Wee & sweet finale at Lincoln

Saturday was one of those "I love New York" days. Unseasonably warm. The Union Square greenmarket was filled with pumpkins, sunflowers, and bees buzzing around the sweet-smelling Concord grapes. I had a date with a good friend to see the Palm d'Or-winning French film, Amour, at the New York Film Festival. And we met for a pre-matinee brunch at Lincoln.

  

Elegant but leisurely, it was one of the best restaurant experiences I've had in a long time. The glass walls brought the energy from Lincoln Center inside, though it remained impossibly serene. Every detail, from the pour of the olive oil to the shape of the sugar spoon to the shavings of ricotta, was exquisite. And the petit plate of treats—caramels, truffles, biscotti and butter cookies—that came at the end of the meal was all I needed to make me a very happy girl.

Lincoln

142 West 65th Street

Sugar (& Sugar) & Plumm

New York just keeps giving. Candy. Chocolate. Pastries. Ice cream masterpieces. What do you want? What are you waiting for? Whatever it is, get yourself to Sugar & Plumm and dig in!

Pick up some baked goods (those cupcakes have pastry chef Pichet Ong’s signature all over them—yum!)…

… or take some divine desserts to go (have you ever seen such a seductive carrot cake?).

 Or you can opt for chocolates, from French chocolatier Thierry Atlan…

… and packaged bits and candy by the ounce (c’est dangeroux!).

The boutique-restaurant has a fun vibe. The David Rockwell interior is peppy and informal, and moms can walk around with wine while the rugrats annihilate gummies and sundaes.

It’s the kind of place you have to revisit again and again to sample all the delicious chocolaty, creamy, sugary offerings.

Sugar & Plumm 

377 Amsterdam Avenue 

 

Oh my sorely neglected sweets

You’d think that I’ve given up sugar. Lost my appetite for cake. Am shying away from all things fudgy, crunchy, creamy, chocolaty, gooey and otherwise so sublimely satisfying.

Trust me. Nothing is further from the truth.

While I haven’t had any good hauls at new bakeries, I have been stuffing my maw with morning pastries…

… cookies…

....cakes…

...decadent breakfasts…

....and, especially, ice cream…

More important, I am planning on getting out in the field more these upcoming weeks to give my sweet tooth some proper exercise.

From top to bottom: pastries at The Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, CO; almond croissant from Ceci-Cela; walnut chocolate chip cookie from Levain; salted chocolate chip cookie from Ovenly, BK; wedding cake from Lot 2, BK; homemade three-layer strawberry cake; french toast from Homemade, BK; peach ice cream from Old Lyme Ice Cream Shop, Old Lyme, CT; Dairy Queen goodness from Old Saybrook, CT; homemade gelato sampler from Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria.

Cookie monsters

It's been a slow, steady descent. Ever since Paris, My Sweet launched, I have been on a tear. There have been launch parties (macarons! brownies!), promotional tours (cookies in Philly! candy in San Francisco!), and gifts galore. There has not been a lot of restraint.

I'm not a girl to say no. Especially to freshly baked cookies that come wrapped in a bow. Specifically, Levain's six-ounce juggernauts of richness, sweetness and insanity.

Chocolate peanut butter chip: rich and savory. Good protein, right??

Oatmeal raisin: perhaps the sweetest, heaviest specimens ever sampled.

Double chocolate. Double dark chocolate. Like a sweet punch to the gut.

And good old chocolate chip. With walnuts to lend some seriousness.

At my various book events, people often ask what my favorite sweet in New York City is. It's a tough question with no single answer. It depends on my mood, the time of day, how chubby I'm feeling, what neighborhood I'm in—many things. But I always come back to Levain. Connie McDonald and Pam Weekes have created something deliciously decadent and all-around wonderful in Levain.

Is there one best chocolate chip cookie in New York?

It’s almost embarrassing how many great chocolate chip cookies there are in Manhattan. When you go to other towns and cities, bakery cookies are often hard and crunchy and lack imagination and strong flavor. Here in New York, there are infinite delicious options. I’ve always been torn between three top contenders:

City Bakery

Levain

And Momofuku

How does one make a choice between these three?

City Bakery’s lovely, dreamy, crunchy, creamy, soft and sugary saucer-sized beauties have it all: crispy edges, melty middles, and a buttery-gritty texture that’s balanced by giant hunks of smooth dark chocolate. They have just a hint of caramel flavor. They’re real cookie monsters.


Levain’s are six-ounce mounds of cakey, chocolate-studded, slightly undercooked heaven, with savory toasted walnuts mixed in. If City Bakery’s are cookie monsters, Levain’s are cookie monsters on potent steroids.


And Momofuku’s cornflake-marshmallow-chocolate chip cookie is sticky, chewy and crunchy; sweet and chocolaty; the bottom side rimmed in caramelized beauty.


I’ve always found it difficult to decide which I love most. So I put the test to a few willing guinea pigs. Guess what?

One went for City Bakery.

One for Levain.

And one for Momofuku.

What's your favorite chocolate chip cookie in the city?

A warm one for the road

If there is anything better than a chocolate chip cookie, it is a warm chocolate chip cookie. This is something Jacques Torres knows.

On my final day of New York City binging (until December, that is), I wanted to follow up my Momofuku, Max Brenner and Dishes cookie sampling with a classic. So I went to Mr. Chocolate.

The plate of giant chocolate chunk cookies looked perfect. But perfection was realized with the warming griddle, on which a half dozen cookies were waiting to go. Genius.

Big, buttery, sweet and veeery chocolaty. It was clear the rest of the cookie was there just as the vehicle for eating melty chunks of dark chocolate.


I love New York.