Tag Archives: Macaron

Cake Tasting at Pomme Palais

4 Jan

A few weeks ago, I was invited to attend a Holiday Cake tasting at Pomme Palais, a new French gourmet cafe from Chef Michel Richard.  Pomme Palais is in The Palace Hotel at 30 East 51st Street (between Madison and Park Avenues).

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The patisserie itself is brightly lit and spotlights the big, modern cases of various yummy treats.

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The have some packaged goodies ready to go along with the individual items in the case.  (We actually went back and grabbed some candy bars when we were in the area a few days later)

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I was only able to attend for a bit, but we were treated to some amazing pastries in the time I was there.

The patisserie was described as “whimsical” in the overview and that is a great way to explain it.

The Macaron Cake was an “almond vanilla sponge cake layered with chocolate mousse, coated with dark chocolate, and decorated with macarons for playful color and texture”

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It was a beautiful and playful cake and was quite delicious.

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Though it didn’t sing the way some of the others did.

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The Opera Cake was “layered cake of coffee, chocolate, and almond flavors.”DSCF2828

I was a big fan of this one. I am not a huge cake fan, so I liked that this was layers of different textures without much traditional cake cake.

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We also tried the Charlotte Cake “with fruit, apricot, raspberry, passion yogurt mousse and lady fingers.  This cake can have a mousse filling with any fruit the customer prefers.”  This was good but not on the top of my list.

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The Orange Creme Brulee Cheesecake was something special.  It was described as “a creative twist on the classic cheesecake and flan.”  True to description, this was a perfect balance of cheesecake’s creamy denseness (but not too dense) with a flan like top.  And the orange added a nice flavor essence.

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The Lemon Eggceptional Cake was a beauty.  It was described as “layers of sponge cake, lemon curd, French meringue, topped with white chocolate lemon eggceptionals.”

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This was very nice and a light and fluffy cake, though lemon isn’t my favorite.

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My second favorite cake of the day was the Tart au Pomme which was “puff pastry with thin slices of apple, pastry cream, topped with sugar.”

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The apples on this just popped with flavor. A perfect texture and the perfect balance of tartness and sweet.

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But my number one favorite of the tasting was the Chocolate Fleur d’Automne: “Chocolate flower on top of cake with almond meringue and chocolate mousse.”

 

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What can I say? I’m a chocolate girl!  This was an exceptional balance of textures and richness with sweetness and a hint of crisp from the hard thin chocolate on top.  I absolutely loved this cake and even though my tummy was quite full by this time, I ate every last bite of this one.

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Though, alas, I couldn’t finish the rest.  I felt awful wasting so much great dessert.

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I had to leave just before the cut into the most adorable of the treats: Michel’s Snowman: “White meringue Snowman wrapped up with a sugar scarf and marzipan-chocolate hat… he carries a rosemary stalk ‘tree’ and includes raspberry sauce.”

You prepare this by rimming the plate with whipped cream and filling the hollow base of the snowman with ice cream.  Sounds like my kind of dessert! I absolutely love hard meringue. I was bummed I didn’t get a chance to try this one, and when we went back a few days later to get some candy, they were all sold out. I’ll just have to go back!

But seriously… how adorable is this guy?

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Near the end of the tasting, a very jovial Chef Michel Richard came out to say hello.  He is quintessentially French, and while almost a little too friendly with the ladies, he was very happy to ham it up for the camera.  He was incredibly happy and seemed genuinely excited to be sharing his creations with us.

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We were sent home with a lovely box of candy.

 

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And each bite was better than the last.  I am very picky about my candies, and these were exceptional.

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I have been to many patisseries in NYC (and around the world), baking is my first love, and I am a dessert person to the extreme.  I wasn’t expecting to like this place as much as I did, and the desserts were really fantastic and original.  The only other place I’ve had desserts as noteworthy is at Dominique Ansel. (Though Chef Ansel will always have my heart)

I would never have known to stop by Pomme Palais had I not been invited to try these cakes, so this was one perk in which I was more than happy to participate.  I was very thankful for the opportunity and can’t wait to go back (and try that snowman)!

Cakes range from $20 (for the snowman) to $42 (for most of the full cakes).  Quite expensive, but worth it to impress at a party. And the individual pastries are probably reasonably priced for a nice snack near Rockefeller Center or before a Radio City performance. (They also have some non-dessert foods that looked quite good). And the candy bars we got a few days later… awesome.

