " 404 Datei nicht gefunden"...that's not good.


yup
they suuure are

Last Thursday I went a-foodin' with Kate, her brother Jon, and Sarah. Our first stop was Rice to Riches, which is apparently "occupied by compulsively obsessed dessert loving people with no self-control or discipline". SOUNDS LIKE MY KIND OF PLACE?

solo is good enough for me
right on; I am already fat!

I've been here at least three times in the past and I feel like every time I come back, the price goes up. The rice pudding price per ounce must be at an all-time high. ...Actually, that $5 bowl has probably been there for a while. The first time I went to RTR two years ago, the smallest size was...larger. You could get two flavors and you definitely had to share, unless you loved rice pudding so much that you'd swim in a vat of it. Even though they made the smallest size smaller, it's still large enough for two people to share. Sadly though, you can only get one flavor.

banana coconut choc
so much pud

Sarah and I shared the banana coconut while Kate and Jon each got their own bowl of chocolatey creamy rice grains. The banana coconut had lots of banana flavor, but I think it could've used more coconut.

pudding hat
chug the pudding

I don't eat rice pudding often since on the scale of "stuff that Robyn likes", it ranks lower than the easier to find "ice cream" and "cookies", but Rice to Riches makes the best rice pudding I've ever eaten. It's not good enough to use a pudding hat for continual pudding consumption, but few things are. Also, that's kind of disturbing.

[ALERT: MY WEBSITE IS WORKING AGAIN. Obviously. Or else you wouldn't be reading this.]

sarah and the baguette
sarah looks at the baguette with...confusion

We went to Balthazar Bakery down the street to rip into a long, crusty baguette as a sort of palate cleanser in between all the sweets we'd eventually eat (actually...I just wanted bread). Don't worry; we put it out of its misery fairly quickly. Of course it was a good baguette—I only wish I had a tub of butter with me to slather the bread with. Or a pot of olive oil. Or a pot of oil infused by a tub of butter.

...Alright, that's going a little too far. I think my stomach lurched a little there.

PART TIME HELP! olive oil
ice cream is a-comin'

Next stop: Il Laboratorio del Gelato. It may not be as good as the stuff in Italy, but it's good enough for those of us not fortunate enough to have visited Italy and happen to be in NYC. If you need a part-time job, they're hirin'! FREE ICE CREAM, ANYONE? I had never seen the olive oil flavor before, so I tried a sample. It gave a tingly sensation, but didn't taste as strongly of olive oil as the gelato at Otto. Few substances can compare to the deliciousness of Otto's gelato.

cinnamon ice cream and lemon basil sorbet
probably not the best combination

So...I went for something completely new: Mexican cinnamon ice cream and lemon basil sorbet. I don't especially like sorbet, but I figured I'd steer away from uber-lactose-creaminess for once. Also, I was intrigued by the lemon and basil combination. Even though these flavors didn't necessarily go together (eating both flavors in the same spoonful didn't create a complementary taste, but rather just dulled both of them), I enjoyed them...separately. The cinnamon flavor lingered in my nasal passages after I ate it and for lack of a better description tasted so much like real cinnamon, if it naturally came in ice cream form. It's like cinnamon with super deluxe concentrated awesome power (and other words that you may find on Japanese snack packaging). The lemon basil sorbet was uber-strong. The tartness wasn't painful—it was just enough to make you go, "Holy crap...that's a lot of lemon." I guess it was the perfect amount of lemon-ness and not too sweet.

Overall though, I'm so not a sorbet person. Ice cream and all the creaminess it entails is like a warm, playful, fluffy puppy while sorbet and its frostiness is more like one of those hairless cats who probably isn't known for having a high level of funness. That sounds a bit harsh, but hopefully you know what I mean. I probably just haven't had spectatular sorbet yet. Someone gimme some happy puppy sorbet, now!

uh
creepy baby

We walked over to Babycakes, whose window featured a baby of non-human material holding a leaning tower of miniature chocolate cupcakes. The cupcakes are real—hopefully the baby is not. Or maybe the baby did something very wrong.

cute thing
stare into its deep, dark felty eyes

I don't know what that is, but it made me go "awww". And then I backed away because I could feels its eyes stare vapidly into my skull, probably inflicting some brain damage in the process.

chocolate chip cookies
chocolate chip cookies

We didn't feel like eating any of Babycakes' delicate tummy-safe goods, but it would've been easy to be lured by the amazing smell that filled the bakery. It smelled better than most bakeries I had been to. It smelled like...love. And happiness. And baking-ness. But baking-ness is love and happiness, yes? Perhaps next time I will try a gluten-free cookie.

stuff muffins
wow, more baked goods!...who would've thought?

