Eat, Play, Run

Trophy Cupcakes

Good news: Trophy Cupcakes opened in the shopping center my office stands over. Bad news: Trophy Cupcakes opened in the shopping center my office stands over. I really don't need cupcakes 50 feet from our front door.

I bought four cupcakes to take to my parent's house... vanilla with chocolate frosting, red velvet, and two lemon. I use lemon cupcakes as my litmus test. In this case, the cake part is really good. It's moist with just the right amount of crumble. But the frosting is a little too sweet for my liking.

The red velvets and anything with a chocolate frosting, though, are great. For my money, the best in the city.

Food Truck: Marination

Finally had chance to sample the goodness that is the Korean/Hawaiian goodness of Marination.

At just $2 a pop, I tried three items, the kalbi beef taco, the spicy pork taco and the Spam(!) slider, and all three are great. The tacos, especially, are great. The meat is rich and well prepared. The cabbage is crisp and fresh. The tortillas are also nicely prepared.

The slider uses a nice, sweet roll and of course, Spam never lets you down.

The Marination truck is very good. Check it out!

New York: Shake Shack

Had lunch at the Upper West branch of Shake Shack. Contemplated heading down to Madison Square Park, but the weather is crap... rainy, windy and a little chilly. Shake Shack makes the best fast food burgers. Ever. In-N-Out may come close, but it doesn't touch the Shack.

I had a Double Shack, fries and a chocolate shack. So good. Did I mention that my diet is only in effect in the state of Washington? I didn't? Well, now you know...

New York: Buttercup Bakery

The lemon cupcake at Buttercup is the single best cupcake I've ever had. I love it. The cake is moist and perfect consistency. The frosting is sweet and tangy and has a nice 'crust.' 

New York: Lupa

All things considered, Lupa is my favorite restaurant in New York. Now, that's saying a lot considering all the great places I've eaten. But, the food here is always amazing and the prices are quite moderate.

Today for lunch, I started with the Sweet Corn with herbs. It's served cold, crispy and oh so delicious. For my main course, I had the Ricotta Gnocchi with sausage and fennel. Yes, I order this every time I visit, but it's simply my favorite dish at my favorite restaurant. The gnocchi are light, pillowy clouds of pure Batali goodness.

I didn't order the beets this time because, well, let's just say that beets are the gift that keep on giving, and I was going to be doing a lot of walking after lunch, so that just wasn't going to work. But the beets w/pistachios are something you must try.

I can't give a higher recommendation than the one I give to Lupa. I love it.

New York: DBGB

Daniel Boulud is one of the most celebrated chefs in this country. But, I gotta say, I've been to two of his restaurants and neither blew me away. About a year ago, I tried Bar Boulud and thought it was pretty good, but not worth the hype.

On Tuesday night, Laura and I tried out the recently opened DBGB. DBGB is a downtown "low brow" bistro from a high end chef. Located on the Bowery, it's just two blocks from the original location of the seminal punk rock venue CBGB, so the name is pretty cute.

We started with a truly great crab cake. I enjoyed this crab cake more than the crab cakes at the Dahlia Lounge. It's a light crab cake bursting with crab. It's served with a fantastic curry sauce on the side. If you visit DBGB, this is a must order.

In just a couple of months, DBGB is already known for its sausages. I wanted to try the spicy blood/pig's head sausage, but Laura wanted nothing to do with it, so we went with a more standard pork sausage called the Chipolata. It's served over pommes mousseline, which are essentially a light (airy) version of mashed potatoes. The sausage and potatoes were quite good.

My issue with DBGB was with my burger. I ordered the "Frenchie," a $17 burger served with confit pork belly, arugula and a tomato-onion compote on a brioche bun. Even though the burger came out a perfect medium-rare, it still seemed a little dry. The taste of the beef was fine, but it wasn't spectacular. For $17 and coming from Daniel Boulud, I really expected something special.  This burger did not deliver. The fries were pretty good, but I wish they were a little crispier.

Maybe I expected too much, because overall, the food was very good, but I can't help but be a little disappointed by DBGB.

New York: Mary's Fish Camp

One of the must-eat foods before you die is a lobster roll from either Pearl Oyster Bar or Mary's Fish Camp. I normally can't decide between the two, but today's choice was made simple because Pearl was closed for the long weekend.

Mary's actually popped my lobster roll cherry, so I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for it. The lobster rolls here are so good. Each bite makes you yearn for more. They use huge, thick pieces of lobster and serve it on a wonderful, soft, sweet roll. Amazing. So good.

If I had the chops, I would open a lobster roll shop in Seattle. It would kill.

New York: Ippudo

Went to my favorite ramen place in the city, Ippudo, for lunch. Normally I just order a straight bowl tonkotsu, but I decided to go with the spicy style today. The spicy bowl is good, but I missed the simple flavor of the plain tonkotsu. Still, the pork slices are so damn good.

With the ramen, I had a rice bowl topped with fried chicken. Again, damn good. Next time I visit Ippudo, I'm going to order a side of the fried chicken wings.

New York: Magnolia Bakery

I'm not sure if they were first on the scene, but Magnolia Bakery was definitely at the forefront of the cupcake craze that hit New York about four years ago... a craze that seems to be hitting Seattle now. It's not unusual to see lines formed around the block for cupcakes at Magnolia.

But, smartly, I've noticed they continue to add other baked good to their menu, and from my unofficial tally over the last two nights, it seems evenly split on whether people order cupcakes or something else. Something being slices of cake, mini pies, cheesecake, brownies, banana pudding, lemon bars, etc.

Honestly, I always preferred the cupcakes at Buttercup Bakery and could never really understand the Magnolia hype. But, there's a Magnolia about four blocks from my hotel, so I walked up the street and ordered cupcakes last night and a white chocolate brownie tonight. The cupcakes were fine. The brownie probably a little better, but being a white chocolate frosting, it was a little too sweet. Unfortunately, they were out of the plain brownies.

New York: Five Guys

Visited President Obama's favorite burger joint, Five Guys tonight with Glenn, Margaret and Karen. When I lived here, we would meet up a couple of times a month for dinner. Nice to have the gang back together.

Five Guys serves up "doubles" as their standard, but you can order a "Junior" if you only want a single patty. They also offer up pretty much every condiment you can think of, gratis. I kept it pretty simple tonight, though. I had the Bacon Cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, pickles, mayo and ketchup.

The burgers here really are very good. They also serve excellent fries. And lots of them. Between the four of us, we had three orders of fries. We threw away about an order and a half. I can't imagine anyone ever eating an entire order of fries by himself/herself.

I'd say Five Guys is the east coast version of In-N-Out. Now that Obama has given them national acclaim, I wonder if they'll move west...