Gone Cupcake Hunting

Went into NYC with Barbara, Anne, Terry, and Barbara's friend Ann on a mini cupcake/chocolate odyssey tonight. We had so much fun.

Barbara is a chef at Whole Foods; Terry is a successful businesswoman with a cake business on the side; Ann is Barbara's friend from culinary school; and Anne is a dessert lover and writer who flew to Paris and back a million times for her banking job but is home at the moment raising three children--and two cats, one dog and six chickens, in a coop in the backyard.

Through the Lincoln Tunnel and over the streets we went. First stop: Sweet Revenge, on Carmine Street [SweetRevengeNYC.com]. Nicole, fellow foodie on the St. Lucia press trip, told me about it and my mouth was watering.

The little bar/bakery--sweet baby of Marlo, a nice young woman from Indiana who calls everyone "Hon"--was crowded with twenty-somethings loving the cupcake-and-wine or cupcake-and-beer pairings.

I had the Dirty cupcake, a dark devil with Valrhona cocoa in the batter and Dark Chocolate Truffle frosting, paired with a deep red wine from South Africa. Terry had the Malaysian Coconut cupcake [with Coconut Buttercream, yum] and Il Vino dell'Amore Moscato Spumante from Italy. Price per pairing: $10. We rounded out our menu with one Pure cupcake [vanilla on vanilla]; one Almost Dirty [with milk chocolate frosting]; one Raspberry Red Velvet; and one Sweet Revenge [the one Nicole had raved about, peanut butter with a chocolate ganache filling].

On our walk to our next stop, we ducked into Insomnia Cookies on 8th Street [insomniacookies.com], which I had read about--delivers warm cookies to college students up studying, etc. It's a tiny shop but we really liked the Smore cookie, and Anne bought an Insomnia Cookie tee for her daughter.

Then, Spot Dessert Bar on St. Mark's Place [spotdessertbar.com], which Terry's brother clued her into via cell phone tonight. I was skeptical--these desserts were more architecturally arranged on the plates, and the place had the feeling of a sushi bar--but the Chocolate Banana Pudding was to die for. I also liked my big glass mug of jasmine tea.

Before we got back into Barbara's car, Anne and I did a double take at Sweet Revenge to get goodie bags for our families.

It was exhilirating, as always, to be in NYC. The only time I don't feel that way is when it's pouring rain and you have to juggle your umbrella and your totebag on the crowded streets without getting soaked or crashing the umbrella spikes into some poor unsuspecting person's head.

We were back home by 12:30, visions of cupcakes still dancing in our heads. We're planning another outing again soon.