Back in May, I wrote about wanting to try the new Mumbai snack food restaurant Aamchi Pao on Bleecker St. It wasn't open yet at the time, but I've been twice since and it's excellent. All the slider-sized pao I've tried have been good, and I also enjoyed the variants on bhel puri they served as "chaat of the day".
I always like to try "exotic" sodas, so when I noticed Thums Up [sic] in the refrigerator case last time I was there, I had to give it a try. It's not all that different from Coke (and actually owned by Coca-Cola), but the name and graphics won me over. Also gotta love a non-alcoholic drink whose slogan is "Taste the Thunder!"
As much as I like Aamchi Pao, my real reason for writing about it again was to mention that a prediction I made in my earlier post has now come to pass. Here's what I wrote in May:
"Shopsin's has been adding some Indian items to their menu lately. I can imagine a deliciously Shopsin-ized version of pao bhaji showing up one of these days."
Well, today I looked at the latest version of Shopsin's ever-evolving menu (a fun thing to do any time, but an especially good idea when you're planning to eat there soon) and noticed that pav bhaji (apparently "pao" and "pav" are alternate spellings of the same thing) has indeed been added to the menu. If Shopsin's is open long enough, it's possible that some version of every dish in all the cuisines of the world will eventually appear on the menu.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Quote of the Week - "The Uterus of My Mind"
This Slate review of the unauthorized Catcher in the Rye "sequel" (blocked from publication by court order in the U.S. but available in Europe) makes it sound hilariously inept. If a worse, more unintentionally funny line than this one has been published this year, please tell me about it:
"Every day since I created him, every day since I pushed him through the uterus of my mind, I have thought of him."
(The line is supposed to be Salinger talking about Holden Caulfield)
"Every day since I created him, every day since I pushed him through the uterus of my mind, I have thought of him."
(The line is supposed to be Salinger talking about Holden Caulfield)
Q. What Kind Of Town Am I Living In?
A. The kind where a plate of fried chicken, mashed potatoes w/ gravy, and collard greens, served at a bowling alley, will set you back $16.50.
(Actually, the menu looks kind of good.)
(Actually, the menu looks kind of good.)
A Double Bill - Of Time And The City / My Winnipeg
I'm sure someone has written a dual review of these two movies before now. They're such a natural pair. Both are highly personal, idiosyncratic, childhood-haunted odes to the director's city of birth. Both could've been conceived and made by no one else. Both are self-portraits as well as portraits of a city.
I saw Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg in the theater several months ago, but only got around to seeing Of Time And The City recently on DVD. Terence Davies' film about Liverpool is mostly made up of archival footage, brilliantly edited and matched to music, with Davies' narration moving freely between his own comments and reminiscences and quotes from Shelly ("Ozymandias"), Eliot (Four Quartets) and others. There is also some new footage of Liverpool, focusing on impressive older buildings that have survived the cycles of decline and redevelopment depicted in the film and newer buildings suggestive of Liverpool's resurgence.
While Davies' narration gets close to the edge of pretension at certain points, always a danger when mixing poetic content with a dramatic style of delivery, there are moments when the pairing of text and image is quite powerful. Davies also displays a sense of humor throughout his narration, with the monarchy and the Catholic church of his childhood on the receiving end of some of his sharper barbs. It is a bitter, hurt kind of humor, especially when directed at city and country's failure to give its citizens a decent living environment (his comment that instead of Utopia the citizens of Liverpool got "anus mundi" is particularly harsh, given that that term has previously been associated with Auschwitz).
Better than the narration, though, is Davies' use of music. He makes some bold, surprising choices that, when they really work with the images, are powerfully effective. In a DVD extra interview, Davies says that the first sequence he imagined for the film was footage of Liverpool's post-war modernist housing blocks set to Peggy Lee singing the Kern/Hammerstein standard "The Folks Who Live On The Hill". The song, about aging gracefully in a hilltop cottage, becomes nearly heartbreaking when paired with the images of elderly Liverpudlians shuffling into or peering out of cold, concrete high-rises, looking isolated, alienated, and out-of-place-and-time. It's hard to imagine a simpler or more effective illustration of the essentially inhumane quality of the "machines for living" solution to housing satirized by Ray Davies in "Muswell Hillbilly" ("they're putting us in identical little boxes/no character, just uniformity") and shown at it's inevitable end point in the infamous Pruitt-Igoe demolition footage.
