Burger & Barrel and Venieros Pastry

Manhattan is really a miserable place to live, so when I really hate it, I go to a really chic restaurant so I feel like I'm living in a romantic comedy.

At Burger & Barrel, I got beef tartare, which is raw ground beef mixed with various condiments. This was really good; the seasoning was very simple and didn't overwhelm the meat. The beef itself was very rich, so the escarole, capers, and pickled radish balanced it very well.

Is it weird to get so excited about toasted bread? I feel like most restaurants can't get toasted bread right; it's usually too thin and flimsy, or not charred enough. However, the toasted bread that came with this was so perfect. It's the perfect dense texture, charred, and buttered.

I also got duck lasagna. The edges of the noodles were really crispy, which was pretty interesting. Although the duck was very tender, the dish was just very bland. Although there's tomato sauce underneath, the lasagna itself is filled with very basic bechamel sauce (basically white cream sauce), which really masks the flavor of the duck. The only time I actually tasted the duck was when I burped 20 minutes later.

I'm really starting to wonder if I can get good truffle fries anywhere in New York. I've had some pretty incredible truffle fries (like at Umami Burger), but this one was just plain fries with three drops of truffle oil sprinkled on top. Once you eat through the top layer, the truffle essence is gone.

I was getting pretty sad towards the middle of the meal (yes, food can make me sad) so I decided not to stay for dessert. Instead, I went to my favorite pastry shop, Venieros in East Village.

Venieros has the most fantastic pastries and cakes. I got tiramisu cake, which is a big wedge of chocolate cream with small chunks of cake in it. It's just a delicious, fatty dessert that's not too heavy and always makes me happy.

The best part of being 21 is being able to drink alcohol mixed with coffee in a public place. I ordered Bailey's Irish Cream coffee, which is exactly what it sounds like. Bailey's itself tastes like chocolate milk, so this just tastes like an alcoholic mocha, which is never a bad thing.

Burger & Barrel
25 W Houston St
http://www.burgerandbarrel.com/

Venieros Pasticceria
342 E 11th St
http://www.venierospastry.com/

Triple Pastry Wednesday at Magnolia Bakery

Wednesday is officially my least favorite day, because I have a three-hour lecture with no breaks and an overly tough professor. And for lectures over two hours, I think I deserve one pastry per hour in class. It's just common sense.

I had to get Magnolia Bakery's famous banana pudding. The custard itself is so creamy and rich, and not overly sweet. And there's chunks of cake it in, which is always nice. The slices of banana are okay, but I thought they were kind of mushy and had an odd, spongey texture. I would order this again, but I would prefer the bananas to just be pureed into the custard.

Magnolia Bakery is the only place I buy cupcakes from, because you can get buttercream instead of cream cheese frosting, which is gross. Their red velvet cupcake is so moist and fluffy, and the buttercream is so light. Honestly, I don't really know what red velvet cake is supposed to taste like, but I just love eating something that's so unnaturally red.

Fall means pumpkin pie! I got a small one--six inches, which I feel is still quite large, especially since I refuse to share. I like this quite a lot; most pumpkin pies are overly cinnamony and sweet, but this tastes very mild and creamy. The crust is also quite nice and flaky.

I really love everything at Magnolia Bakery--just make sure you go at a random time to avoid long lines. I can't wait for next Wednesday to get three of something else...

Magnolia Bakery
Various locations
http://www.magnoliabakery.com/

Cronuts at Dominique Ansel Bakery

The "cronut," which was released four months ago, is supposed to be a combination of a croissant and a doughnut, and it has taken America by storm. On the Dominique Ansel Bakery website, it says if you start waiting 2.5 hours before the bakery opens, you will have a "good chance" of getting a cronut. Meaning, even if you start waiting at 5:30am, you still may not get one.

I decided to get up bright and early to get in line before 5:30 (or actually, dark and early); I woke up at 4:30, leaving half an hour to wake up and half an hour to get there. I didn't even put on my eyebrows--it would just slow me down. I got there at 5:21 and there were already six people in front of me. The hardest part is waiting; bring an iPad to watch a movie or a fully charged phone, and maybe also a lawn chair if you don't like sitting on the sidewalk or squatting. Around 7:45, a guy will come out with baskets of madeleines and pass them out to everyone who has been waiting in line. Thanks, but when I've been up since 4:30, I need something more substantial than an extremely dry madeleine.