Highly recommend a stop!

 

Note: While I was privileged enough to do this tasting for free, all opinions expressed are my own.

New Restaurant Opening: Betony

8 Jun

When it comes to top restaurants, I find it very hard to judge fairly when I’m comparing a Tasting Menu to just about anything else.  For instance, our Top 10 contains 9 restaurants that were either Tasting Menus or Prix Fixe.  But seeing as though our Numero Uno of ALL TIME was Eleven Madison Park, we were excited to hear that a former chef from there (Bryce Shuman) and a former General Manager (Eamon Rockey) had started a new place that opened in Mid-May called Betony.

Betony is located on 57th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues, in prime Central Park tourist territory.  The inside is a very interesting space, with plush brown fuzzy seating and walls and ceiling carved and etched.

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The menu is sparse but has plenty of items that sounded quite tasty. The left part of the menu is small single bites.

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The middle is bigger sized appetizers.

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And the right column are the entrees.

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We had a tough time choosing, and when we asked our waitress for guidance, she explained to us that at least half the menu was amazing (making it so hard to choose!)

We wound up going with the marinated trout roe, “tuna melt,” hot foie gras, roast chicken, and grilled short ribs.

We began with some well mixed twists on classic cocktails (Mike got the negroni and I got the mojito) and the table bread was breadsticks (which looked like thin spaghetti with some delicious salt on them) and cheddar chips.  Both were salty, crunchy goodness.

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Our first appetizer was the Marinated Trout Roe on a puffed rice cracker with cucumber.

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Not only was this fresh and delicious…

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… it was a work of art!

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And then we tried the “Tuna Melt” which had a thin layer of melted fontina cheese on top and was on a brioche.  This was also stunningly beautiful and WOW was it good.  Like punch you in the face good. (I’m not even sure what that means but it seems appropriate somehow).

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My only complaint about the “finger foods” is that there were 3 of each. With a party of 2, it leaves for some awkwardness when you each have one and then look at the last bite longingly.  Even though Mike and I have been together for over 5 years and we’re getting married next week (HOLY SHEIS MONKEYS! NEXT WEEK!), we still struggled making this decision. Mike was a gentleman, however, and told me to have the last bite of tuna.  I gave him a quick taste because I couldn’t be that selfish.  But honestly, I would have rather they served us just 2 or bit the bullet and served 4.  Fair is fair when it comes to delicious food.

We were then served an intermezzo “from the kitchen” which was a gooseberry compote with tomato snow.  It smelled like flowers and a summer day.  I found the compote very tasty but there was something… off… about the compote. It tasted very soapy. Like something went wrong soapy.  It was the only blemish on an otherwise spotless meal.

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We were then served bread, which was baked in-house by the pastry chef and had caraway seeds, which reminded us of a Jewish deli in all the right ways.

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Up next came the foie gras, which was just described as being “hot or cold.” Our waitress guided us to the hot one that came with crispy kale and ham hock consume (which was poured over table side).

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It also had black garlic and a few other ingredients in it (including a top chip) that are escaping me. They served this with two plates and an extra bowl of consume.

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This dish was very well composed and the kale and the foie were great together.  The consume was superb and they very smartly offered to bring more rolls to soak up the awesome leftover liquids.  The sommelier suggested a moscato which complimented the rich foie very nicely.

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We asked the sommelier to recommend a glass of wine for each of the entrees we ordered, so he suggested a round Pinot Noir and a smokey Rioja.  Both were excellent with the meal.

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Both entrees were also served with a sauce/jus at the table.  The chicken had a rich and flavorful, but simple chicken broth.

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It was cooked on the bone but served without it and came with perfectly cooked turnips and morel mushrooms.  The skin on top was crispy, but if I can be a nit picker, it could have been a tad bit crispier. But the flavor was very earthy and the texture moist.  Well executed.

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The chicken came with a side that had a grain (perhaps bulgar?) with dark meat confit and a quale egg.  This was fantastic and really nailed all the flavors. (Our waitress told us that in an effort to use every bit of the chicken, the liver dish was also created from the whole chickens they buy).

