Dessert Truck Works Better on the LES

The influx of food trucks in NY started a few years ago, and has been expanding at a rapid pace.  You can barely pass a corner without running into someone selling pastries, frozen yogurt or tacos.  DessertTruck was one of the original food trucks, selling their pastries from a mobile operation since October 2007.  The success of their truck was so great that in 2010, a cafe was opened on the Lower East Side, down on Clinton Street next to to the ever-famous Clinton Street Baking Company.

The cafe has sandwiches as well, but people come for their desserts.  I went in because of a craving for bread pudding, but while there ended up with nutella filled brioche donut squares and a chocolate chip cookie as well (whoops!)  The bread pudding came with vanilla ice cream, topped with whipped cream.  It was extremely sweet, and definitely needed to be shared by two people, there was no way to eat this all alone.  Of course, in addition to this, we had the chocolate chip cookie, which was warm from the oven.  The cookie was good, but didn't make any of the top lists.

Now I'm not a big donut or nutella fan, but these were actually delicious.  Again, on the super sweet side, but they were perfectly filled with nutella, the brioche was crisp and fresh (again, served warm right from the oven), with a thick layer of sugar on the top.



All of the desserts are $5.97 + tax; the cookie was $3.03 + tax. Pretty reasonable considering the size and satiety.  The cafe itself has a strange seating set-up, the tables are super tiny and low, and the chairs are hard to sit on, so I wouldn't come with a large group.  But for 1-2 people, definitely add it to your list!


Dessert Truck Works is open Sunday - Thursday from the afternoon (2/3) until 11pm, and on Fri/Sat until midnight. Perfect for a late night snack!


Dessert Truck Works
6 Clinton Street between Avenue B & Houston St
http://www.desserttruck.com

Too Bad This Isn't The Ice Cream Sandwich On My Android

North Brooklyn is expanding at a rapid pace, and the places seem to be getting cooler and cooler.  Just a few blocks from where I used to live on 5th and 5th, you can find Bierkraft - a self-described 'dine-in or take-out beer and food emporium'.  I must have passed this place a million times, but since I'm not a beer drinker never thought to go inside...

...until I learned that Bierkraft doesn't just have beer, they also have an ice cream cookie sandwich that makes the 'Best Of' lists.  After dinner last weekend, we decided to take a walk over to this place to check out this gelato sandwich, since ice cream seems like an appropriate dessert in the middle of winter.  When we walked in, I was a little bit confused - it appeared to be a convenience store of sorts with a long aisle filled with beer upon beer upon beer.  It turns out Bierkraft sells beers from around the world both by the bottle and on draft, where you can enjoy it with a sandwich, cheese and meat platters or specialty chocolates.  

In the freezer section, there I found the reason I came - the gelato sandwiches!  I picked the brownie cookie sandwich with chocolate chunk gelato, which comes from Il Laboratorio.  Honestly, what could be better than this!?  I was a huge fan.  It was crazy expensive - $6 for the sandwich - but two of us were barely able to split it, it was so rich and filling.  Of course I managed to finish it, because it was incredible.  I let it sit out for a little while once I got home so that it had melted just a little bit, and the gelato melted into the brownie to make it a little less thicker and easier to eat.  There are other varieties - cherry blondie with dark chocolate gelato and brownie with peanut butter gelato.  

Bierfkraft is open 7 days a week, from 12-11 Monday-Saturday, and 12-8 on Sunday.

191 Fifth Avenue (between Union and Berkeley Streets) in Brooklyn

R train to Union Street is the closest stop

www.bierkraft.com

Good thing it's a leap year when February is hot chocolate month!

The month of February holds a lot of things for a lot of people.  For kids & teachers, it means a week off of school for President's week. For Hallmark & select females, it means cards & roses on Valentine's Day.  For snowboard enthusiasts, it means weekend trips out to Vermont or the Poconos.  For me - it means hot chocolate month at City Bakery!

Every February, City Bakery has their hot chocolate month 28 (this year 29 thanks to the Leap Year!)  This year, we planned to go one day over President's Day Weekend and decided to go on February 19th, which was Sunken Treasure day.  The lines were longer than usual, which I attribute to a combination of it being hot chocolate month and also President's Day, when most people were on holiday.

We decided to go all out today and get TWO cookies - one of the traditional chocolate chip cookies that makes everyone's top 10 list, and the double chocolate one.  Between those two cookies and the hot chocolate, we were definitely in chocolate overload.  But it's just SO GOOD here!  I am fairly certain the sunken treasures in the hot chocolate were caramels, but all I could taste and smell and see was chocolate everywhere so I really can't be sure.

City Bakery has a great chocolate selection (obviously the cookies and hot chocolate are the most common) but they also have a cafe in back where you can get soup, salad, and sandwiches.  All of the food looks amazing, and every table of both floors of this two-story cafe were filled.  I would definitely recommend coming here for lunch, or to bring food back to your office (they have a salad bar where you can get things to go).


City Bakery is located at 3 West 18th street, right off of 5th Avenue.  They have a sister location called Birdbath, that I actually stumbled into one time and recognized the cookies and knew they were related!
www.thecitybakery.com