-------------------
In writing about My Winnipeg, I'd probably benefit from rewatching it on DVD as it's been a while since I saw it in the theater. As so many themes (hockey, hairdressing, strange sexuality, the harsh Canadian winter) recur in Guy Maddin's films, they can start to blend together in the memory. My Winnipeg is distinguished from earlier Maddin films more by its concept (a quasi-documentary about the city of Winnipeg) than by its content. All his films are "personal" films, as they trade heavily in his obsessions and childhood memories, but My Winnipeg is more up front about its autobiographical nature, anchored as it is by Maddin's own narration (another commonality with Davies' film) and prominently featuring the character of the filmmaker's mother (played by an actress, though I don't remember if that's ever made clear in the film).
As with Of Time and the City, the narration is often very funny, though Maddin's dry, bizarre, very Canadian sense of humor could hardly be more different from Davies' bitterly acerbic wit. I heard more out-loud laughter in the mostly empty theater where I saw My Winnipeg than I have in packed houses for full-on comedies. A few of my fellow moviegoers seemed to be very attuned to Maddin's peculiar comedic sensibility (or they might've just been high).
Maddin's method here is to present true incidents from Winnipeg's and his own history side by side with fabulous inventions, giving them equal weight and allowing the audience to guess which is which. As always with Maddin, there are strikingly surreal images - horses frozen up to their necks in a river, a buffalo-robed ice princess partaking in a secret civic ritual. His extremely lo-fi, early silent era approach makes anything he shoots look distinctive, but it's his imaginative eye for sets, costumes, and staging that really creates the alternate Maddin universe.
The section of the film dealing with the demolition of the old Winnipeg ice arena is perhaps where Maddin comes closest in theme, tone, and feeling to Davies. There is a very real sense that this building, the memories tied up in it, and the Winnipeg it represented were deeply meaningful to the filmmaker, and its loss truly hurt and angered him.
There is love and civic pride mixed with disappointment and hope for a better future in both of these films, but the directors' own histories with their cities of birth may account for some of the difference in tone. Maddin is the native son who stayed behind, finding a way to make his films and have the career he wanted in his home town. Davies escaped to the big city, London, and only returned reluctantly to make his film about Liverpool. Maddin will surely continue to mine his Winnipeg for material, but it remains to be seen whether Davies has said all he has to say about Liverpool.
I saw Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg in the theater several months ago, but only got around to seeing Of Time And The City recently on DVD. Terence Davies' film about Liverpool is mostly made up of archival footage, brilliantly edited and matched to music, with Davies' narration moving freely between his own comments and reminiscences and quotes from Shelly ("Ozymandias"), Eliot (Four Quartets) and others. There is also some new footage of Liverpool, focusing on impressive older buildings that have survived the cycles of decline and redevelopment depicted in the film and newer buildings suggestive of Liverpool's resurgence.
While Davies' narration gets close to the edge of pretension at certain points, always a danger when mixing poetic content with a dramatic style of delivery, there are moments when the pairing of text and image is quite powerful. Davies also displays a sense of humor throughout his narration, with the monarchy and the Catholic church of his childhood on the receiving end of some of his sharper barbs. It is a bitter, hurt kind of humor, especially when directed at city and country's failure to give its citizens a decent living environment (his comment that instead of Utopia the citizens of Liverpool got "anus mundi" is particularly harsh, given that that term has previously been associated with Auschwitz).
