Late Night Milk & Cookies in San Francisco & NYC

 It's always a nice surprise when your out and about and you stumble upon a place serving late night milk and cookies. Let's be real - it doesn't matter how old you are, everyone gets excited over milk and cookies doesn't matter what time it is. Over at Buckshot in the inner Richmond of San Francisco on a Tuesday night with my girls and we decided it was the perfect hour for milk and cookies which were heated up on a frying pan and served with those old school mini cartons that bring back fond memories of elementary school lunches....

Mmmm....mmmmm

 On a recent trip to NYC I came across a new bakery in Hell's Kitchen with late hours called Schmackary's where I stopped for milk and cookies. While Buckshot (above) had one choice of cookie and milk (makes sense because first and foremost is a bar and game room) Schmackery's  had several unique flavors of cookies such as the 'Deep Dish Banana Peanut Butter Cookie' (below).

 or the maple bacon cookies...

 While the banana peanut butter deep dish cookie was tasty and I finished it with my milk, I prefer the simple, standard chocolate chip cookie on a frying pan from Buckshot's in San Francisco. In a silly way, it's a little like a metaphor for life. You can go all over the place and have these fancy experiences and try unique flavors of life, but at the end of it all, when you listen to your heart you really enjoy the good'ol simple stuff like the classic choc chip cookie at a bar with a carton of milk.
Cookies & Milk in San Francisco? Buckshot 3848 Geary Boulevard
New York? Schmackery's at 362 West 45th Street

Bakery Review: Green Cafe, Marvelous French Macarons

Every day on my walk home from work I pass this cute little French Cafe called The Green Cafe. The macarons in the window and the menu looks great but it's always empty! I went inside one evening, partly out of sympathy and party out of hungry curiosty and I picked up 4 macarons to share with my cousin. They have traditional flavors like chocolate, rasberry and wedding almond and exotic flavors like passion fruit and Earle Gray and lychee. In the picture above we have (clockwise from top left): lavendar, wedding almond (their most famous), Earle Gray and mango. At $2.50 per macaron choose wisely and eat slowly to make it worth it! These French macarons are made with egg whites, almond paste and are gluten free and they have no resembalance to their American relatives (macaroons). If you find yourself in this part of town, definitely make a trip over and try some of their delightful macarons.

Cafe Green

377 First Avenue (Between 22nd & 23rd Streets)

New York, NY 100010

212-677-0666

http://www.cafegreenny.com/

Bakery Review: Levain Bakery, Home to the World's Best Cookie. Period.

I don't want to sound like a cookie snob, but I have been around and had some pretty freaking awesome cookies. The cookies from Levain Bakery, however, send me over the edge. They blow all the other cookies out of the cookie batter (corny joke I know). My mom first introduced me to Levain Bakery after she saw the cookies on Oprah. She showed up at work with a bag full of delicious treats from the bakery and I shared it all with my co-wrokers and I went back the following morning to try the cookies for myself. Inside the bakery, 7 NYPD came in and proclaimed "You know it's a good bakery when the cops are showing up for cookies." This small bakery churns out huge, gooey cookies that are crunchy on the outside and smell nothing less than incredible. When my good friend, Maxine, came to visit in the spring time, we went there and she was hooked. Here is a picture of the first time she tried these magnificent and magical cookies.

When Maxine came to visit just last week, she picked up some cookies for us to have as dessert in the evenings. The cookies are $3.75 a pop which is pricey for cookie, but is cheap considering the pleasure it brings and they are huge! It was a wonderful surprise and with milk these cookies are divine. The most talked about cookie at Levain Bakery is the chocolate chip walnut cookie pictured above. This one is also Maxine's favorite. My favorite is the Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter cookies.

Unlike most chocolate peanut butter cookies, where the peanut flavor is condensed in peanuts, the use of peanut butter makes for a more powerful peanut punch and it melts in with the rest of the cookie so it is consistently gooey and not crunchy. The night before Halloween, Maxine and I dressed up and went dancing until the wee hours. I was Where's Waldo and she was a 40's pin-up star. At the end of the night, or should I say in the early morning, these cookies were the perfect completion before going to sleep.

After all that dancing we chose the cookies below over traditional late night pizza without any hesitation. These are finger licking delicious and will change your life. Get ready to have some serious cravings!

Levain Bakery

167 West 74th Street (Between Columbus and Amsterdam)

212.874.6080

http://www.levainbakery.com/

Bakery Review: Trois Pommes Patisserie, when Whoopie Pie meets Red Velvet

After our morning bagel it was obviously time for dessert. My sister and I seem to have a problem where we can't pass a bakery without going in....it's a problem I'd rather not fix. Strolling through Park Slope we stumbled upon this adorable patisserie with a number of articles in the window raving about it's Red Velvet Whoopie Pie; least to say we had found our sweet mid-morning treat. This hyrbid of desserts is making a big comeback in the baking world and Trois Pommes Patisserie is leading the way with a red velvet version.

The cake part was moist and fluffy and the French vanilla cream was perfectly smooth and not too rich.
It really was as delicious as it looks. As you can see from the picture below, my sister had convinently moved the little dessert to her side of the table while I was asking someone to take a picture.

Trois Pommes Patisserie

260 Fifth Avenue, between Carroll St and Garfield Pl

718-230-3119