Butter Lane is in my ears and in my eyes…

…and in my mouth…and makes me sing Beatles songs in my head.

Butter Lane is the latest cupcake bakery to open in New York, on 123 East 7th St. in the Lower East Side. Magnolia — made famous by Sex and the City — long ago lost its supremacy in Manhattan’s cupcake world, especially after opening a third location in Rockefeller Center.  Crumbs and Buttercup Bake Shop are quickly becoming passe.

Butter Lane promises to produce “the better cupcake” and they do, using pure ingredients and local dairy ingredients. Jess, my fellow cupcake connoisseur, agreed these cupcakes didn’t taste like generic grocery-store cake, as Magnolia’s do. I had the vanilla cake with chocolate American buttercream frosting. They perfect the classic, while also going out on a limb with unusual frosting options, like blueberry buttercream and French buttercream (and even let you taste test before making your choice). 

And I later learned the business is owned by three females: a former banker, a woman who works in publishing, and another who works in television. They’re probably friends who decided one day over drinks they’d do something crazy like open their own cupcake bakery and make a fortune. Ah, only in New York.

Hong Kong Supermarket

If I could, I’d trade the Gristedes on my corner for the Hong Kong Supermarket in Chinatown. Katie P and I walked down the aisles picking up one box and package with Chinese characters after another, thinking up recipes we could concoct or wondering what some unidentifiable items would taste like. Everything is so cheap, you can’t really resist buying it just to find out.

Strawberry Dofu Delight

Since I have an automatic attraction to anything pink and like tofu, the box of Strawberry Dofu Delight caught my eye. No tofu involved though – it’s a fat-free gelatin dessert. Let’s forget that Katie said it reminded her of Pepto Bismal. It could be delish! If not, I have my blueberry jelly, which are wiggly, individually wrapped cubes as opposed to a spread from a jar. Apparently, you eat them at your own risk. The box warns, “Please chew carefully and swallow slowly, so as not to be choked.”

See, you won’t find this stuff at Gristedes. I forgot how much I enjoy wandering Chinatown. Rachel and I had a great time in Flushing’s Chinatown too.

Curry Hill Cheap Eat

There are certain subway stops in New York City that are unlike any other — you walk up and instantly, your senses are hit with a completely different experience than where you left from: Times Square, for example, is an overdose of lights and fleeting cabs. The NR stop on 28th Street is like that for the nose — you walk up and instantly smell spices. You’re in the part of Murray Hill known as Curry Food — Indian and Middle Eastern food galore.

mujaddara platter

Today, I met my favorite Canadian, Jessalynn, for lunch at one of nymag.com’s 2008 Cheap Eats, Kalustyan’s. YOU MUST GO. The whole meal — and it was a bountiful heap of grape leaves, moujaddara, pita, and salad drizzled with tahini sauce — only cost $9 each, with bev included. First, browse the downstairs mart, where you’ll find every obscure ingredient you’ve never dreamed of, like nopalitos, which is from a cactus plant and used in Mexican dishes. Then, go upstairs to the deli (seating is tight so avoid peak lunch hour) where a friendly white-haired man is eager to serve you and give you samples. The moujaddara platter seemed to be their specialty, so order that — it’s mild and made from lentils, rice, extra virgin olive oil. Delish. I will be back, because this place would be like Rachel’s ultimate candy store. If you’re a cook with exotic tastes, you can order online from their grocery here.

Surprise Birthday Cake

Ever go out to eat at the Olive Garden or Friendly’s, to see the wait staff parade out to a table singing “Happy Birthday” and bearing a tiny candle-lit cake? The birthday boy or girl usually blushes at the stares of other customers and playfully chastises the family member who secretly planned the surprise.  In the hustle and bustle of New York restaurants, you don’t usually get that kind of performance…but if you want it, we discovered the tradition at Kashkaval Foods on 9th Ave., between 55th and 56th Streets.

When Pando, the owner of this cheese shop/wine bar (which has a wonderful selection of Mediterranean tapas), found out it was our friend Leah’s birthday, he planned a b-day brigade all on his own initiative. At the end of our meal, the lights dimmed and he surprised Leah with this miniature red velvet cake, as we all sang “Happy Birthday.” I don’t think she was too embarrassed. I say relish in your birthday glory! So go, and if you’re in the mood for a delicious/cheap dessert for the table, pretend it’s someone’s birthday.

surprise birthday cake from Kashkaval

Supersize Me

When showing my Texas relatives around UWS and a bustling Times Square yesterday, I think I safely left them with the impression that we do things big in NYC. Proof: the burger my 10-year-old cousin tries to tackle at Big Nick’s, an UWS neighborhood staple since 1962. So Shake Shack, much as I love you, you may have a line out the door of your brand spankin’ new establishment on 77th & Columbus, but can you really compete with this?   

a Big Nick's burger

Shop & Eat in Boston: 5 Randoms

popcorn in the underground - cute!

