Ramps Rampage at Craftbar!...

This past Sunday, after a very very long work week, and...very long couple weeks of feenin' for ramps--I overloaded w/ RAMPS(!) @ Craftbar with Albee. Actually, I debated getting the chicken pate & ramps sammich @ Num Pang, then ramps on the menu at Mas, Savoy, Lupa, Otto (ramps pizza!), Bar Artisanal (white asparagus + bottarga with RAMPS! ), Beppe, A Voce, and Spotted Pig (RAMP SOUP! TEEE!! and ramps w/ fried duck egg!) and anywhere I could google ramps on the menu to my heart/stomach's desire. Back Forty in the EV should have it--as should a lot of restos in the city this season. Ramps are wild leeks that are like if Onion and Garlic married--or rather, had an orgy with lots of onions and lots of garlic :D

Albee & I settled on Craftbar b/c they were open on a Sunday, had a seasonal (and appetizing) menu, was close by, and...hearty-seeming meal to be had :) To start of with--desserts!! The mint ice cream on my brownie was DIVINE b/c it didn't taste minty--it tasted mint-leaf-y! Made me as delighted as I was to have culantro/long coriander! SO refreshing, SUCH a better version of 'mint' compared to the processed, saccharine mintiness. I def can see how people might prefer 'mint' to be a more tactile/taste-buds tingling experience but this is FLAVOR! and REFRESHMENT! not...slapping your tongue around a bit trying to get a sensation.

BUT--this is actually the pistachio 'sorbet' :) Very VERY pistachio-y in that it tastes like actual roasted pistachios! And (as much as I like the pistachio spumoni @ Spumoni Gardens) incomparable to the unholy fluorescent green and fake pistachio flavoring to most ice creams--except the Haagen Daaz pistachio is actually pretty damn tasty but it tastes more like pistachio cookie than quintessence of the pistachio nut itself! My mint ice cream & brownie to punctuate this entry latah...

First...pork shoulder w/ tomato molasses and RAMPS MARMALADE! and then hamachi w/ pineapple puree and RAMPS!

Then for entrees--Albee and i got MORE RAMPS! :) We split the Tagliatelle w/ tomato ragout and RAMPS! See that sprig pulled up to the corner? That's a limp but roasted ramp :) TEEHEE! Isolated just for you ;P

Very simple dish--tomato ragout had deep flavors (obviously had a lot of time to reduce--*ahem-popupshopinwilliamsburgwhoneedstolearnthisidea!*). LOVE a tasty roasted/super reduced, well seasoned (as in lightly) tomato (whole tomaters methinks--and totally not overpoweringly dense tomato-y flavor either).

And also split the casunziei (kah-soon-zee-ay) which is a stuffed half moon pasta with BEETS(!), grana padano cheese, ricotta, brown butter, spinach, and pooppy seeds.

If they had RAMPS ice cream I'd totally eat that--I had garlic ice cream @ The Stinkin' Rose in LA and fundamentally ramps is...wild leeks with a more spring-onion-y look...AND is sweet-ish in pickled form so I'd see that as a tasty possibility ^_^. Brownie was nice, whip cream was light! MINT ICE CREAM IS SO MINT-LEAFY!! It was like eating a real leaf minus the cellulose and chewing :D So subtle, delightfully airy ^_^ Happy happy. (tewtally elevates the idea of brownie a la mode as some pedestrian diner-food or playdate with rugrats kinda thing!--for certain, the ice cream is made fresh, all natural in the BEST of the word as opposed to...super-ascetic-granola-birkenstocks-recycled-plastics way. Respecting the ingredients!)

I heart Ramps!! Must go to union square market...buy...ramps...now! YARG!

Cafe Euro in Balestrate...

Down the st. from Scott & Ange's place in Balestrate--one of the better pasticcerie in all of *ITALY* that we got a chance to go to...I guess...we wanted more of a panificio (bakery) than a sweets shop--but even still...most of them didn't deliver in terms of the breads, pastries, etc in texture etc. Their cornetto/croissants are pretty dense...as is most their...carbs we thought =/ Or the pastry cream was wack! Either way...

SO YUMMMAAAAY!!!!!!

...lotsa ricotta in these...a bit overwhelming at times but I mean...these things are massssive! TEEHEE!!!!! Their sfoglias and croissants and other stuff are far from flakey either.

The tarts were rather good--the wild strawberries--MAN the fruit toppings/fruit themselves make such a HUGE diff when abroad!! The pastry cream here is also one of the better ones I've tasted in my life too....and look they wrap everything up so prettily!...

