Special du jour, un: Pumpkin bread pudding with a layer of spinach, cheese and two poached eggs ($14)

I came here with just mediocre expectations despite this being a sister restaurant of Five Points (which Sabrina had raved about), but the food here was phenomenal. Brunch was set for 11:45am, but me being unable to properly read a map (understand that I’ve also lived in Manhattan for 2.5 years) and Sabrina being forever late, we arrived a bit behind schedule- although I was able to get our names down 10 minutes before Sabrina came along. The host proclaimed the wait to be 30 minutes but viola! Literally a minute after Sabrina stepped into the door, they were able to seat us.

So around 12:15pm, on a frosty and bitter Saturday morning, Hundred Acres was already jam-packed with hungry brunch-ers. Quite impressive for those lazy New Yorkers who like to sleep in!

Warm Cream Biscuits banana-walnut bread & honey butter ($7)

The original post-brunch plan was to promptly relocate uptown for some afternoon tea, but Sabrina just had to jump the gun. As usual, she was starving and so we ordered some warm biscuits. At $7 they’re a bit on the expensive side, but it was a bit of afternoon tea in itself.

Raspberry Bonne Maman! Aren’t these tiny jam jars so cute?

The buttery biscuits just seem to crumble at each touch and each bite just melts in your mouth . I mentioned to Sabrina how funny it is that they would serve the biscuits with a side of butter considering how much butter it takes to make a biscuit. Surprisingly, the butter was sweet! Too bad it was so cold and not spread-friendly, but it was just a notch below the awesomeness of clotted cream. With another layer of jam, however, it was almost- just almost- like English afternoon tea.

We should have eaten the banana-walnut honey bread first because it was also equally as delicious with its rich moistness, but… we didn’t. By the time we got to it, we couldn’t finish that last bite.

Part of the reason why I picked Hundred Acres for brunch was because of their French Toast. They serve it with this honey yogurt and caramelized pineapples which sounded really intriguing as I was checking out the menu last night. Very rarely do I ever order specials, but the waitress successfully sold her “specials” spiel to us (it’s quite hard actually- most people just don’t care).

And so I chose  the Pumpkin bread pudding with a layer of spinach, cheese and two poached eggs. It was everything I could have dreamed in a dish of sweet and savory plus more. It’s really hard to describe a dish like this. It’s actually hard to describe any dish with pumpkin. It was slightly sweet, which balanced out really well with the savory egg part. I loved the texture of the runny yolk, the crispness of the leaves, and the mushiness of the bread pudding combined into a forkful. It’s like having a dance party in your mouth.

Special du jour, deux: Duck Confit on a bed of potatoes with a fried egg ($14)

Sabrina went for the duck, although she seriously contemplated getting those apple pancakes. Had we stuck to our post-brunch plan, it would have been a good idea considering all of that sugar we would have consumed. But either way, she chose to go with the savory dish.

My initial reaction was a bit- “Really? This is the duck confit plate?! First off, you can’t really even see the duck because it’s hiding under that sneaky egg that’s trying to hog all the attention. I always thought that confit was a chunk of cut meat arranged in a beautiful pattern. But then as I’m blogging, I realize that I don’t even know what the heck “confit” is. So for all of you out there who are just as clueless as I am…

Duck confit (French: confit de canard) is a French dish made with the leg of the duck. While it is made across France, it is seen as a speciality of Gascony. The confit is prepared in a centuries-old process of preservation that consists of salt curing a piece of meat (generally goose, duck, or pork) and then poaching it in its own fat.

Really now? Interesting. The dish should have been renamed to SHREDDED duck confit with EGGS SUNNY SIDE UP. But Sabrina seemed to enjoy it and I do have to admit that the duck was very flavorful. #poaching-in-fat-flavor-success.

After all this time- you could call it a long term relationship with my Canon Rebel XT- I have finally earned the pants in the relationship. I recently figured out how to utilize the custom white exposure option and hence, Sabrina benefits.

If my little paragraph on the Duck Confit confused you on my take of this place, let me reaffirm that my dish- the pumpkin one- blew everything out of the water. It can do no wrong. Plus, the biscuits were good, the service was great, and the decor is just lovely.

