Notes on Food (and Drink): Paris Edition

by EP

**NOTE: I found this never-before-seen Paris post that I abandoned mid-way through, and figured it was still good stuff, so I finished it and am posting it now.  A little "Springtime in Paris" in August, for your reading pleasure.  Enjoy!**

While I was eating my way through Paris, I learned a few things and made a few observations, and tried unsuccessfully to blend and not be a typical "stupid American."  I won't say we successfully blended at all, but we did find that making the effort to speak French (at least a little!) went a long way with most people.  Rachel speaks French (with an African accent, admittedly) and was able to communicate on our behalf throughout the trip - and I can't thank her enough!  (Amusing side note: since I don't speak French, I didn't say much to people unless I knew they spoke some English -- I didn't want to just assume they could or would speak to me in English.  This resulted in a few instances of people saying, to Rachel, "Your friend is quiet - is she shy?"  HA.  If they only knew.)

One of my favorite pictures we took

The Lexington Donut Challenge

by Erin



About a week ago, Xani blogged about National Donut Day (or rather, it's mysterious reappearance after we already celebrated it back in June?), and a reader named Kalee commented with a simple question: "May I ask if you know of good places to get donuts here in Baltimore?"

I began to reply to Kalee but realized that there were only two donut places in all of Baltimore that I could even think of for donuts: the old favorite Dunkin' Donuts, and the MD chain called Fractured Prune, which I associate with the beach since that's where it got started, but apparently they are now located all over Maryland (and elsewhere).

Then, I remembered one of the fondest memories of law school: exam snacks. In the midst of stress, lack of sleep, too much coffee, and the elements of second degree murder swimming through our first-year heads, the Maryland Law Alumni Association always provided snacks for students on exam days. Afternoon and evening snacks were just lame packaged crackers and cookies, but morning exam-takers got the best of the best: coffee and some of the best donuts I've ever had! And these donuts were from the famous Lexington Market, just up the street from the law school.

With this memory recalled, my co-workers and I got to researching the bakeries at the Lex to see if we could find the one that had provided our exam donuts. Unfortunately, there were FIVE bakeries in the Lex that sold donuts - how would we ever determine who had those great donuts?! There was only one way: a donut tasting. (Recall that this was not my first donut tasting; we had a glorious donut tasting experience in NYC with Doughnut Plant donuts....mmm square donuts...).



A reminder of the Doughnut Plant tasting of '08

Early the next morning, co-workers Ray and Bianca joined me on the quick trip to the Lex where we planned on buying donuts from several bakeries to bring back to the office for a blind taste test. We ended up getting donuts from Harbor City Bakery, Donut Delite, and the Berger Bakery (maker of those irresistable, classicly Baltimore cookies: Berger Cookies).



We tried to get similar flavors from each bakery for better comparison. We also compared prices. Here was the breakdown:

Harbor City Bakery: $2.25/doz ($.19/donut)
Donut Delite: $1.90/half doz ($.32/donut)
Berger Bakery: $3.25/half doz ($.54/donut)

So clearly, there is a price discrepancy. But how did they taste?? We set up the conference room table in a grid formation, where each column was a different bakery (they were anonymously labeled A, B, and C), and then the rows were the different flavors of donuts. As you can see, we didn't have a perfect flavor match-up between the three bakeries. Ah well.





Flavors included a chocolate-glazed cake, a glazed raised, a pumpkin spice, double chocolate, boston creme, and sour cream (sometimes called sour dough - any thoughts on this discrepancy?). Everyone from the office came to try a taste of each kind.



Surprisingly, many people loved Donut Delite, but lots of folks also preferred the Berger donuts. I personally thought Berger blew everyone else out of the water - the sour cream was phenomenal, and the chocolate glazed cake was extra special because it had a regular glaze on it in addition to the chocolate glaze. A-mazing. As a donut connoisseur, I can tell you these were outstanding donuts, to rival even the fanciest donut shops.