It's also really interesting the diff in bread rise and airy qualities the farther down south you go. Mostly plain jane breads--they serve their purpose =/ But...these from Cafe Euro we thought had the right amount of sweetness and compromise in airiness/bready...whatever it is.

We had what looked like 2 massive cakey/doughey things overflowing with Ricotta--but actually one is like a bombolone (italian donut/beignet) and the other is more...brioche-like.

As u can tell the Italians (esp Sicily) love their almond cookies and pistachio or pine nuts! I can't complain. I think I prefer ricotta over marscapone as well!...SUPER CLOSE-UP OF PISTACHIO COATING!!...:) it was so ...deliciously green and coloured!! And almond-y!

I think this is one of the most fun/funny shots I've taken b/c u can clearly see Karen smiling w/ glee in the background over the foods hehe...

It was perfect weather, perfect lighting, perfect mostly everything in Sicily after so much rain and some ish in Bologna and Florence when we first came in! :) Except for the slow ass non-existent trains that take longer than the bus to get from outside the city into Palermo hehe...SUPER ZOOM on the pistachio topped almond cake!!

preview of Kee's chocolates...

OMFG.
got an xmas gift: box of Kee's chocolates...ended up ordering a box of 12 to bring back to CA for the holidays--this is just a light smattering of...the silkiest, delicate/ephemeral, intoxicatingly complex flavored, hand rolled chocolates you'll find anywhere. Godiva/Lindt/et al. be damned! *shakes fist!*

not gonna tell you what these are just yet--or what I ordered...but with flavors like yuzu, kaffir lime, lemon basil, honey saffron, creme brulee, fennel, smoked salt, thai chili, cognac, elderflower, pistachio, black sesame, different teas, honey kumquat....i just realized that's A LOT of the menu I gave away :P

but she makes macaroons too!! So much for "preview"...

WELL...you'll just have to wait for the pictures of them half bitten! :)

Sugar Sweet Sunshine (final cupcake showdown!)...

I've gotten in the habit of screening a new restaurant or dish before coming back to write about it. I just dont' like lugging the d-SLR around if I don't need to, complete with gorilla-pod, filter, flash, blahblahblabh. It's mostly b/c I'm a gelatinous pig. HA!! GET IT?? gluttonous, gelatinous, was being off kilter funny. *ahem*. anyway...

The first time I had Sugar Sweet Sunshine was @ Karen's bday when Claudz got her the pistacchio cake. Cakey cake cake...yummmmmm. ANYWAY...

The next time I actually had Sugar Sweet Sunshine was an abysmally long time after...like last month actually, before heading out to some BBQ (memorial day mehbeh?) in Billy-burgh. We got the Ooey Gooey (chocolate cake w/ chocolate almond buttercream), Pumpkin Spice (pumpkin cake w/ cream cheese icing),

...and Sexy Red Velvet (red velvet w/ satin buttercream), and Pistacchio (pistacchio cake w/ satin buttercream aka "the moose"). There was also the Sassy Red velvet--which just had the chocolate almond buttercream instead of the regular ish but that was saved for another day.

BOTTOM LINE: I think SSS is the bestest EVARRRRHHHHH because they color outside the lines a bit with flavor combos and whatnot--PISTACCHIO??? yum. Again, the icing on the pistacchio--the satin buttercream--is reminiscent of yet has a lighter consistency than the Marshmallow Fluff spread and I SWEAR...cannot be plain ol' buttercream but whatebbs.

One more shot of the Ooey Gooey w/ Milk b/c it was pretty :)

ALMOND EXTRACT in the buttercream--this ALSO is brazilliant, regardless of how innocuous almond extract really is. It blows my mind here and there when I haven't used it for a while in my cake b/c I kinda forget how aromatic and strong even a smidge of it is. CRAZY LIKE A FOX!!

Anyhoodle, when I came back to SSS the second time around w/ Julia, I got all the same stuff again and then some. Just a note, I've never found yellow cake to be that appealing--but SSS yellow cake, me likes. I wouldn't necessarily order a yellow cake cupcake over chocolate any given time, but for SSS I'd eat that shizz instead of letting it sit or pass it off to somebody else as I tend to. Yellow cake normally is just incredibly pedestrian to me. PSHHHHH...b*tch please. ;) No seriously, it's a little pedestrian.

Besides the fact that it's located in the Lower East Side in what looks to be a run-down, dirty hipster version of the light-Connecticut-Montauk white and pastel decor found at Billy's or Magnolia's where you might feel like making a patriotic pound cake or short cake topped with whipped cream and strawberries for stripes and blueberries for star emblem, drinking mint lemonade out of a mason jar with straw decoratively tied around the edge in the wicker basket of your bike as you pedal around Hyannisport or Nantucket or some crap....