Croissant French Toast w/ apples ($12)

This post marks the date that some skeezeball came into Think Coffee and stole my bag. Luckily, it was pouring and I went home and decided not to bring my beloved DSLR (THANK GOD!) or else this blog would have been done for until I could afford another camera. But as luck would also have it, that was the day I decided to bring a boxful of oatmeal and Trader Joe’s tea to a sick Jungyon. I can only imagine the thief’s surprise when he/she opened my bag…

The morning, however, was lovely, because I finally had time to catch up with Suzie, who had virtually been nonexistent the whole semester. Originally, we were going to Blue Ribbon Sushi, but waking up on a Sunday morning at 10am and thinking about sushi made both of our stomachs queasy, so we changed plans. I remembered Krystal mentioning something about a “Croissant French Toast” awhile ago, which sounded absolutely phenomenal.

HI SUZIE!

If you passed by Danal back in the day (as in, er 3 years ago?), you would have remembered that it was a Korean deli! Yes! Suki, if you’re reading this, this was the place that the nice Korean guy gave me that free slice of bread! After I came back from Sydney, the place transformed into this magnificent two story restaurant with a built in fireplace, a wooden bar, and heirlooms that could have been passed down from my grandmother. It was so homey.

Poached Eggs w/chicken apple sausage, english muffin & hollandaise ($13)

Suzie was so excited for her poached eggs. The bite that I had was indeed delicious, but I want to talk about that Croissant French Toast. I think that Nigella Lawson would have even considered that a “guilty pleasure.” First off, the croissant was pretty damn big. They slice it thinly into 3 layers. Second, as if a croissant didn’t have enough butter, I think they grilled it with more butter! Third, they spoiled me with a whole tiny jar of jam- all for myself! Life couldn’t get any better.

This is one of those must try dishes. It gave French Toast a whole new meaning. The only thing I wasn’t too keen about was the apples, but that’s such a minor detail.

Of course, the breadbasket was decent as most breadbaskets are.

We sat right next to the fireplace, and as we were leaving, who do we notice dining right next to us? Rachel Weisz from The Mummy/The Constant Gardener and Darren Aronofsky! She’s even more gorgeous in person!

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59 Fifth Ave.
New York, NY 10003
Near 13th St.  See Map | Subway Directions
212-982-6930 Send to Phone

Buffalo wings, $.25 on Monday nights. They come in sweet bbq too!

By now half of NYU must have heard about this because this past Monday, there was a mob in Rockwell’s and it was only 6:15pm, 15 minutes after the deal started. It felt like a reunion seeing as I saw people who I hadn’t seen in three and a half years.

But yes, 25 cent wings. When you think about it, it’s still not THAT cheap. For a New Yorker however, it’s pretty cheap. Wings can go as high as $10 for just 8 of them. So when you think about it like that… it’s not so bad. Nevertheless, that got me curious, so I ran a simple calculation (this is what all of my case-ing preparation with Sagar has amounted to!)

By my very, very conservative estimates, I arrived to $547 for profits. That’s taking into account:

• USDA wholesale wing prices are $1.55 for the month of November
• 1 pound = 10-12 medium wings (I used 10 wings in my calculations)
• Peak times at 6-7pm
• Girls will order less wings than guys
• Rockwell’s can serve a customer every 20-30 seconds, or 1 per minute because there are 3 stations (that was my serving time, roughly.)

That was a pretty low number, so I adjusted it…

At $684, I guess it’s not too bad, especially considering how it’s a Monday night and this deal really generates traffic. Also, we’re talking about a $.10 margin here. Additionally, as Sagar mentioned, people will buy sodas as they are complementary goods (and maybe even fries!). If you’re interested, for any reason in the sensitivity of this analysis, you can tinker with it here. Let me know if my estimates are on, off, or near the mark if you know anything about the profitability of wings!

If you ARE going to go on Monday nights for these wings, either get there early or brace yourself with the wait. They’re not the most efficient in getting orders out, as in they don’t really care about who ordered first. But to their credit, they do try and if you’ve ever worked in a restaurant during peak time, you’d feel sympathetic too. On the other hand, when I opened the box…

• There were only nine wings! Ah! I ordered 10!
• One wing wasn’t a wing. I’m not sure what it was exactly…

They automatically pack you a generous portion of ranch sauce, but don’t forget to check out some of their other awesome sauces like chipotle mayo and this other pale orange one, which I recall had the name ‘kickin’ in it. For $.25/wing, the wings are good enough. You can tell that they’re really rushed when making the wings, so I let them go on the calculation error.

