I went to New York almost every week over the summer. New York food staples have been part of my life forever, from Magnolia Bakery’s banana pudding and black and white cookies to the honey-roasted almonds my dad used to get me. Between the long lines, overpriced food, and the crowded, tiring nature of New York, what locations are worth checking out?
I tried the butter ice cream from Papa D’Amour, and let me tell you, it is not worth the hype. The slightly salty hard shell contrasted nicely with the sweet vanilla soft serve, but eating what tastes like plain butter with extra dairy quickly becomes sickening, though it might be a personal preference. The vanilla ice cream itself had a smooth, authentic vanilla bean flavor, and the bottom of my cone came with a pleasant mochi surprise. If you visit Papa D’Amour, try the other amazing pastries and bakery items — definitely anything mochi-related!
I kept hearing about the $10 gnocchi all over Instagram from Gnocchi on 9th, and I was so tempted that I finally went to try the gnocchi alla vodka. Unfortunately, the gnocchi itself was so overcooked and chewy that it stuck to my teeth. While it’s a decent, affordable staple, it was far from the best gnocchi I’ve ever had. In fact, eating it became so irritating that I committed to making homemade gnocchi for the next three months.
As someone who loves matcha, I shouldn’t be saying Blank Street matcha is good matcha, but I genuinely like it. I got a lemon loaf matcha, and they genuinely managed to capture not only the lemon flavor, but the flavor of a baked lemon, which was impressive. Their strawberry shortcake matcha was equally good and didn’t taste like an ordinary strawberry matcha because the shortcake flavor came through as well.
Liberty Bagels: Is it really a tourist trap? I went there to discover and got the most ridiculous flavor ever: The rainbow bagel with birthday cake cream cheese. The bagel was kind of dense and thick and the smear was equally thick, too. While I like it that way, even this was too much for me. The birthday cake smear was super delicious for the first few bites, but then got too sugary for the rest. Overall, I would say it’s a decent bagel. I might go back and try an actual bagel with my typical order, an everything bagel with scallion cream cheese.
On the subject of bagels, I also got to try PopUp Bagels — which I will say was worth the hype. The bagel comes with cream cheese separately, so I broke apart my bagel into bits and ate it like that. It was way more fun. The bagels were amazing, perfectly fluffy, and crackly at the top. The smear was equally good — do not be boring like me and go for the scallion cream cheese. Mix it up a bit and try their brown sugar cinnamon butter or their crazy weekly specials.
If I could actually list every spot I visited this summer, I think this article would take up the entire newspaper, so I’ll stop here. I will say that places I personally avoid are Mimi’s Frozen Yogurt because I don’t get the hype, and Dot Cakes, where I got too lazy to stand in line because why are we so obsessed with cake and sprinkles? It’s up to you to decide which ones become your new New York staples, or just trust me 😉.