The week before our Boston trip, I was so swamped with work and pulling together the MacDella Cooper Foundation’s annual gala that I had no time to Google and yelp the city. Maybe my lack of direction was for the better — we wandered around with open eyes, observant of Boston’s cute quirks, like its self-compacting street trash cans and popcorn stands in the underground T (subway) stations. Landmarks are lovely, but in the end, isn’t a city all about its details?

If you were going to Boston on a budget, here are 5 lesser-known stores and shops I’d tell you to pop into:

1. Bodega (6 Clearway St.)

Sammy outside Bodega

Someone must do a marketing analysis of how this store is a viable business. I guess it proves what Sammy always refers to as “the Tipping Point” –- Malcolm Gladwell’s term for things that rise in popularity, simply due to word of mouth. The façade is a modest bodega on a side street, its windows filled with faded toilet paper rolls and laundry detergent bottles. Go inside and it still looks like a bodega, except then a secret door opens and leads you into a hip sneaker store! Even the web site is mysterious: www.bdgastore.com.

2. The Other Side Cafe (407 Newbury St.)

This cafe is staffed by struggling musicians, who are well-tattooed, spike the coffee with alcohol, and make a mean bowl of yogurt, fruit, and granola. Just look at the masterpiece one of them created for me! I watched him carefully slice and dice the fruit from our seats on the second floor, which overlooked the kitchen. The menu is known for its healthy, vegan options.

3. Johnny Cupcakes

First heard of Johnny Cupcakes when Katy Perry endorsed it as one of her favorite places to shop in LA, but come to find out, he’s based in Boston! Johnny Cupcakes has a fascinating story — he started his brand of screen-printed t-shirts, marked with cupcakes and bones, as a joke. The store is set up like a mock bakery — the t-shirts are encased like desserts. The clothes are pricey ($30-60 for a shirt) but go to counter and look for the $1 pins in cupcake tins so you can add a little Johnny to your life. I bought the “make cupcakes NOT WAR” pin.

4. Anna’s Taqueria

Our Boston native friend Diana recommended this spot for the best burritos ever, and I think she was right. Go for a good cheap eat ($4 per burrito and 75 cents for guac).

5. When Pigs Fly

We talked up the boy behind the counter to get free samples of the old-world style artisan bread here. Stop in after Anna’s (it’s on Beacon St. in Brookline) and try Mango, Pineapple, Raisin, with Toasted Sesame and Ginger bread. Carbs with a kick of citrus — delicious.

Wanderlust in Boston: Part I

Wanderlust goes to Boston! I’m blogging all this week about my weekend in Boston with Sammy and Lauren, starting with how Boston cream pie is a dessert gone extinct. Sammy and I were on a touristy quest to eat Boston cream pie in Boston, and we figured we’d find it encased at every bakery and diner, much like you would see New York Cheesecake in New York. Well, we were wrong. Not even the New England grocer Shaw’s carried it!

Boston cream pie: the most evasive dessert in Boston

So what is so Boston about this cream pie anyways, I wondered? It’s actually a misnomer because it looks like a cake (it was probably named as such because colonists baked pies in cake tins). The pie became popularized after a New York newspaper printed the recipe in 1855 – it consists of two layers of sponge cake, sandwiched together with creme, and topped with chocolate. Maybe someday I’ll bake it.

Minus this letdown, I found Boston to be a beautiful city of other sweet surprises and charm…more to come!

Brooklyn Fall Festival: The Prequel

In my last post, you read how Sammy and I took on Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood for cheap fall fun. The New York Times may have written about “Frugal New York” this weekend, but that’s how we live every weekend…NYC is an insanely expensive city, but free stuff is all around you. Take for instance Union Square on Saturday morning, where we met up before hopping on the F train to Carrol St.

1) Free Fashion Advice at the Union Square Green Market.

were they for real?

Two women who claimed to be stylists were giving free fashion advice to anyone who lined up at their booth. Sammy and I eavesdropped and tried to ask them the business rationale for setting up here — was this for a TV show? A book proposal? a web site? A magazine prank? (Yours truly used to do that for JANE magazine…remember the infamous street spa in Times Square for the March 2006 issue?). They avoided non-style questions and only gave out a paper with this web site, which looks pretty hokey…plus, these bloggers caught some cameramen hanging around the girls, so I’m betting it’s candid camera for a reality show. Another reason to love NY: Where else can you get locally grown produce and good, free fashion advice in one place?

2) Free Mini Crumbs Cupcakes!

