Eataly's Nutella Bar

Nutella is one of my very favorite things in life.  In my opinion, Pietro Ferrero, its inventor, was the genius to rule all geniuses, because the chocolatey hazelnut goodness is a combination that just never disappoints.  With such strong feelings on the subject, you can imagine my glee, when I received an email from Eataly last week, inviting me to the grand opening of their new Nutella Bar.  There was absolutely no way that I was going to miss this.  I did a little happy dance, texted my friend S, and we met up at Eataly after she got off work. 

I had expected a bit of a line, but was flabbergasted to see that it was enormous and stretched all the way down the block.  Apparently, S and I weren't the only ones in New York with a serious love of nutella.  So we joined the queue and got some very odd looks and confused questions from passersby who couldn't understand why anyone would wait in such a line for such a thing.  Clearly, they didn't know what they were missing.  Luckily, the line did move fairly quickly and it didn't take us too long to reach the entrance.

Once inside, a server immediately greeted us and offered us a complimentary piece of pane that was covered in nutella.

 

Apologies for the fuzzy picture quality.  I think that it was probably due to the fact that I was shaking with excitement.

As we munched on the gloriousness of free nutella, we looked around and felt as though we had died and gone to heaven, for the walls were covered in jar after jar of the good stuff.  

The jars were interspersed with chocolates, nutella and chocolate centric cookbooks, giant posters proclaiming factoids about the spread as well as recipes to make at home, crepe-making tools, and lots of delicious-looking baguettes.

It was nearly enough to make us weep with joy, but we had some more nutella devouring to do.  We joined the line and made our way up to the front counter, which had a number of nutella-filled pastries on offer.

Everything sounded and looked amazing, but after much deliberation, I chose the saccottino con nutella, a square, croissant-esque pastry, while S opted for the crepe con nutella.

The crepe was piping hot and filled with a generous portion of nutella, as was the saccottino.  I had been a bit worried that, like so many filled croissants/pan au chocolats that I've had before, that the pastry would be dry and that they'd skimp on the filling.  I was pleasantly surprised though to find that Eataly's pastries are of a higher caliber.  The pastry was perfectly buttery and flaky and there was just enough nutella to strike a balance between bread and filling.

I plan on going back very soon to try everything else on the menu. 

Happy and full of nutella cheer, S and I left the bar area and wandered around the rest of Eataly for a bit, drinking wine and admiring all the amazing food on offer.

But Eataly is such a wonderful place that it deserves its very own blog post, which I promise that I will write the next time that I visit, which I hope will be soon. 

I hope that you enjoyed our jaunt to the Nutella Bar.  But now I've got to go....a jar and a spoon seem to be calling my name. 

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Mother's (Satur)Day

On Saturday, my mom came to the city to visit me.  Since it was the first time that she was seeing me since my move and she was only here for the day, she just wanted to mostly hang out, see my neighborhood, and do some random exploring rather than do New York touristy things.  We decided to make the day all about finding good food (if we're honest, this is how most of my family get-togethers go) and we started off with brunch at Grand Cafe in my neighborhood in Astoria.  I had walked by this place numerous times since the move and noticed that it had a bit of a Euro flair and was always busy, which I took to be a good sign.  We started off with coffees, bellinis, and complimentary mini muffins.

We quickly decided that we needed a bit of both savory and sweet, so we ordered an omelet with homefries and pancakes with strawberries and nutella and just shared everything.

 

We chose the avocado and tomato omelet and then added goat cheese to it and it was utterly delicious.  The homefries, which were livened up with chopped peppers, were also really good.  Even my mom really liked them and she's not usually a big homefries person.  She is a big pancake person, though, and they didn't disappoint.  Nice and fluffy and not overly sweet, which I prefer, and which wasn't needed since there was more than enough nutella and syrup to go around.

 Afterwards we felt wonderfully stuffed and decided to go and walk it off a bit in Astoria Park.  We chatted and enjoyed the views while walking around and underneath the Triborough Bridge.

After a good amount of strolling, we were both starting  to feel a bit peckish, and Mom casually mentioned that she needed some New York cheesecake in her life.  We stopped for a minute at a very conveniently placed park bench and I did a very scientific google search of the best cheesecake places in the city.  One of the spots that had rave reviews was a bakery called Two Little Red Hens, so we popped over to the subway and grabbed a train to the Upper East Side.  We found the bakery pretty quickly and stepped inside.  We were greeted by a very small but pleasant space that was packed with people ogling the cakes, cupcakes, and cheesecakes behind the glass.

Never two to shy away from gluttony, we ordered a piece of chocolate cheesecake and a piece of cherry cheesecake to share.

Mom was very happy.