Sugar Sweet sunshine looks like you're in a fonder memory of the 1960's going into 70's complete with requisite avocado/lime/whatever colors and peeling faded pink, playing in the attic with an E-Z oven while a fudgsicle stick drips down your wee little hands while scratching at your scraped up knees from the day's rowdiness in the sand pit watching the light bulb bake intently, while in the background ur older cousins or brother/sister played vinyls from Van Morrison or Stevie Wonder--hell maybe even the Steve Miller Band and possibly locking you out of the attic so they could try their hands at being mid-day tokers instead.

Or in my case, my brothers locked me in a closet so they wouldn't have to watch me when they sneaked out to play soccer w/ the neighborhood kids. I don't even know what that last imagery was like/came from b/c quite frankly my toddler years were in Vietnam playing on our third floor giant patio and watching this man who rented out some portion of my family's building make chalk. Seriously. Chalk making. pretty cool to watch. :)

But yeah--Sugar Sweet Sunshine in a nutshell: more homey-goodness and explorations into interesting cupcakery beyond that banal tripe of a competition between Magnolia's, Crumb's (bleah), Buttercup (bleaaaaaah), and Billy's--not to mention the kajillian offshoots from Magnolia's spreading in the outer bouroughs and such. PLUS SSS cupcakes are only $1.50 while the others are well above $2--not to mention stupid Sprinkles in CA is dry and I swear left out in the open for a long time and not fresh is close to $4 if memory serves me right. I lost pictures of Sprinkles when I went with Peggy the last time I was home =/ *curse you busted hard drive covered by warranty!* *shakes fist!*

....aaaaand *end scene*.

Gelati Grom-ness...

I am an italo-phile. no to the francophile. yes to the...anyhoodlekins.
Had some Grom on the UWS (Broadway b/w 76th & 77th st) w/ Jules-ster--she got the pistachio, I got the crema di grom.

I gotta say--it's a little refreshing, but disorienting to see Pistachio gelato/ice cream not in unearthly green form (see spumoni gardens pics). The pistachio also tasted nutty (as it probably should) and u can really taste the "toasted" side to it. Warm, not too sweet, delish.

My crema di grom is egg cream, Battifollo "meliga" biscuits (which evidently just means they made it with corn flour instead of wheat and...Grom's rather prideful about their snootiness in ingredients), and Ecuadorian chocolate. Some other flavors had Venezuelan chocolate--u should read about the crazy chocolate wars b/w Amedei and Valrhona...it's a little inSANE. **

Here's more of my ice cream b/c you love ze peektures. (Btw...a little too pricey for the sizes--what u see there was 5 bucks each.People are getting uber snooty about chocolates particularly the cocoa content, where the beans are from (likened to the origins of ze grapes and regions for ze wine and whatnot) and of course the recent NYtimes article on the emergence of snooty Milk Chocolate. The site 70% (referring to the % of cacao powder blahblahbl) is a good resource to edumacate urself on fancy chocolates (and buy them!).

In Italy, it was 3-4 euros for gelato the size of 2 of your fits clinging fervently to a sugar cone. Packed fo yo FACE!!) This one is a little...diminutive ain't it :P

I tried the Marrons de Glaces (good, i can't pinpoint the flavor but possibly red-bean-y or taro-y). The stracciatella is a good vanilla/cream-ish with chocolate and whatnot. Surprisingly they had Hazelnut AND Gianduja--but I gues that makes sense since gianduja is essentially Nutella (hazelnut chocolate) whereas the other one is just singular. I'm not a fan of sorbet so...I didn't try any. The Zabaione i think has the egg cream base like the Crema di Grom but with Sicilian Marsala wine.

I've had a few gelati downtown but I dunno...this does taste a lot cleaner/crisper and while creamy, just not as heavy as most gelati. My favorite was this place in Rome (I can't remember the cross streets but this was possibly near Piazza Navona on the way back from the Vatican near the bridge where that castle is. VAGUE yes? Whatebbs yo). Florence gelati was good but for some reason...that one in Rome always stuck with me.
There was a great gelato/coffee shop in the Belmont Shore strip in Long Beach. That you can look up yourself but I think it was called Cafe Roma--dun dun dunnn....

--
**(Valrhona refused to let the Tessieri bro/sis work with them, Tessieri goes straight to make a deal with the chocolate plantation folks in South America to work exclusively for Tessieri's AMADEI!!)