We subwayed to the other side of Manhattan to visit Bouley Bakery and Market where Kate happilly got her hands on a chocolate viennoise. I didn't have anything in mind to get, but when presented with muffins and cookies, there's really no question. Sadly, the chocolate muffin was kind of meh—I found it too dry and not sweet enough (it reminded me of cocoa powder). Thankfully, the peanut butter cookie was a completely different story.

pb cookie
cookie slab: it can kill small children

For just $2 you too can have this golden, peanut butter cookie slab. Like other cookies I love (City Bakery, mainly), this cookie was thin, crispy on the outside, somewhat-undercooked chewy on the inside, and its pores seeped with fat. Just like mine...wait, I take that back. This baby goes on my "something I'd eat again" list, which means I recommend it highly. My assumption is that they have other kinds of cookies, thus it is now my goal to try every single one.

menu sammich
sandwich...from Once Upon a Tart

After parting ways with Kate and Jon, Sarah and I went to Once Upon a Tart. This was Sarah's last day in NYC before going home to Kansas (although she may come back later this summer for more fooding) and she really wanted to try their goat cheese with roasted portabello mushrooms and radicchio sandwich. It was good, generously stuffed with fungal matter and soft, aged curdled goat mammary gland liquid (ye just know I was trying to figure out the best way to describe the sandwich...uh, I failed), but I doubt I could ever love this sandwich to death (or at least not as much as Sarah) since I'm not a big fan of goat cheese. I don't dislike it, I just like other cheeses more.

I EMBRACE ALL THE CHEESES! GIMME YOUR CHEESE!

pumpkin praline muffin
pumpkin praline muffin

We split the pumpkin praline muffin back at my house. It's a beaut, eh? The muffin, not my house.

pumpkin praline muffin
innards!

It certainly wasn't a bad muffin, but it sadly didn't live up to expectations of mass muffin deliciousness based on previous muffin eating experiences from Once Upon a Tart. We expected a thin, slightly crispy exterior and a stronger pumpkin and praline flavor. From my experience, baked goods with pumpkin tend to have a strong pumpkin flavor, yet this...did not. WHERE DID IT GO? The muffin could've used more nuts along with pumpkin-ness. We wouldn't put this on the "eat again" list. However, I would recommend the apple cranberry muffin I ate previously. Mmm...chunky.

Yup, that's it. For now. It's my lunch break so I think I'll mosey out to student services to ask WHY MY DAMN TRANSCRIPT HAS AN INCOMPLETE GRADE ON IT. My independent study project is quite complete. NYU, DO YOU SEE THIS? DOOO YOUUU?! ARGAGHRRAHGHARGH!!!

[checks online transcript] Yup, still not there. What is there though is my latest grade: A- in food science and tech! Haha! Oh my god. I hope that's not a mistake. The only two grades I haven't gotten yet are for the two classes I sucked most horribly at. Damn.

Update (1:30 PM): I went to student services to inquire about my lost grade. They said they never got the form, or that it's "floating around". Nice to know! I went to my department and luckily got my advisor to write up another change of grade form. Sweet! I tucked it safely into my bag and brought it back to student services, where I was told that students aren't allowed to have change of grade forms. OKAY, I GET IT, NYU HATES ME. I brought the form back to my department and told them someone else had ot deliver it for me. The end. Hopefully the grade will get changed today and the study abroad office can look at my application and deem me suitable to SEND TO FUHRAAANSUUUH.

The next section has some food news related ramblings. They might interest you. Or not.


7UP is now all natural!

...Wait, not it's not. In internet speak, this is where I (and you) go double-you tee eff because...that's the only response I can come up with right now.

...Okay, I'll come up with some others. You probably could too. Along with the CSPI. A part of me wonders, "Who would actually believe this is all natural?" Probably not you or me. But out there? A disturbingly large number of people? The word "natural" doesn't have specific guidelines enforced by the FDA, but the word along with the 7UP commercials showing groves of cans being plucked off by farmers mask the unhealthfulness of the drink a smidge too much. Or many smidges too much.

Oh well. That is your "stupid thing in the food industry" news of the day.

Interesting conglomerate of American food companies: Best Food Nation. Kinda like Fast Food Nation. Get it? Haha. Kinda like Anti-Fast Food Nation. Haha.


Update (2:11 PM): HOLY CRAP, will someone think of the children?! SAVE THE INTERNET, DO IT. IN CAPS.

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies � including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner � want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won't load at all.

They want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. They want to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video � while slowing down or blocking their competitors.

These companies have a new vision for the Internet. Instead of an even playing field, they want to reserve express lanes for their own content and services � or those from big corporations that can afford the steep tolls � and leave the rest of us on a winding dirt road.

That totally blows.

Comments

Kathy / May 16, 2006 1:50 PM

Rice to riches is addicting - it's sooo bad for both your waistline and stomach but I can't help by "wander" in all the time. Imagine the profit they must make. $5 for a bowl of pudding?? I think a part of me just wants to collect the tupperware bowls.