Doubly-glazed Berger chocolate-glazed cake donut...drooling now...



Sour cream donut, ready for taste-testing



Glazed donut, ready for taste-testing



Chocolate-glazed cake donut

Another hot topic of conversation was the boston creme donut: the group was seriously split about which was the best, partially because there are so many components to analyze: dough, creme, and frosting. The group never quite came to a decision on which was better, but Donut Delite and Berger were the two everyone was talking about. Sorry Harbor City...



Berger Bakery Boston Creme donut



Donut carnage

By the end of it, we were all in a sugar coma and trying to kill time until the afternoon when several of us in the office were to receive our highly-anticipated bar exam results. I'm happy to report that later in the day, I found out that I PASSED!!! Thanks to all my friends and especially the BCD family for helping me and putting up with me during the bar - I truly couldn't have done it without you. And to say thanks, donuts for everyone!! :)

Thanks to Ray, Bianca, and Dave for helping me with the Lexington Donut Challenge, and thanks Kalee for your comment - it turned into a delicious experiment! And, to answer your question, I recommend the Berger Bakery donuts in the Lex. Soooo good...

Happy donut tasting,
EP

BCD Takes NYC: Part Three - Hipsters, More Cupcakes, and Dumplings

by Erin and Xani

After our super-fun first full day in the city, we came back to Brooklyn and went out on the town! We had lots of fun checking out the Bay Ridge bar scene (i.e., super-drunk firefighters and a leather-chapped bouncer) but we were sooooo tie-tie after our day of eating and touring around, and we slept for a LONG time when we got home. When we arose we hopped in the car and headed over to Williamsburg, an area of Brooklyn that has become so hipster, it was like a different planet. We saw girls on bikes wearing grannie dresses and sailor hats, and a guy wearing a Level 2 hazardous materials suit with a neon green halter tank underneath. Let's just say it makes Baltimore's hipsters look preppy. It was incredible. Anyway, we went to a bustling diner called Diner and amazingly got a seat right away. First things first: coffee. We got coffees and Lauren ordered a latte. The coffee was really good and strong, and a great way to start our day.

Just what we needed after a long night in Bay Ridge...

Xani caught stealin' those Domino sugar cubes! Charm City represent!

Tall drink of latte

The staff at Diner made us feel welcome, despite the fact that we were devoid of multiple tatoos and super-tight jeans (question: what do you do if you're a fat hipster and can't wear those jeans? Discuss.) The menu at Diner was minimal but they have lots of specials that change every day.

Cheers to not being hipster enough!

Lauren and roomie Sarah - also not hipster enough

Then we ordered our much-needed brunch. Xani ordered the Cornmeal Pancakes with Blueberry Compote, Lauren ordered the Fruit Plate with Honey, and Lauren's roommate Sarah and I each ordered the special sandwich of the day: Bacon, Egg, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich with Cole Slaw.

Fruit plate

Xani's pancakes were the surprise hit of the meal! Xani doesn't even LIKE pancakes, and she loved these. They tasted like really corny cornbread but with the added bonus of being all griddled up and buttery, plus the blueberry compote was tart and sweet on top. Add a little syrup and you've got yourself a kick-ass breakfast.

EP's sandwich was also fantastic, but in a savory, I-prefer-lunch way. The sandwich was served open-face on a single piece of toast, and everything worked beautifully together. The bacon was fatty but not greasy, and the tomatoes were yellow heirloom tomatoes with lots of flavor. The fried egg on top was an added bonus with yummy yolk action not unlike a certain lamb's tongue salad we met a few nights before. The slaw was some of the best we've had - EVER. It was purple (from red cabbage, we presume) with lots of flavor from vinegar, celery seed and caraway seed. It wasn't gloppy in the least, and it was irresistable!

Aw yeah...breakfast in a sandwich

After brunch, we hopped back in the car and drove a few blocks to the Brownstoner's Brooklyn Flea Market to do a little shopping. Another reason we wanted to check out this market in particular is because we knew Keavy of the Kumquat Cupcakery would be selling her delicious cupcakes there!

