Bottega Falai (Macarons) - April 27, 2011

Mr. Falai is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, when it comes to macarons.

Cannelle Patisserie - April 17, 2011

“Consistent, Affordable and Exquisite” is the tripartite motto of Cannelle Patisserie, and which I whole-heartedly embrace and uphold. In order to live by such a motto, I am willing to sacrifice my personal property – a pair of new shoes – and bleed my own red blood – in the form of blisters – and start a revolution.

Starting with affordability, Cannelle truly cares about the equality of his patrons; compared to the aptly named, blue-blooded Lady M, their cakes are equally and fraternally available to all comers, provided that if one is willing to venture out into the middle of nowhere – a strip mall.

Bouchon Bakery - March 24, 2011

This must be a joke played on the King’s New Clothes Syndrome.

Shilla Bakery - December 11, 2010

Mochi bread

Posthumously, I was informed of the Korean mochi bread craze that swept through the small island of Taiwan four years after its demise. To be exact, it was only the “craze” that died down, but not the mochi bread itself as it had quietly found a place among the staples on the shelves of Taiwanese bakeries. In a similar vein, another type of chewy bread became fashionable in Japan decades ago (and, for once, I was there to be on it real-time): Pão de Queijo – the cheesy balls from Brazil. The Asians are obsessed with the texture of this type of particular and distinct chewiness, expressed as QQ in Taiwanese or mochi mochi in Japanese. By the way, the Japanese version of mochi bead has existed for a quite while, which seems to differ from the Korean version in the choice of the key ingredient – the QQ or mochi mochi factor: The former primarily uses glutinous rice flour, while the latter tapioca starch.

Spong Cake Redux: New Kam Hing Coffee Shop - January 17, 2011

The euphoria of the first date is, more often than not, misleading; otherwise, we would have gotten married a hundred times over.  Say thanks to our instinctive skepticism. Therefore, when the second date comes around, without the element of surprise and under the broad day light, the former allure usually seems to have toned down a shade or two. However, such will not be the case when the person, or a cake, is made of true ingenuity.

Levain Bakery - December 31, 2010

In the good old days at the end of the twentieth century, half way around the globe in the capital of food and fashion, the ultra-thin models allowed themselves to indulge in an occasional treat: the chocolate baguette sandwich. Since they could not possibly consume a pan au chocolat, or God forbid, a chocolate croissant, these deprived souls invented a substitution as a solution to their gnawing hunger. The result was a piece of a dark chocolate sandwiched between the crunchy, salty and fragrant baguette – a complete harmony of sweet and salty.

Yuan Yang (Ho Won Bake Shoppe & XO Kitchen) - December 28, 2010

Sometimes things are more than they appear. – Shrek

The excitement from the sponge cakes at New Kam Hing had so stimulated the brain that my fellow crusader to Chinatown remembered having a terrific yuan yang in Chinatown: Yuan yang (literally meaning “Chinese ducks,” which are believed to stay as a pair throughout their lives) is a quintessentially Hong Kong drink – a blend of coffee and Hong Kong-style milk tea. Why Hong Kong? Because Hong Kong milk tea is made of seriously and lengthily boiled tea, against the better esteemed English method; furthermore, it is enhanced with condensed milk. My only trial of this potent caffeine elixir, yuan yang, was in the form of a tapioca milk tea, well, tapioca coffee and tea, and my memory of it is colored by a disdainful unpleasantness.

New Kam Hing Coffee Shop - December 28, 2010

Why do they bother calling themselves a coffee shop? Their coffee is only an afterthought or a preventive forethought – take your pick – provided for customers who cannot wait to swallow a dozen sponge cakes until they get to a safe haven; in either case, it is a mere convenient lubricant to facilitate the transfer of their criminally addictive sponge cakes from their plastic Target containers to people’s extending and expanding holiday girths.

Sigmund Pretzel Shop (Bryant Park) - November 6, 2010

The popularity of pretzels in New York is mystifying, considering that the most common form emerges from a metal pit blowing burned smoke and thus contaminating the sidewalks, salted enough to last 10 years and hard enough to substitute for Frisbees.  Who actually eats them, except the guileless tourists with impoverished wallets?  The alternative to this is the mass-produced and rolled Auntie Anne's:  Yes, I did eat them when mired in towns - especially the one containing more cacti then humans - where the only available and remotely enjoyable and edible food item were their Almond pretzels, closely followed by Sesame and Cinnamon.  There was a paradigm shift, however, due to a trip to Germany, affecting not only pretzels but also wursts, sauerkraut and many other food, which I had previously labeled as "peasantry."  All in all, being not overly keen on the European baking tradition east of France, I had been ignorant of the Sigmund Pretzel Shop until I stumbled upon it in Bryant Park.  Fate is like this:  If you do not go and find it on your own volition, it will come to you.