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The Grilled Short Rib came with romaine (which was charred, and beautifully so) and sweetbreads.  A beef jus was also poured over the dish at the table and this was an incredibly rich and flavorful dish, with some of the most tender meat I’ve ever tasted. A bit was served on the bone, but the slices of short rib were out of this world.

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This was a dish not to be missed.

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At this point we were basking in delicious nomming glory but we couldn’t stop there!  The desserts just sounded so interesting and were listed without much description but with simply the most forward flavor of the dish.

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We also ordered a dessert Vouvray (Vouvray is our favorite white wine)

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But out came a madeira… which was poured for us before we had a chance to interrupt and ask if this was correct. Turns out it was not, as expected, but the lovely sommelier topped us off and we got to enjoy this awesome dessert drink on the house while waiting for the Vouvray.

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We chose the blueberry dish which came with crispy poppyseed flavors, fresh (and superbly delicious) blueberries, and a tea flavored ice cream.  This was beautiful and tasty.  A very fresh, very summery dessert.

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Then we each got the selection of 3 dessert tastes:

Frozen Chocolate Stout Macarons (A very nice balance of flavors, though the macarons were bit dense)
Pink Peppercorn Caramel Chews (A curious and quite good flavor and texture combination)
Dried Cherry & Pistachio Divinity (Awesome… awesome awesome awesome.  A great combination of salty and sweet.)

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What a meal!

This was a masterpiece.  It easily rivaled many tasting menus we have had and I might have to put it right in line with Ai Fiori, our current #10 spot holder on the all-time Top 10 list.

The service was spectacular, attentive, and friendly.  It wasn’t at all stuffy and they really cared about how much we enjoyed the food.

It was obvious that the chef is thinking critically about his dishes and doesn’t put anything on the plate just for the sake of putting it there. Flavors are expertly combined and the plating is beautifully crafted. The only miss was the weird tomato snow, but some dishes I couldn’t find a single fault with. If this is how good they are just 3 weeks in, I can’t imagine how good they will be as they find their sea legs.

Total Nom Points: 8.5 out of 10 (we struggled about giving this an 8.5 or a 9, but it is definitely in line with Ai Fiori so we need to keep some consistency around this Nom joint)

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Dominique Ansel Bakery

1 May

When Mike and I ate at Daniel in summer 2011, the entire meal was epic, but the desserts were hands down the best I can remember.  I looked up the pastry chef when I got home and found out that it was Dominque Ansel.  I also caught some news that he would shortly be leaving Daniel for his own venture.

Thankfully, that venture maintained his presence in New York and he opened up his own bakery in SoHo.

I got down there a few weeks after they opened, and I had a stepping into Willy Wonka moment.

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They had cases filled with beautiful pastries.

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They have a few shelves of packaged goods.

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And a huge menu of goodies, including their famous Madeleines, which are made to order after 3pm on Fridays and Saturdays. I was impressed to see Dominique Ansel behind the counter and going to the back to make the madeleines.  I wanted to tell him how much we enjoyed his desserts at Daniel, but never had the chance (that’s a lie… I just couldn’t bring myself to talk to him… you have your celebrities, I have mine).

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I ordered up some macrons to bring to my team in London.  While it was a gift, I did manage to snag one to try.  It was the best macaron I’ve ever had. By far. And I’ve had many. Every time I’m within 2 neighborhoods from SoHo, I think “maybe we should drop by there to get some macarons.”  Sadly, we haven’t been back yet. Though I foresee these in my very near future.

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We also ordered one of the pastries that looked divine.  It was packaged in the most elegant box I have ever seen.

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Inside was like a perfect prize.

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It was absolutely beautiful. Sadly, I was just too full to eat this and was off to London that night, so Mike had to take one for the team and eat it himself.   To quote his opinion: “Deeeeeeeeeee-licious!”

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Why was I so full? Well… because these little babies were just captivating.  When we had these at Daniel, I have a distinct memory of the waitress unfolding the napkin on top of these warm, steaming madeleines and the smell just being totally overwhelmingly delicious.  It was a similar moment upon opening up this paper bag and peering inside.

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They were definitely smaller than the ones at Daniel.

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And I don’t think they were QUITE the same.  They still tasted great, and that warm, lemony, sweet pillow is still something other-wordly, bit it just wasn’t 100% there.  Perhaps nothing can ever be as good as your first time.

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