Just Pictures (New York City Edition): Sweets, My Favorite Meal Of The Day

This past Tuesday, the husband and I came back from a whirlwind trip to New York City.  Typically when we visit our friends in New York, each day is planned to the fullest with things to do from morning until late at night.  And why not?  There is just so much to explore in this great big city and maximizing our time is the best way.  We can save sleep for later.  However, this time around, we wanted a more relaxed visit of just stopping by a few places and, of course, eating at some must-hit spots.  Although the itinerary was "lighter" this time, we were still defeated every single day from roaming around New York City!  Our legs and feet were sore, bodies exhausted and fatigued, and too full at all times that I don't remember ever feeling hungry in the 4 days we were in New York.  Well, actually, the last point might be a good thing! 

Since we ate so much on our trip, I am putting the places we visited into categories and blogging them in separate posts.  Let's start out with my favorite thing to eat: sweets!!

Big Gay Ice Cream Shop // East Village

I saw this place on the Food Network channel many months ago and made a mental note to myself that I will need to visit next time in New York.  I actually completely forgot about it until my friend mentioned the Salty Pimp and eating one for her on this trip.  Not to fail my fellow foodie friend, that's exactly what I did!

Salty Pimp - vanilla ice cream, dulce de leche, sea salt, chocolate dip.  The ice cream was rich and creamy, and every time you bite into it, you are hit with the sweet chocolate shell and dulce de leche first, and then a salty aftertaste.  It was quite delicious, don't get me wrong, but probably because of my inability to eat anymore on this day (I had a snack before dinner, then shared two appetizers and ate an entire pasta dish by myself) that it became too rich for me.  Regardless, I still ate it all.  Heh.

Mermaid - vanilla ice cream, key lime curd, crushed graham crackers, whipped cream.  The sourness of the key lime curd was a great balance with the creamy vanilla ice cream, and the graham crackers provided a refreshing crunch to the combination.  This was good!

Doughnut Plant // Lower East Side or Chelsea

Unique doughnuts.  I was excited to try this place and did not regret any calories from these creative and delicious doughnuts.  They make two types of doughnuts - yeast and cake.  The yeast doughnut is what you would typically imagine a doughnut to be - puffy, fried doughy goodness.  The cake doughnut is more dense and cake-like (hah).  The cake doughnuts here were moist and soft.

(From left to right, clockwise)
Peanut Butter and Jelly (filled with jelly)
Valrhona Chocolate
Gingerbread (cake)
Peanut Butter and Banana (filled with peanut butter custard)
Creme Brulee (filled with custard)

We made a second trip to the Chelsea location on our last day and bought a few more: Cranberry,
Coconut Glazed with Blueberry Jam, Vanilla Bean Glazed, Tres Leche, and Matcha Green Tea (no pictures though). 

After listing all of these, I am realizing we ate too many doughnuts on this trip...

Lady M Cake Boutique // Upper East Side

Lady M Mille Crepe Cake - 20 layers of crepe with light custard cream in between.  This cake was DIVINE.  I am still dreaming about it...

Strawberry Mille Feuille - Thin puff pastry surrounding light sponge cake with custard cream and fresh strawberries in between.  Light and refreshing.

I now know why they are a cake boutique... all of their cakes are prepared with the best ingredients and carefully assembled and decorated.  Simply exquisite.

Spot Dessert Bar // East Village

A couple of weeks before our trip, this dessert bar was featured on a local channel show that was on late at night.  It was perfect timing!

Just a side note, please excuse the quality of the pictures from Spot... on the first day in New York, I forgot to bring my camera out with me and had to resort using my cell phone for picture-taking.

Thai Tea Creme Brulee - cream brulee and a side of a lighter version of thai tea, with simply syrup and cream.  I thought this dessert was not sweet enough and was my least favorite.

Yuzu Eskimo Pie - yuzu (a citrus fruit that is kind of like a mix between a mandarin orange and a pomelo) ice cream with a oreo-like cookie crust, strawberries, raspberry foam, chocolate pearls, oreo soil, chocolate ganache.  I did not expect yuzu to be that sour, but the yuzu ice cream gave me a little bit of a squirm upon the first bite.  A fruity dessert!

Chocolate Green Tea Lava Cake with Green Tea Ice Cream - soft and moist chocolate cake with a green tea white chocolate filling.  I don't remember much of the green tea filling because the rich chocolate cake overpowered it, but the green tea ice cream hit it "spot" on and the warm and icy combination was delicious.  This was my favorite out of the three.