Loyal readers will recall when Lauren did a field report on these cupcakes, which was very positive, and we were eager to try them for ourselves. Amazingly, when we introduced ourselves to Keavy, she remembered us and our blog! Hooray!

We tried one of each of her three kinds of cupcakes: chocolate blueberry, peachy vanilla, and red velvet. They were so adorably tiny, perhaps 2/3 the size of typical mini-cupcakes.

So tiny!

For all of them, the cake was light and moist, and the frosting was not overwhelmingly sweet. There was a wonderful cake:frosting ratio going on. In terms of flavor, they were all yummy but the clear winner was the peachy vanilla. Very delicate and dainty but not so dainty that you didn't want to shove the whole (tiny) thing in your mouth. Thanks Keavy! It was great to meet you (and your cupcakes)!

After we had had our cupcakes and purchased some fun new jewelry (who can resist vintage stud earrings??), we headed back to Bay Ridge to pack up our stuff. Then Lauren drove us into the city and dropped us off at cousins Ann and Steven's sweet pad in the middle of the city (right across the street from Shake Shack!). We hung out for a while and caught up, and then it was miraculously time to eat again. (That's the problem with writing these posts solely about food - it condenses all the eating into what sounds like about 20 minutes, but we swear, it was over a whole day!)

We decided to grab our last NYC eats with Ann and Steven at a dumpling place called Rickshaw Dumpling Bar (tagline: "Nice Dumplings"). This place was absolutely awesome for so many reasons. First, the chef and co-founder, Anita Lo, was recently the challenger on Iron Chef America, where she beat Iron Chef Batali in "Battle Mushroom." Also, she was the expert with whom Bobby Flay consulted on his Food Network show, "Throwdown," where the challenge was dumplings. Clearly, this lady is FIERCE in the kitchen.

But most importantly, we loved Rickshaw for its dumplings! There were approximately 5-6 types of dumplings, which they served pan-fried, steamed, in soup (six or so different kinds), or with salad (six or so different kinds). We mixed and matched and were able to try quite a few kinds.

First, we ordered some Watermelon Lemonade to sip while we waited (about 3 minutes) for our dumplings.

We ordered the Classic Pork and Chinese Chive dumpling and Hudson Valley Peking Duck dumpling, both pan-fried. Then we ordered the Chicken and Thai Basil dumpling in the Peanut Sate Noodle Soup. Not only did these dumplings come out hot and fast, but they were GOOD. Really good. I-might-drive-back-to-NYC-right-now good. The pan-fried ones were served with delicious dipping sauces, and the soup in which the chicken-thai basil ones were served was wonderfully fragrant and hearty, with lots of fresh vegetables and a generous portion of rice noodles.

We were still hungry after that round (yes, if you can believe it, still could eat more), so we ordered the Shrimp and Jicama dumpling, pan-fried, and the Szechuan Chicken dumpling in the Chili-Soy Noodle Soup. The soup was SPICY and delicious (especially the fried-up pieces of tofu on top), and the pan-fried dumplings were perfectly cooked and served with yet another type of dipping sauce.

Spiciest piece of tofu ever

The last thing we ordered were the Warm Chocolate Shanghai Soup Dumplings, which consisted of a rich, warm liquid chocolate encased in a kind of gummy, rice-based exterior coated with black sesame seeds. While Steven wasn't into them, the rest of us found them to be interesting and a great end to our dumpling meal.

Chocolatey innards...

The last reason we love Rickshaw is a reason we just discovered: their website is awesome (check out the section called "we believe" for their credo) and they use naturally raised, local, and organic meats when possible! Yay!

It was such a wonderful trip to New York with great friends, wonderful family, and spectacular, drool-inducing food. Can we go back now please?? Thanks to all who made the trip so great! We love you!

We heart NY,

EP & X