Student Services!! I think they mean well (hopefully) but they always appear lost and confused whenever I go in to ask questions...

Yay for summer:)

Daisy / May 16, 2006 1:56 PM

That picture about being already fat and the different bowl sizes just cracked me up. :)

And yes, student services... *rolls eyes* It's like they think you have nothing better to do but wait for them to be efficient and get a move on.

Samurai Nick / May 16, 2006 4:54 PM

Thank goodness the site is back up.

Wait a sec...

OH THE HUMANITY! Your music blog is giving me page cannot be displayed!

Wait a sec...

Now its back. False alarm. What is going on with the internet today?

Claudia / May 16, 2006 6:13 PM

thank god you're back up. i too was going through robyn withdrawal :( your blog is like crack and it's hard to not stop by your blog several times a day to see if you've written anything new :)

Kristin / May 16, 2006 10:21 PM

That baby is creepy as hell. The picture scared me before I even got to your comment.

Sorry to hear about your problems with the NYU student center.

So I'm guessing you've read Fast Food Nation. Haha, even in that book, there's an entire section explaining that "natural" really isn't necessairly any more natural than artificial flavor. I bet this will turn into a race now - who can get all their flavors "natural" the fastest. I did a science report on 10th grade on one chapter in FFN called "What's In The Meat". LOL I am so cynical. But so is that book. haha.

WTF? I hate companies. What makes them think it's their right to control all the websites that we see? Oh yeah. MONEY. I'm starting to believe that money is the root of all evil. Read "Perfectly Legal" by David Cay Johnston and you'll see what I mean. Enough ranting. Back to history, haha.

roboppy / May 16, 2006 10:56 PM

Backyard Chef: I'll always be here! Just...probably won't post every day. :) If you get withdrawal symptoms, just eat a lot of sugar. Unless you're a diabetic! Um.

Kathy: Wow, did you go there a lot? I only go when other people want to go. I guess that applies to...anything that isn't a bakery, haha. I wouldn't go to Il Lab for no reason. Need other people to gorge with me!

It must cost a lot to run that store, I figure. The bowls are so heavy-duty and the design of the place is...interesting. And it's nice and cleean. ALL FOR FREAKIN' PUDDING.

Daisy: That sign is genius. So true! They tell it like it is.

I'm still waitng for my transcript to unsuck...

Nick: I noticed the problem with my music blog too! Maybe AT&T already got a hold of the internetsss NOOOO!

Claudia: My blog is like crack? GOODIE! Don't feel like you have to check every day though! I update a few times a week, hehe. Take a breather...walk arounnd..yeaah!

Kristin: I read Fast Food Nation a few times, yup! And other foodie books. :) Fat Land is good too. I'm surprised when I hear that people haven't read these books, but then I remember that I'm more obsessed with food than most people. Hm.

The world natural almost means nothing. Ugggh. "NATURALLY MADE IN THE HEART OF NJ'S FLAVOR FACTORIES!!!"

I had to watch Modern Meat twice last year. THAT WAS FUN. Mm, slaughter!

Money is the root of evil, yup. Or maybe that's greed. Cos people can be greedy...without the monies...but judging from some people in my family, money is definitely evil. :( People in my family just want to have it and not actually do anything with it. It's kinda weird.

Cat / May 16, 2006 11:26 PM

babycakes is actually really good, and you must read "eat, pray, love" I think you would like it.

Cathy / May 17, 2006 12:42 PM

I like Rags to Riches size options. I also like how they try to rationalize eating a jumbo sized bowl of pudding (or anything else they offer). Sounds like my kind of place. :)

I have a good Pumpkin Muffin recipe. It's pretty basic recipe, but one could dress it up with some pecans or cream cheese icing or both. I know you're not into baking so much, but I can give you the recipe if you're interested.

ed / May 17, 2006 1:28 PM

ehhh..i doubt that internet rumor is true. it's rather farfetched. not to mention the market wont allow it. there's lots of smaller ISP's just waiting to pounce on that opportunity. =]

roboppy / May 17, 2006 3:10 PM

Cat: I had a really good chocolate cake at Babycakes the first time I went, but I never saw it again! :| I liked their cupcake too, although I would've liked sweeter frosting.

I'll check out the book. Just bought a bunch of stuff on amazon.com though, ehe. (Nothing food related!)

Tommy: Could've been...should've been...(sigh)

Cathy: I wonder who buys the giant party tub of pudding. KINDA SCARY.

I'd try the recipe! I'm not into baking because it leaves me with too many leftovers that I end up eating. :( When I made cupcakes once, it was right before I had to move back to my dorm, so I left most of them at home. They also tasted kinda funky possibly because of salted butter...but they weren't that bad. Ehh. I ate so many of them!

ed: I STILL SUPPORT THE INTERNET...um, yes.

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