And so was I.  The cherry cheesecake was wonderfully dense and not very sweet at all.  The cherry topping complimented it nicely, and it had a bit of what I think was cinnamon mixed in to give it some heady complexity.  And the chocolate was creamy and simply glorious.  As we ate, we watched customers come and go and even sneaked some peeks at some icing action that was taking place in the back room.

We both agreed that the Google reviews had not let us down.  The cheesecake was great, the cakes and cupcakes looked amazing, and the atmosphere was homey and friendly.  In the immortal words of Holly Golightly, it felt like "nothing very bad could happen to you there."

Feeling happy, we headed off with a plan to walk around Rockefeller Center for the rest of the afternoon until heading over to Times Square where Mom would have to catch her bus home.  However, as soon as we surfaced from the subway, a deluge of rain hit and it didn't appear to be planning on letting up anytime soon.  So we ducked into a cab and made our way to Times Square and did a bit of shopping instead.  Shopping always works up our appetites, and we decided that we probably needed some New York pizza to end our day.  We tried to go to a pizza place that I had heard good things about, but the line was out the door, so we instead stumbled into Famous Famiglia Pizzeria.  It looked like your typical fast food pizzeria with premade pies behind the counter.  We, of course had to try a large selection.

Tomato, basil, and mozzarella; ricotta and mozzarella; Sicilian style' and Hawaiian.  Was it the best pizza I've ever had?  No, but for fast food, it was really pretty good and it hit the spot after a long day of......eating.  And some walking around.  And some light shopping.  

 And apparently, a lot of famous people have stopped by, because the back wall was covered in photos of visiting celebrities.  Mom and I decided to commemorate the moment by taking a selfie with Nicholas Cage.

He seemed a bit.....cagey.  But anyway, it was soon time for Mom to catch her bus, so we made our way back into Times Square and while we waited, we amused ourselves by taking more selfies, this time without the help of Mr. Cage.

We especially liked this one in front of the giant Godzilla billboard.

Sadly, it was then time for Mom to leave.  So we hugged goodbye and she headed back to PA and I went off into the bright lights of Times Square.  

With it being so packed with people, it's really not a place where I'd want to spend much time during the day.

 

But she sure does clean up nicely at night, doesn't she?

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Foodie Friday

My introduction to the Greek café frappé at Flo.

A lunch salad that I made this week:  spinach, tuna, tomatoes and fresh thyme drizzled with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and lemon juice.

The end of my first beer in NYC.  It wasn't a Bud Light, but I thought that the glass was very appropriate.

Happy Weekend!

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Cafe Orlin

On Sunday, G and I met up for my first NY brunch as an actual resident of the city.  I was pretty excited, and I asked her to pick a place somewhere between her apartment in Brooklyn and mine in Queens since obviously, I have yet to discover the city's foodie gems.  She chose Cafe Orlin in the East Village, and we arrived and grabbed a table outside to enjoy the sunshine.

Everything sounded good on the menu, which was full of your normal brunch fare with a few Middle Eastern touches, but I went for one of the brunch specials:  poached eggs over a potato cake with greens, smoked salmon, and a yogurt dill sauce.

It proved to be a delicious combination of flavors and the potato cake had been cooked to perfection to achieve just the right level of crunchiness.  The real victory of this special, though, was that I got to add my choice of a breakfast cocktail (I went for the bellini) and the combo clocked in at only $20.  G went for an egg white omelet with fontina, tomato, and spinach with homefries, salad, and toast on the side.

Just look at that photogenic spread.  We downed it pretty quickly, all the while looking rather pleased with ourselves.

 We chatted about my move and G's recent acceptance to her dream grad school program, and then I ducked inside for a quick look around.  Even if the weather doesn't allow for you to sit outside and enjoy brunch al fresco, fear not, for the inside is cozy and inviting, with lots of exposed brick and a small, intimate feel.

If you want to go for brunch, Cafe Orlin serves it on Saturdays and Sundays from 8:30-4pm.  From what I understand, there's usually a line (we actually got really lucky and didn't have to wait to be seated but I don't think that this happens too often), so it's best to arrive early if your hangover will let you get out of bed at a decent hour.  Just throw on some sunglasses and try to sit outside so you can keep them on.....no one will know.

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Foodie Friday

Hi Everyone!  So sorry that there hasn't been much posting lately.  I moved to New York on Wednesday so the last week or so has been full of organizing, packing, and saying goodbye to places and people in Boston.  Hopefully, I'll have some interesting New York shenanigans to report next week, but until then, I'll leave you with a glimpse of my first New York bagel.  Life. Changing.

 Whole Wheat Oats & Raisins Bagel with Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cream Cheese from Brooklyn Bagel & Coffee Company.

 Isn't that cream cheese just insane?

Happy Weekend!

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