For some reason, I thought the cronut was going to look a lot more refined than this. Dominique Ansel is hailed as a star patissier, and all of his other cakes and pastries are beautiful. But this just looks like a $1 doughnut from a street cart with a fig on top (September's flavor is fig mascarpone). I must admit, I was very skeptical of how good the cronut is, but the texture is really interesting; it's less fluffy, and a little chewier than the interior of regular doughnuts. However, the big mistake that they made was to serve it at room temperature--a fried doughnut that isn't warm tastes a little greasy (but still okay), but then when you fill it with marscapone and cooked figs, the flavor just becomes kind of muddy. Although I like figs, and I like marscapone, I would've preferred a plain cronut because the execution is a little disappointing.

If I'm going to wait for 2.5 hours outside a bakery, I'm not going to walk away with a just croissant shaped like a doughnut. I've been told that the canele and eclairs are good, so I got one of each (I got the salted caramel eclair--they have chocolate as well). The canele is good, but I don't feel like it's a vast improvement from any other good caneles, like the ones at Lafayette--I wouldn't make a special trip here if you have a more convenient location to go to. The eclair's salted caramel flavor was spot-on, but the pastry shell just did not taste fresh--it had this kind of "refrigerated" flavor, kind of like when you leave cake uncovered in the fridge for a while, and then it tastes stale and the texture becomes kind of dry and crumbly.

Overall, I give Dominique Ansel Bakery an average rating. If I'm going to wake up at 4:30am for anything, it better be something that is life-changing and ruins all other food for me. However, cronuts just didn't do it for me. The texture is interesting, but it's not something that I'm going to dream about for the three hours of sleep I get before lining up to get another one. And the other pastries were just kind of eh. Although it was a cool experience, I wouldn't do it ever again.

Dominique Ansel Bakery
189 Spring St.
http://dominiqueansel.com/
For more information on the cronut: http://dominiqueansel.com/cronut-101/

Pies n Thighs

Omg guys, this is literally the third time I've ever eaten in Brooklyn. It's not that I'm a Manhattan snob, but the abundance of ombre hair and visible belly buttons is a little much for me. But I figured, if it's really bad, then I'll have a legitimate reason to hate Brooklyn.

The chocolate cake doughnut is quite large and really heavy. It's not very sweet, which is nice, but it's really not a special or particularly great doughnut. I think it's also important to note that when I took it home, the grease from the doughnut soaked through the wax paper and into my purse--it's like a sponge soaked in oil.

When I saw how small the chicken biscuit was... I almost thought it was a joke--it's pretty much the same size as the doughnut. It's a fried chicken cutlet sandwiched in a biscuit, and then it's all smothered in hot sauce (which is just wing sauce) and honey butter. The chicken is actually really crispy and moist, but there was barely any chicken! The biscuit is so fluffy, but the bottom of it was so hard, I really couldn't saw through it. Overall, it wasn't bad, but I wish the hot sauce came on the side (or maybe just have less of it) because it's so strong and it becomes the only thing you can taste.

Of course it would be illegal to go to a place called Pies n Thighs and not get pie. I got a slice of bourbon pecan to go, and I was really disappointed. Although the filling was quite nice, the crust was really thin--and what little of it there was, was really greasy.

Another thing about this restaurant is that it doesn't feel very clean. I sat right next to the fridge and saw this:

... which is really gross.

Overall, I give this restaurant just an average rating. The pastries are just fine, but I can definitely see the other fried chicken dishes being really good. Get everything to go; after you see the state of the fridge, everything around you starts to feel sticky.

Pies n Thighs
166 S 4th Street
http://piesnthighs.com/

Victoria C. Kitchen: How to make ramen not sad

Shin Ramen is probably the most luxurious instant noodles while you're a student, and we all need a cheap meal sometimes... but for less than two dollars you can make it not so sad!

You need:
One packet of Shin Ramen ($1)
One large handful of baby spinach (or some other vegetable; $0.66)
One large egg ($0.31)
Total: $1.97

Bring three cups of water to a boil, and add the noodles. Meanwhile, beat the egg and add it to the pot, along with the soup base packet (you don't have to beat the egg, but it will cook a lot faster). Put the spinach in a large bowl, and when the noodles and egg are done, pour it on top of the spinach--it will cook instantly.

Also, is Breaking Bad not the best show ever?