Better than the narration, though, is Davies' use of music. He makes some bold, surprising choices that, when they really work with the images, are powerfully effective. In a DVD extra interview, Davies says that the first sequence he imagined for the film was footage of Liverpool's post-war modernist housing blocks set to Peggy Lee singing the Kern/Hammerstein standard "The Folks Who Live On The Hill". The song, about aging gracefully in a hilltop cottage, becomes nearly heartbreaking when paired with the images of elderly Liverpudlians shuffling into or peering out of cold, concrete high-rises, looking isolated, alienated, and out-of-place-and-time. It's hard to imagine a simpler or more effective illustration of the essentially inhumane quality of the "machines for living" solution to housing satirized by Ray Davies in "Muswell Hillbilly" ("they're putting us in identical little boxes/no character, just uniformity") and shown at it's inevitable end point in the infamous Pruitt-Igoe demolition footage.
-------------------
In writing about My Winnipeg, I'd probably benefit from rewatching it on DVD as it's been a while since I saw it in the theater. As so many themes (hockey, hairdressing, strange sexuality, the harsh Canadian winter) recur in Guy Maddin's films, they can start to blend together in the memory. My Winnipeg is distinguished from earlier Maddin films more by its concept (a quasi-documentary about the city of Winnipeg) than by its content. All his films are "personal" films, as they trade heavily in his obsessions and childhood memories, but My Winnipeg is more up front about its autobiographical nature, anchored as it is by Maddin's own narration (another commonality with Davies' film) and prominently featuring the character of the filmmaker's mother (played by an actress, though I don't remember if that's ever made clear in the film).
As with Of Time and the City, the narration is often very funny, though Maddin's dry, bizarre, very Canadian sense of humor could hardly be more different from Davies' bitterly acerbic wit. I heard more out-loud laughter in the mostly empty theater where I saw My Winnipeg than I have in packed houses for full-on comedies. A few of my fellow moviegoers seemed to be very attuned to Maddin's peculiar comedic sensibility (or they might've just been high).
Maddin's method here is to present true incidents from Winnipeg's and his own history side by side with fabulous inventions, giving them equal weight and allowing the audience to guess which is which. As always with Maddin, there are strikingly surreal images - horses frozen up to their necks in a river, a buffalo-robed ice princess partaking in a secret civic ritual. His extremely lo-fi, early silent era approach makes anything he shoots look distinctive, but it's his imaginative eye for sets, costumes, and staging that really creates the alternate Maddin universe.
The section of the film dealing with the demolition of the old Winnipeg ice arena is perhaps where Maddin comes closest in theme, tone, and feeling to Davies. There is a very real sense that this building, the memories tied up in it, and the Winnipeg it represented were deeply meaningful to the filmmaker, and its loss truly hurt and angered him.
There is love and civic pride mixed with disappointment and hope for a better future in both of these films, but the directors' own histories with their cities of birth may account for some of the difference in tone. Maddin is the native son who stayed behind, finding a way to make his films and have the career he wanted in his home town. Davies escaped to the big city, London, and only returned reluctantly to make his film about Liverpool. Maddin will surely continue to mine his Winnipeg for material, but it remains to be seen whether Davies has said all he has to say about Liverpool.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Everything Merge(s) at the Music Hall
After last night, I've now seen The Clientele five times in as many venues. This time, they were at the Music Hall of Williamsburg as part of a two-show US trip (can't call two shows a tour), the other being Merge's 20th anniversary festival in North Carolina. The Music Hall bill was an all-Merge affair with Richard Buckner and Clientele-buddies the Ladybug Transistor opening. And I'm pretty sure I spotted Merge artists Britt Daniel and Jon Wurster in the hall.
Before the show, there was a quickly abandoned attempt to check out a bit of the Dirty Projectors free show on the Williamsburg waterfront. One or two security people doing bag checks at a single, narrow entrance caused a several block long line down Kent Avenue (shoulda showed up earlier I guess). With the Music Hall show starting only a half hour after the Dirty Projectors were slated to finish, it wasn't surprising that the crowd was very sparse for the Ladybug Transistor's set (by the end of the night the room was full, but not packed). They managed some nice pop textures with the combination of Strat, trumpet, and the indie-ubiquitous Nord synth in B3 mode.
