The City Bakery buffet style

Looking for wholesome & healthy then city bakery is a goodie. That is if you consider a chocolate room healthy, which I of course do.The City Bakery is ideal for those who work in the area looking for variety and a good meal in 30 minutes. It has a wide range of savoury and sweets on offer.

Grilled cheeses, bruschetta

Chicken wings, fried chicken, mac 'n cheese

Gazpacho

Salads

After circling the buffet twice, I opted for healthy Israeli couscous salad with a side of wholesome slightly crispy, spicy chicken wangs. It was all super tasty but a little warming up is needed. I added a non-alcoholic sangria, which conceptually made sense but for me the wine was missing. For the South Africans the non-alcoholic sangria tasted a bit like purity baby juice.

In the chocolate room

The City Bakery is great for freshness and variety, also my brother recommends their brunch time french toast.

The City Bakery

3 West 18th Street, NY

On the go Kung Fu Milk Tea

Decided to grab a drink on the go while waiting for the M15 bus, I was always on a bus. Spotted this tiny shop, Kung Fu Tea, full of people which is always a good sign.

I said I'm a first timer what should I have? The Kung fu milk tea with bubbles of course. The bubbles being tapioca balls. I have to tell you, it's a trip this drink. For South Africans it's best described as a mild kinda flo, cold tea with large black sago balls in it.

 

One of the must tries in New York is bubble tea, so do it!

Kung Fu Tea
241 E 10th St, East Village, NY

Birthday dinner at Gramercy Tavern

This is a little late, yes I am captured by New York, but I spent last Thursday evening having dinner at Gramercy Tavern. It was a pre-bday celebration. The chef Michael Anthony won the 2012 James Beard Award for 'Best Chef NYC'

Gramercy Tavern has high ceilings with dark wood beams and is divided into two sections the lively bar and tavern area then the quieter dining room.The table opted for the full tasting menu of 6 courses in total with an amuse bouche to get us started and a breakfast muffin to take home for breakie the next day to end.

I love a little tipple to start the evening, so I had the Pineapple painkiller. Pineapple infused rum with lemonade and strawberries.

The Amuse bouche of scallop sashimi was sweet in a well balanced tart tomato vinaigrette

Scallop Sashimi served in a tomato vinaigrette

First course of smoked Red Snapper with sunchoke, shiitake mushrooms in a smoked jalapeno broth. The snapper was slightly salty with a light wood (from the smoking) undertone in a ever so tart broth. The smoked fish overpowered the jalapeno a little as I could only pick it up when I tasted the broth seperately.

Red Snapper

Second course smoked hake salad of sweet peas, braised lettuce and pickled ramps. The hake is a mild sweet white fish which took on the smoke beautifully, served in a sweet salty balance broth with firm bordering a moment undercooked sweet peas. Yum, I so love peas they tasted as bright as they looked! 

Smoke Hake Salad

Third course of soft shell crab with sugar snap peas, pickled burdock and carrot mustard vinaigrette. It was lovely dish but the ultra crisp and crunchy batter totally drowned the crab flavour.

Soft Shell Crab

The meat courses begin with medium roasted squab set on a confit of squab with barley, sungold tomatoes and fava beans. The ingredients had good depth of texture with the barley and slightly crunchy beans. The squab was quite gamey, so too me it had an extremely irony taste to it but perfectly cooked. I did enjoy the squab confit more than the medium roasted squab. 

Overall the chef had a heavy seasoning hand with this dish.

Squab

I have to caveat that as a South African it is hard to please me with a steak elsewhere in the world because SA meat is top class and full of flavour.

The  final main of Beef sirloin and braised flat iron with roasted mushrooms, garlic scapes and crispy confit potatoes. The beef was perfectly cook served with earthy mushrooms and lifted with crunchy garlic greens as in green beans.

Beef Sirloin & Braised Flat iron

I enjoyed the progression and the difference in the dishes using more or less the same seasonal ingredients. Overall it was a good meal, the essence of comfort food uplifted!

Oh where is dessert you ask? There's a post just for Gramercy Tavern Dessert

Copenhagen Pt 2 (Hotel brunches)

I checked into what was/is dubbed as one of the hip and trendy hotels in Copenhagen, First Hotel Skt Petri. I was told lady gaga had stayed there, obviously not in my standard suite but she was there nonetheless. Yes I'm really a monster in the closest!


Skt Petri breakfast crowd

So I think Copenhagen is an expensive city to eat in, well off of the hotel room service at least. A hamburger on the menu cost DKK195 which is R258, yeah I know! So based on that I found that the breakfast buffet was a steal at DKK195 and the Sunday brunch, which allows for eating from 12:00 to 15:00 at DKK235.

Brunch is served with a Mimosa (champagne and OJ)



Muesli and Yoghurt with fresh sweet melon to start. Followed by a selection of cheeses with sundried tomatoes, marinated artichokes and charcuterie. I always go for a camembert and then the cumin cheese.

 

I do have one warning: beware the herring, it is a danish delicacy, but it tasted like pickled fish that had gone off to me. Perhaps my palate isn't as developed as I thought. Feel free to try it and let me know what you think.

For dessert I had the carrot cake and tiramisu, yes on one side plate!Very african of me, no?!  the carrot cake was topped with a wonderful lemon icing with orange zest, I loved the zing!

 I spent the entire allotted three hours at brunch in the Copenhagen sun, not for the food but mostly because there was a hottie at the table next to me. I mean they had to do something to compensate for not having the eggs benedict on the brunch menu.

Then it was off to walk the streets of Copenhagen! sigh how I miss Euro tripping

 

Copenhagen Pt1 (parks, nuts, bars and beer)

I spent my first weekend in Europe in Copenhagen, which is a city filled with tall blondes and I'm the antithesis petite (code word for short) and dark skinned. So I was like a tiny munchkin walking around the wonderful city. And it is a walking city, ok honestly it's a cycling city but unfortunately if there's one thing I can't do is cycle.

It was warm in Copenhagen so everyone was out in the parks. And in the squares which were filled with buskers, these guys were playing latin tunes.  I spent 30 minutes sitting on the square (not at a cafe on the actual square) listening along with tourists and locals and parted with a few coins as thanks.

During the days I was all about snacking and eating on the go. I mean here at home we drive everywhere, so I needed to keep nourished, energised and hydrated for all the walking I was doing.

Excuse the less than flattering photo but taking pics while walking and eating is a tricky business. You find food stands everywhere that sell these so I assumed it must be the local thing to eat. A roll with the top end cut off, mustard and tomato sauce (ketchup) squeezed in and then the bacon wrapped pork sausage stuffed inside. It's a tasty although slightly salty snack.

 For snacks I found a great stand that sold nuts and dried fruit. There were dried figs, dates glazed orange segments and so many varieties of nuts.

Dried fruit and nut seller

My first night I tried something that I have only tried once before, BEER. There is a big bar culture and everyone drinks beer so when in Copenhagen bottoms up. I found that I enjoyed Tuborg because it had a strong bitter taste, which I enjoyed well into the night and the days that followed at the many bars, and along the harbour in the afternoon.

Downstairs bar

Now that I'm back home I decided to stop being a snob and try a beer. I've found that Pilsner Urquell tastes quite similar to Turborg. I'm not sure I'm a converted beer drinker but I can have a beer, two or three for the best of them, I think. Well feel free to invite me to have one or recommend others to try.

Tak! (Thanks)