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Keep on Rockin’: Installment 3

I stopped in Magnolia Bakery because when you walk past Magnolia Bakery, you stop in. Beautiful, whimsical cupcakes were in abundance, including the one I ultimately selected, Rockette Red Velvet. Everything a red velvet cupcake should be: moist and tender with a tangy frosting. And the fact that it was topped with a tiny Rockette pushed it over the edge of cuteness. A joy, even though I had red cake in my teeth for like an hour.

Once our friends arrived from Penn Station, and while my husband was still in his conference, we decided to strike out and try Mama Mexico, a highly recommended Mexican joint near our hotel. The guacamole presentation was the most impressive I’ve ever seen. It was delicious, too, as was the rest of our food.

The service was pretty spotty, especially when the same waiter tried to take our order twice after he had already taken it. For all the attempts at order taking, you would think the food would be out quickly, but I feel like I aged at least a year while waiting. Luckily, it was exceptional Mexican food. However, service is next to godliness in my book.

Warning: Charming Cheese Monger Alert! We next hopped on a train and headed down to Essex and Delancey to visit Saxelby Cheesemongers in the Essex Street Market. We were lucky enough to meet Anne, who was in the middle of cutting a thousand tiny pieces of cheese for a special order. It reminded me why we don’t cut pieces of cheese for special orders. Yikes!

Anyway, Anne was delighted to talk about her business, as any proud owner would be, and she just glowed, despite the arduous task in which she found herself immsersed. Her selection was small but thoughtfully and beautifully presented. My favorite feature, and one that we would see several more times on our tour, was the see-through walk-in where her extra cheeses were stored. What a lovely feature! If only we had the space, it would be my next addition.

Next stop: Pickle Guys. The name is actually a bit misleading, because despite being called Pickle Guys, these guys sell pickles (ok – that was a little joke). Their barrels are filled not only with pickled cucumbers, but pickled watermelon, string beans, tomatoes, carrots……. They pretty much pickle anything that will sit still long enough to be immersed in vinegar. I’ve never seen, much less tasted, so many pickley treats. And they were SO super nice, letting us try all sorts of things. Lucky for us, they ship, so it will not be long before our pack-o-pickles arrives.

After the vinegar adventure, a little something sweet was in order. Off to Doughnut Plant! Once the owner found out what I did for a living, he insisted that I try the carrot cake doughnut filled with cream cheese frosting. In fact, he ripped open three of them before he found one that he deemed cheese-filled enough for me. It did not disappoint.



All in all, we tasted crème brulé (he actually torches the top so it’s crunchy), marzipan, coconut cream filled, jelly filled, carrot cake, and cinnamon sticky bun. The place is tiny, consisting more of kitchen than retail space, but it’s big enough to get the job done (the job being to get a pile of doughnuts in a bag for us). Coolest feature: his filled doughnuts still have a hole in the middle so there’s not this big puddle of filling in the center like a typical doughnut. Instead, he pipes the filling throughout the entire circle so each bite has a perfectly-distributed amount. A genius!

I had to visit Di Palo’s in Little Italy. It is the place to go for fresh Mozzarella, which they leave in a pile, simply wrapped, on the deli case. Ours was still warm when we tasted it. As we pulled it apart with our fingers, it actually leaked whey all over the sidewalk. It was that fresh. I, of course, could not be dainty for long, and proceeded to eat most of the remaining ball like an apple. Juicy and tasting of fresh cream. It lived up to and exceeded my expectations.

The folks behind the counter were SO nice, which I didn’t expect since it’s a super-old and super-established business, but everyone was lovely – and they even gave me chocolates as I was leaving. Thanks, Di Palo guys!

Next we visited the Tenement Museum and learned about the lives of Irish immigrants in the 1860’s. Suffice it to say that I left feeling very fortunate that I am not an Irish immigrant in the 1860’s. Fascinating but sobering. Also not food-related, so I’ll move on now to…

SoHo! I could walk for hours in SoHo. There’s just so much to see. We happened upon Rice to Riches, which has like 50 different kinds of rice pudding. I love rice and I love pudding, so the two in combination were heavenly. We chose Mascarpone with cherries. It was so creamy and rich that the sourness of the cherries was the perfect complement. This place was totally cute and had the funniest signs throughout. We spend a good amount of time just reading them. What a great little place!

We really needed a cocktail so we popped into Mercer Kitchen. The hostess upstairs was super-nice but the gentleman host downstairs at the bar was so snooty and nasty, we left. Poor form.

Obviously, we hadn’t eaten enough yet, so we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner at Veritas. The restaurant was super-cozy and accommodating. We also sat next to some really cool Portuguese guys. And oh what a wine list! We started with a wonderful Sauvignon Blanc and then moved onto a California Syrah that we paired with the rest of our 4-course menu. Each course was better than the last. Wagyu filet was outstanding. After dessert, they brought out more little tasty treats like macarons (I love when places do that). If wine is your thing, get thee to Veritas.

Phew! Time for bed. We have a lot of work (a.k.a. eating) to do tomorrow.