I like Gary Olson's voice and the melodies are strong, but I kept wondering what some of them would sound like pitched just a step or two higher. I don't know the extent of Olson's vocal range, but I can imagine that if he pushed the upper limits of it in a few places some of the songs would really soar. Elvis Costello said somewhere that one of the important things he learned early in his career was that by writing melodies and choosing keys to push the top of his range, he could better cut through the sound of a loud rock band and bring his vocals (and, critically for him, lyrics) to the fore. After 14 years, though, I'm sure the LT can carry on quite well without my suggestions.
In the middle slot was Richard Buckner, an artist I may have seen as many times as The Clientele, though spread out over more years and mostly as an opener. Playing solo with an old hollowbody electric and making extensive use of Ebow and loops, Buckner ran one song into the next, never acknowledged the crowd, and closed with a funny and entirely characteristic piece of anti-showmanship. Leaving the towering sequence of loops he'd built running, he stood up, unplugged his guitar, crossed the stage, and zipped it up in his gig bag before returning to stop the music. In a matter of seconds, he grabbed the rest of his gear and was gone, lumbering off the stage with what appeared to be a serious limp.
I found Buckner's typically dark and intensely focused set compelling, but apparently much of the rest of the room didn't, to judge from the level of chatter. The chatterers should be glad that Buckner chose not to engage them. Many years ago in a small club setting, I saw Buckner stop in the middle of one of his songs to quiet a loud drunk who was singing along (to a completely different song). He turned slightly to face the man and sang Merle Haggard's "I Can't Hold Myself in Line", staring directly at him the entire time. If it sounds funny in the retelling, I can only say that standing in that dead quiet crowd, it was more than a little frightening.
An impeccable studio band, The Clientele can suffer from a bit of sloppiness live, mostly on the part of lead singer/guitarist Alasdair MacLean (there were multiple references to backstage gin drinking throughout the night). I'm willing to forgive him a lot, though, because while the rhythm section of James Hornsey and Mark Keen is superbly tight and beautifully understated, and Mel Draisey adds some welcome ornamentation on keys (sometimes a little too loud in the mix, especially as she's no Ian McLagan) and violin (her strength), the uniqueness of The Clientele's sound is mostly down to Alasdair's voice, guitar style, and songwriting. When it all comes together, no one else can make the sound they make. And though it seems strongly redolent of the '60s, no one else ever really made that sound.
Alasdair made some jokes about the segment of their fans who prefer the early singles collection Suburban Light to any of their subsequent releases, but, in fact, a strong case could be made that each of their albums has both moved on from and improved upon the last. Though I'm not really convinced that their most recent, God Save The Clientele, was superior to its predecessor Strange Geometry, it was a strong record and continued the evolution of the group's studio sound. And on a less objective, more gut level, I still feel a strong connection to the first Clientele album I bought, The Violet Hour.
The chatter that plagued Buckner's set was still going strong for The Clientele. Apparently even the headliners didn't merit enough respect for people to postpone their urgent conversations, or least carry them on at less than full volume. Polite suggestion to concertgoers: when a drummer switches to brushes, it's time to PIPE THE F*** DOWN. I saw Alasdair call out a Chicago crowd on this, but last night's show and another I saw at the Knitting Factory were actually worse from where I was standing, and there was no comment from the stage. He did say that it's been New York audiences that have kept the band going over the years, so maybe the accumulated goodwill outweighs any annoyance.
The new songs (from the upcoming Bonfires on the Heath, due in October) sound like potential keepers, though the live renditions will surely benefit from a bit more touring. Of the old songs, the early "Saturday" hit me the hardest. With all the great songs they've released since, it still might be the quintessential Clientele song. Opening with Big Star's "Nighttime" was a nice surprise and an in-retrospect obvious and perfect choice for a Clientele cover. It also afforded Alasdair the opportunity for a very funny rock nerd joke - "We're going to start with a Big Star song...[crowd cheers]...from Big Star In Space". The by-now standard Television Personalities cover, "A Picture of Dorian Gray", appeared in the encores, sounding great despite a brief lyrical memory lapse.