You know it’s your lucky day when a woman stands on the street corner with a pink baker’s hat serving free mini Crumbs cupcakes, of the M&M, Oreo, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup variety. This plate was cleared in less than a minute!

cupcakes are bliss

See, freebies abound you when you have wanderlust and open eyes.

Fall Festival @ Brooklyn’s The Yard

butternut squash soup, mm mm good

You may have noticed my beloved New York Times chose “Frugal New York” as its main travel feature this weekend. Had I written the article, I wouldn’t have considered a $29 burger & beer meal at the Parker Meredian ”frugal” traveling (instead, try beer with FREE pizza at the Crocodile Lounge on 14th St.!). But whatev, that’s why you have Rachel and I to share all the cheap secrets with you.

On Saturday, our friend Sammy (of awkwardiswawesome.com) and I took a tip from Time Out New York and checked out Brooklyn’s fall festival at the Yard. It was a benefit for Just Food, a non-profit that aims to develop a sustainable food system in New York City. Admission was only $12…kids 5 and under were free, which explained the stroller derby, but hey, they gave us something to awwwwat. The event also attracted twentysomething Brooklyn hipsters, who sat on bales of hay and sipped their seasonal beers.

For $4, we snacked on honeycrisp apples from upstate New York and each devoured the creamiest bowl of butternut squash soup we’ve ever had.

But what we REALLY wanted was pumpkin pie. How can you celebrate fall without it? With none to be found at the Yard, we walked back to the Carrol St. subway stop (take the F from Manhattan) and from there, wandered down Smith St. It was less congested than Manhattan and tourist-free, lined with trendy clothing boutiques and cozy restaurants representing all types of cuisines, from Latin to Indian and Thai. I spotted the Fall Cafe and our eyes lit up — they must have pumpkin pie, right? Wrong. The wanderlust-deprived dude running shop couldn’t even tell us where there would be a nearby bakery! Ah well, the cafe still had a nice, intellectual vibe, making you want to pen your novel or read The New York Times there. 

Second try: a French bakery, where they didn’t seem familiar with the glory that is pumpkin pie, but they tried to sell us on a porcupine ball of chocolate mousse (yes, the chocolate ball had quills…do the French eat that?). No thank you. Pumpkin pie and pumpkin pie only.

my my miss American pie

We were almost ready to give up, taking our hunt just one block further. Sammy spotted a graphic novel shop and suggested we browse, but then she grabbed my arm and started pulling me in the opposite direction — she’d spotted a beacon of hope: a Met Foods grocery store. And there, right by the deli, we found the selection of packaged Entemanns’ desserts…which included, lo and behold, a pumpkin pie for $5.49. Score, third time’s a charm.

We left Met with our pie, realizing we had no “cutlery,” as Sammy put it. So we revisit our French bakery buddies. We showed them our pie, flashed bright smiles, and asked if they knew where we could find some plastic knives and forks with which to enjoy it. They gave us some and assured us that they’ll be carrying pumpkin pie by the end of October.

Mission accomplished, we met up with our LES friend Leah at the Gowanus Yacht Club and Beer Garden, which wasn’t the least bit as pretentious as it sounds…it felt like hanging out in someone’s backyard at a barbecue. Lights were strung overhead, a Tom Petty CD played, and the menu of beer, hot dogs, and burgers is chalked on hanging boards (even the bathrooms have chalkboards encouraging you to be a graffiti artist). It was so laid-back, even a beagle sat on a bar stool to order. Hey, come to think of it, Matt Gross, the New York Times’ Frugal Traveler, is from Brooklyn. Wonder if he’s been?

Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream

Mmmm fall foods… I’m thinking toasted pumpkin bread, hot apple cider, stacks of Saturday morning pancakes. I had never realized how much autumn treats are associated with warmth, until I stopped by Shake Shack this week. On Sunday, I had my first taste of warm comfort food transformed into creamy, chilly custard when I ordered Shiraz poached pear. It must have been really good, because I was back on Monday night to order custard mixed with pumpkin pie. But I got distracted by the flavor of the day, pumpkin spice. Going for customization, I mixed it with spice bread and roasted apples in a gift to New York called the concrete. It was like Thanksgiving turned into a 4th of July ice cream cone—my brain and taste buds were slightly confused at first, but then gave in and savored. Now I just have to work my way through the whole list. It’s a tough job, but luckily I live in the neighborhood and am conditioned for rigorous testing. And I hear the heat lamps are coming out soon…

M: Pumpkin Spice
T: German Chocolate
W: Apple Rosemary
Th: Pancake
F: Chocolate Candy Corn
S: Cinnamon Roasted Fig
S: Shiraz Poached Pear