On a regular night, people would order something like that- a cheeseburger. Despite the $.25 wings deal, Elspeth and Jungyon both ordered a cheeseburger. I’d rate it a 6 on a scale from 1-10. I mean, it’s a burger, but it’s no Shake Shack or Corner Bistro.

53 E 8th St
New York, NY 10003
(212) 677-4400

Today was very very rainy. I woke up to pouring rain and now I’m going to sleep to the sound of cars driving over puddles. And in this rain, I went to NYC for work, only to find that my boss had a busy day in CT. It would have been a true FML moment except for the fact that I got cupcakes. And from the last time, I remembered those cupcakes being very very yummy.

But oy! It was closed! Or at least the one on Macdougal was. Luckily, last time Sabrina and I found out that they had a second (but dingier) location only a street away on West 3rd. So I went and they were open.

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Cupcakes!!

On Yelp, there are raving reviews on their red velvet. A few months ago, I visited their Macdougal location with Steph and Clement and we were all really impressed. So today, I got 4 red velvets, 1 chocolate on chocolate, and 1 vanilla/chocolate frosting on chocolate to go. And even in the rain and all, I got it safely back to Jersey for our dinner at Cracker Barrel.

But what a disappointment. The cupcakes looked moist and were moist but were way too dense. The red velvet itself was delicious, but the food coloring was so strong that it smeared like lipstick on my napkin. The cream cheese frosting was also a bit runny, although it did sit out for about 6 hours before we ate it. And the chocolate, which I had also recalled being significantly better than most other chocolate cupcakes, failed to impress. It was dense, crumbly, and way too chocolaty. The chocolate itself didn’t taste like pure chocolate. I can’t even describe it. However, I will say that the chocolate frosting is still among the best I’ve had.

The cupcakes are $2.25 each, but if you’re an NYU student, you can get 4 for $6.25.

Still, I’m not willing to give up on you Tonnie’s. I’ll be back to give you another shot.

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120 W 3rd St
New York 10012
(Btwn MacDougal St & 6th Ave)

During my Marketing 101 class, we studied a case where we had to perform a quantitative analysis on Grom, a gelato cafe. At the time, Grom had just emerged in the Upper West Side. Our professor described the infamous lines that formed around the corner during Saturday afternoon but I never got a chance to check it out before I left for London. A year and a half later, as Steph, Janice and I were walking along the street after Steak Frites, I noticed a very familiar logo. It was actually Grom!  It was exciting to see how in a very short amount of time, they were able to expand and luckily, expand near the NYU campus!

The prices caught me by surprise. $5 for ONE scoop of gelato?! I was about to say that the gelato better be diamond encrusted when I saw Earl and Komal.  Komal gave me a taste of her Hazlenut, and I was swayed. Steph and Janice, however, wanted something hot (they were freezing) and got the Affogato.

The interior of Grom is sleek and almost alienesque. Instead of the traditional trays of ornately displayed gelato that you’d find in Italy, Grom keeps their gelato hidden in these spotlesssly clean covered metal buckets. It’s a disadvantage because I tend to eat with my eyes. Thus, I felt as if I was blindly shopping for a delicious-sounding flavor. But in the end, I chose the Hazlenut, because that little taste I got from Komal was just so good. One scoop is definitely enough. In fact, I’d recommend sharing it. It’s extremely creamy and dense. It took me a good while to finish it and after when I licked up the last scoop, I felt so ful.

So Steph and Janice settled for the affogato, which set them aside $6 together. Affogato, meaning “choked” in Italian,  is a traditional dessert where coffee is poured over sccops of gelato. My first affogato was in New Zealand and it was the best darn caffeinated drink I’ve ever had.

I didn’t see Grom make the expresso, so I think they actually used coffee (don’t take my word for it though). Then, they put two large scoops of gelato inside where it promptly started melting. By the time we got to the table, I think it already melted a quarter way through. But, they said it was delicious so we’ll just have to take their word for it.

Grom has different flavors for each month. Below is March’s flavors (sorry, a bit too late now!) although most of them sounded generic enough to have fit with any month. While there is seating, it’s limited. Expect to spend at least $5 for your one scooped gelato, but it’s worth it. In the words of Komal, “It’s better than the gelato I had in Italy!”

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233 Bleecker St.
New York, NY 10014
Near Carmine St.  See Map | Subway Directions
212-206-1738