Favorite NYC bites while on vacation

NYC was, as always, colder than I ever expected but I suppose the constant sunshine makes up for it. Between the coldness, I stuffed myself silly with tacos, elotes, tostadas, agua de jamaica and tamarind popsicles in Mexico. And as much as I love the food down there, it's New York that's my favorite restaurant city. So here's a quick rundown of my favorite New York City bites this (last) time around.

Top bites (in no particular order):

1. Pretty much everything at Kin Shop, and specifically the steamed red snapper in green curry

2. Banana pudding from Buttercup Bake Shop which is less sweet than the Magnolia's one

3. Jalapeno cheddar pretzel from Sigmund Pretzel Shop stand at the Union Square Holiday Market

4. San Daniele prosciutto, Grana Padano and fig mostarda panini from Biba Wine Bar (this is a cheat as it's actually in Philly but I got to see my Parisian-wine-bar-during-summer partner BB!)

5. Hot apple cider from Breezy Hill Orchards in Union Square

6. Mo's dark chocolate bacon bar from Vosges Haut Chocolat

7. The (pricey) tequila and mezcal cocktails at Mayahuel  

8. Ridiculously fresh mozzarella, topped with a drizzle of olive oil at Eataly

Disappointments:

1. New menu at Dos Caminos - watery guac and a waitress that forgot 2/3 of our order

2. Brunch at Telepan - some stuff was good but overall it was meh, especially for the price

And here's some pretzel love. OMNOMNOM.

(Pre-)Chrismas in Paris

Paris doesn't seem to be overly festive during the holidays. There are some lights here and there, the big department stores have display windows but in general it seems fairly quiet. Although there was a snowstorm this month that had Paris stalled and taxi drivers sitting at home.

There are no 24/7 Christmas songs playing here. Or maybe there are and I just don't know since I don't watch TV  or listen to the radio (slingbox!). But they do have a really cute uber-touristy Christmas market located on the bottom half of the Champs-Elysees starting from Place de la Concorde.
 
It's pretty much like a regular holiday market, with vendors hawking jewelry, scarves, wood carvings and other random gift-esque things. A part of the Christmas market is divided into "countries" with each section devoted to a particular one (eg the Germany section sold bratwurst, the Belgian section sold waffles, etc.). However, it seemed that mulled wine aka vin chaud aka Glühwein aka Glögg (this is my favorite name for it) didn't have a nationality and was ubiquitous with all. Which was good because every few booths is another potential wine stop to warm you up. Bad because with so many people, good luck in trying to walk holding a hot cup of dangerously dark red steamy liquid while trying to avoid people bumping into you causing you to spill your drink all over yourself and stain your jacket. No, that did not happen to me but it almost did. Eventually we just decided to stand off to the side and drink.

The other thing that this market seemed to have a lot of was food. Aforementioned bratwurst was eaten, as well as Transilvanian Kürtőskalács (similar to Baumkuchen) which was dusted with cinnamon sugar, some chocolate covered gingerbread cookies and these things:

They're actually kinda funny-looking now that I see this picture but they were delicious. They were called chocolat mousse meringue and supposedly a specialty from Alsace (or so I think it said but I couldn't find them on Googling and might I mention I am an excellent Googler?). Basically its a small wafer disk (pretty tasteless), topped with some kind of sticky chewy ooey gooey  cross between a marshmallow and undercooked meringue, which I guess is there the mousse meringue part comes from, and enrobed in a thin layer of chocolate (by the way, there's a dessert book called Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey out which (a) looks good and (b) has an awesome title). They had them in what I thought was different flavors but it's just a different chocolate covering. Anyhow, this was the best €1 spent in a while.

You know what else I spent money on? A mini buche de noel since I've never had one before. Maybe not the best place to get it (Paul, although they do have some killer chocolate chouquettes) and not the most traditional flavor (I got the exotique with passionfruit and mango) but it did in a cinch. But it was also meh. So meh that I didn't even finish and that rarely happens with dessert.

The other thing that's pretty awesome during the holiday season here is the ridiculous lighting along the entire facade of the Galeries Lafayette's main building. The Macy's facade Christmas tree lights and even the snowflakes on Saks are weak sauce compared to this. It almost looks like cathedral windows.

The awesomeness of the lights was quickly supplanted by the un-awesomeness of the crowds around and inside the department store. People were in there like herded cattle - you could barely move in some areas! It look me a while to find what I was looking for but after I did, I didn't spend a second longer in the store and got out as fast as I could (a feat in itself).

And since it's the holidays, I once again took over an oven, this time baking chocolate chip cookies, salted fudge brownie bites and mini blackberry cornmeal cupcakes with lemon buttercream frosting (that turned into mini blackberry cornmeal cupcakes when the frosting broke) and distributing to coworkers. They seemed to be either amazed that I (a) can cook or (b) that the things didn't taste awful. You decide which one. Although I totally over-baked one batch of brownies. (Note: must not be lazy and take pictures of food I make).

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have a 7:30am flight to catch to New York.

New York hot dogs and Russian pastries in Paris

Deciding what to do for lunch at work is usually one of two things for me - cafeteria or Kayser. On occasion I'll venture out somewhere else but there's not that many places nearby where you can get something amazing for take-out. The baguettes here are as ubiquitous as the bodega sandwiches and the delis with make-your-own-salads in NYC - so no sense in wandering too far. Today, however, my Russian coworker AP and I wandered over to Printemps, where Cafe Pouschkin, an off-shoot of a restaurant in Moscow, has opened up on the ground floor. 

It has macarons (of course), pastries (mais oui!) and pirozhki. That's what I was there for. They were tiny but I heard they were good so I went ahead and ordered one meat and one mushroom.

Sensing it may not be enough for lunch, we also grabbed hot dogs New Yorkaise from a Manhattan Hot Dog cart, which is located between the two Printemps stores. As with burgers, I'm a purist - just a regular hot dog, in a bun, with ketchup.

I must say, not bad. Not bad at all. Actually, I quite liked the hot dog - the bun was very soft in that soft American hot dog bun kind of way but the main thing was the actual hot dog - it tasted real and was a normal size!

And now, the two pirozhki. While the pastry itself was perfectly adequate with a hint of sweetness, the meat turned out to be somewhat dry and the mushrooms flavorless. At €2.20 for something the size of my palm, I'd be hoping you can do better.

However, I plan to be back to sample some of the Russian-inspired desserts, like tarte sgouschenka, a riff off tarte au caramel that uses condensed milk and makes it into something similar to dulce de leche, and torte meodnik, or layered honey cake.