The all-Merge bill proved to be filler-free, and interesting in that there were two very compatible bands separated by a solo artist who seems to have nothing other than a record label in common with them. I tend to prefer diversity on a bill, though, as long as the individual acts are strong, as these were. I've seen too many shows where the openers seem to have been chosen more for their superficial similarity to the headliner than for their own musical merit. Along with the Mercury Lounge, the Music Hall continues to be one of the best rock venues in town. If only there was a way to get the loud talkers to take advantage of the (quite roomy and comfortable) bar and lounge facilities away from the stage area.
Before the show, there was a quickly abandoned attempt to check out a bit of the Dirty Projectors free show on the Williamsburg waterfront. One or two security people doing bag checks at a single, narrow entrance caused a several block long line down Kent Avenue (shoulda showed up earlier I guess). With the Music Hall show starting only a half hour after the Dirty Projectors were slated to finish, it wasn't surprising that the crowd was very sparse for the Ladybug Transistor's set (by the end of the night the room was full, but not packed). They managed some nice pop textures with the combination of Strat, trumpet, and the indie-ubiquitous Nord synth in B3 mode.
I like Gary Olson's voice and the melodies are strong, but I kept wondering what some of them would sound like pitched just a step or two higher. I don't know the extent of Olson's vocal range, but I can imagine that if he pushed the upper limits of it in a few places some of the songs would really soar. Elvis Costello said somewhere that one of the important things he learned early in his career was that by writing melodies and choosing keys to push the top of his range, he could better cut through the sound of a loud rock band and bring his vocals (and, critically for him, lyrics) to the fore. After 14 years, though, I'm sure the LT can carry on quite well without my suggestions.
In the middle slot was Richard Buckner, an artist I may have seen as many times as The Clientele, though spread out over more years and mostly as an opener. Playing solo with an old hollowbody electric and making extensive use of Ebow and loops, Buckner ran one song into the next, never acknowledged the crowd, and closed with a funny and entirely characteristic piece of anti-showmanship. Leaving the towering sequence of loops he'd built running, he stood up, unplugged his guitar, crossed the stage, and zipped it up in his gig bag before returning to stop the music. In a matter of seconds, he grabbed the rest of his gear and was gone, lumbering off the stage with what appeared to be a serious limp.
I found Buckner's typically dark and intensely focused set compelling, but apparently much of the rest of the room didn't, to judge from the level of chatter. The chatterers should be glad that Buckner chose not to engage them. Many years ago in a small club setting, I saw Buckner stop in the middle of one of his songs to quiet a loud drunk who was singing along (to a completely different song). He turned slightly to face the man and sang Merle Haggard's "I Can't Hold Myself in Line", staring directly at him the entire time. If it sounds funny in the retelling, I can only say that standing in that dead quiet crowd, it was more than a little frightening.
An impeccable studio band, The Clientele can suffer from a bit of sloppiness live, mostly on the part of lead singer/guitarist Alasdair MacLean (there were multiple references to backstage gin drinking throughout the night). I'm willing to forgive him a lot, though, because while the rhythm section of James Hornsey and Mark Keen is superbly tight and beautifully understated, and Mel Draisey adds some welcome ornamentation on keys (sometimes a little too loud in the mix, especially as she's no Ian McLagan) and violin (her strength), the uniqueness of The Clientele's sound is mostly down to Alasdair's voice, guitar style, and songwriting. When it all comes together, no one else can make the sound they make. And though it seems strongly redolent of the '60s, no one else ever really made that sound.
Alasdair made some jokes about the segment of their fans who prefer the early singles collection Suburban Light to any of their subsequent releases, but, in fact, a strong case could be made that each of their albums has both moved on from and improved upon the last. Though I'm not really convinced that their most recent, God Save The Clientele, was superior to its predecessor Strange Geometry, it was a strong record and continued the evolution of the group's studio sound. And on a less objective, more gut level, I still feel a strong connection to the first Clientele album I bought, The Violet Hour.
The chatter that plagued Buckner's set was still going strong for The Clientele. Apparently even the headliners didn't merit enough respect for people to postpone their urgent conversations, or least carry them on at less than full volume. Polite suggestion to concertgoers: when a drummer switches to brushes, it's time to PIPE THE F*** DOWN. I saw Alasdair call out a Chicago crowd on this, but last night's show and another I saw at the Knitting Factory were actually worse from where I was standing, and there was no comment from the stage. He did say that it's been New York audiences that have kept the band going over the years, so maybe the accumulated goodwill outweighs any annoyance.
The new songs (from the upcoming Bonfires on the Heath, due in October) sound like potential keepers, though the live renditions will surely benefit from a bit more touring. Of the old songs, the early "Saturday" hit me the hardest. With all the great songs they've released since, it still might be the quintessential Clientele song. Opening with Big Star's "Nighttime" was a nice surprise and an in-retrospect obvious and perfect choice for a Clientele cover. It also afforded Alasdair the opportunity for a very funny rock nerd joke - "We're going to start with a Big Star song...[crowd cheers]...from Big Star In Space". The by-now standard Television Personalities cover, "A Picture of Dorian Gray", appeared in the encores, sounding great despite a brief lyrical memory lapse.
The all-Merge bill proved to be filler-free, and interesting in that there were two very compatible bands separated by a solo artist who seems to have nothing other than a record label in common with them. I tend to prefer diversity on a bill, though, as long as the individual acts are strong, as these were. I've seen too many shows where the openers seem to have been chosen more for their superficial similarity to the headliner than for their own musical merit. Along with the Mercury Lounge, the Music Hall continues to be one of the best rock venues in town. If only there was a way to get the loud talkers to take advantage of the (quite roomy and comfortable) bar and lounge facilities away from the stage area.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
List Making #3 - NYC Donuts
With all the hoo-ha this week about the appearance of Tim Horton's on the NYC donutscape and the impending Dunkin' vs. Tim's donut war (just try Googling "horton's dunkin"), I thought I should get in on the action. And since there's also been a flurry of food lists published lately (Robert Sietsema's at the Voice have been my favorites so far), I figured a top donuts list was in order.
Unfortunately, I've only had enough good donuts in NYC to wholeheartedly recommend a top three, but I stand 100% behind each of them. I haven't had Tim Horton's yet (or if I have - maybe years ago in Northern Michigan? - it wasn't a memorable experience), but I would be profoundly shocked if it was good enough to crack this list.
1. Peter Pan
See my previous donut-related post. Or Google it, Bing it, or Wiki it to find lots of words and photos devoted to this Greenpoint, Brooklyn institution/legend/landmark/temple of donut craftsmanship.
2. Doughnut Plant
To hell with simplified spelling, says the Doughnut Plant! Ironically for a place that clings to the old-school spelling, Doughnut Plant is the foremost purveyor of new-school donut flavors, the perfect yin to Peter Pan's traditionalist yang. The space is beyond minimal, but the flavors are anything but. Dean & DeLuca sells them, but you have to go down to the Lower East Side and try to get one still warm. Thinking about a warm Tres Leches donut from here almost makes me reconsidering making it #2.
3. Glaser's Bake Shop
Known more for their black-and-white cookies than for their donuts, Glaser's on the Upper East Side is the sleeper on this list. After many visits, I developed a favorite breakfast order: a prune danish and a sugar donut. I originally ordered the prune danish thinking it was something else and became an immediate convert. The sugar donut is nothing more than a simple fried ring dusted with sugar crystals, but it's perfectly executed and great for dunking in coffee. Glaser's also makes colorfully decorated donuts in honor of certain holidays like Valentine's Day, but note that they're currently closed for their annual summer vacation, reopening August 18th.
Honorable Mentions
Trois Pommes Patisserie
They only do donuts on the weekends and there's only two choices - jelly and mini-size jelly - but they do it well enough to easily earn an honorable mention. I saw someone mention the beignet-like quality of these donuts, and that sounds about right, especially in the case of the minis.
Donut Pub
A recent return visit to this place (on 14th St in Manhattan) reinforced what I had written previously - the Pub is pretty good but it's no Peter Pan. There's a good, wide selection of classic donut styles, but they're not quite executed to perfection. Still, there's a wide gulf between these donuts and Dunkin' or street cart fare.
Various Polish bakeries along Manhattan Ave. in Greenpoint
Though none can touch Peter Pan, there are some other good spots to get donuts (primarily jelly donuts) in Greenpoint. Try any of the small Polish stores or bakeries (even The Garden market) and you're likely to find a good donut.
Pies & Thighs
This restaurant, located in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge (on the Brooklyn side), no longer exists and the one time I ate there I didn't have a donut. It's on this list because I saw the donuts, and I'm pretty sure they would have been excellent. I assumed that I'd try them next time, but the place closed before there could be a next time.
Street Cart Crueller Roulette
Every once in a while, I'll come across an iced crueller (though I've even had one or two good un-iced versions) from a coffee-and-donut cart that is actually pretty satisfying. Dense, sweet, and coffee-friendly, the crueller is IMO the safest choice if you're hard up for a donut and nowhere near any of the places mentioned above.
Unfortunately, I've only had enough good donuts in NYC to wholeheartedly recommend a top three, but I stand 100% behind each of them. I haven't had Tim Horton's yet (or if I have - maybe years ago in Northern Michigan? - it wasn't a memorable experience), but I would be profoundly shocked if it was good enough to crack this list.
1. Peter Pan
See my previous donut-related post. Or Google it, Bing it, or Wiki it to find lots of words and photos devoted to this Greenpoint, Brooklyn institution/legend/landmark/temple of donut craftsmanship.
2. Doughnut Plant
To hell with simplified spelling, says the Doughnut Plant! Ironically for a place that clings to the old-school spelling, Doughnut Plant is the foremost purveyor of new-school donut flavors, the perfect yin to Peter Pan's traditionalist yang. The space is beyond minimal, but the flavors are anything but. Dean & DeLuca sells them, but you have to go down to the Lower East Side and try to get one still warm. Thinking about a warm Tres Leches donut from here almost makes me reconsidering making it #2.
3. Glaser's Bake Shop
Known more for their black-and-white cookies than for their donuts, Glaser's on the Upper East Side is the sleeper on this list. After many visits, I developed a favorite breakfast order: a prune danish and a sugar donut. I originally ordered the prune danish thinking it was something else and became an immediate convert. The sugar donut is nothing more than a simple fried ring dusted with sugar crystals, but it's perfectly executed and great for dunking in coffee. Glaser's also makes colorfully decorated donuts in honor of certain holidays like Valentine's Day, but note that they're currently closed for their annual summer vacation, reopening August 18th.
Honorable Mentions
Trois Pommes Patisserie
They only do donuts on the weekends and there's only two choices - jelly and mini-size jelly - but they do it well enough to easily earn an honorable mention. I saw someone mention the beignet-like quality of these donuts, and that sounds about right, especially in the case of the minis.
Donut Pub
A recent return visit to this place (on 14th St in Manhattan) reinforced what I had written previously - the Pub is pretty good but it's no Peter Pan. There's a good, wide selection of classic donut styles, but they're not quite executed to perfection. Still, there's a wide gulf between these donuts and Dunkin' or street cart fare.
Various Polish bakeries along Manhattan Ave. in Greenpoint
Though none can touch Peter Pan, there are some other good spots to get donuts (primarily jelly donuts) in Greenpoint. Try any of the small Polish stores or bakeries (even The Garden market) and you're likely to find a good donut.
Pies & Thighs
This restaurant, located in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge (on the Brooklyn side), no longer exists and the one time I ate there I didn't have a donut. It's on this list because I saw the donuts, and I'm pretty sure they would have been excellent. I assumed that I'd try them next time, but the place closed before there could be a next time.
Street Cart Crueller Roulette
Every once in a while, I'll come across an iced crueller (though I've even had one or two good un-iced versions) from a coffee-and-donut cart that is actually pretty satisfying. Dense, sweet, and coffee-friendly, the crueller is IMO the safest choice if you're hard up for a donut and nowhere near any of the places mentioned above.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
