Eat Here Now: Urban Space Garment District

most of you have probably heard of Madison Square Eats or Broadway Bites, or have at least seen them on your instagram feeds. if for some reason you have absolutely no idea what i'm talking about, Urban Space is a company that hosts small food festivals/markets, like Madison Square Eats. at these markets are usually some of the best restaurants in the city, as well as some small food companies who don't have storefronts. there are two of these festivals going on right now- one is Madison Square Eats, and the other is Urban Spaces Garment District. i'm not too sure why the Garment District one doesn't have a cute and catchy name like the rest of them, but the food offered is definitely just as incredible. 

Batter & Cream

here are some mini handmade whoopie pies-from left to right, fig honey goat cheese, s'mores, banana caramel, cookies & cream, and another s'mores. i was really excited to try these, but they ended up being a bit strange. the texture is different from that of a regular whoopie, and some of the flavors didn't really stand out- like the cookie in the cookies & cream, or the honey in the fig honey goat cheese. 

Brooklyn Wok Shop

these garlic chive & mushroom dumplings were insanely delicious. the skin was very thin, and had the perfect texture- soft and not too chewy. they were full of mushrooms, and had tons of flavor from the garlic and chives, but somehow didn't leave me smelling like garlic for the rest of the day. the sauce on top was like soy sauce with a lot more depth. definitely stop by the Brooklyn Wok Shop stand when you're here.

Café Patoro

this small shop sold only the warm, cheesy, brazillian snack known as pão de queijo. they're basically little pillows of cheese, with just enough flour in them to be considered a bread. the flavors above are original, pesto, and sundered tomato. they all had good flavor, but i found that the original had the best texture. i wish they had been a bit warmer, but other than that, i would definitely recommend picking up a bag of three original pão de queijo to walk around with. 

Wafels & Dinges

we've all had a warm, crunchy-on-the-outside-chewy-on-the-inside liege wafel, with melty speculoos spread settling in its crevices from wafels & dinges. well this ice cream was speculoos flavored, with chunks of softened speculoos cookies. sort of like a speculoos cookies and cream. the guy working at the stand also added some speculoos spread on top of the ice cream as a "geeft." do not leave here without eating this ice cream cone. it is spicy and sweet and creamy and speeculoos-y and is everything you love about speculoos or cookie butter or biscoff or whatever you want to call it.

heres sarah holding the almighty ice cream cone and taking a picture of me taking a picture of her

Domo Taco

 here was our quesadilla, with grilled lemongrass chicken, monterey jack and cheddar cheeses, and guacamole, topped with sesame crema. the lemongrass chicken was really lemon-y, obviously, and the cheeses were strong, and really stood out. the guac was so good- so much flavor, and the perfect chunky to creamy ratio. all together, the flavors of the not-so-traditional quesadilla cheese and the lemongrass chicken were kind of weird, but i actually enjoyed how different it was from a regular quesadilla.

heres brenda being cute with our unique quesadilla

The Baking Bean

i was beyond exciting to find a little stand called the baking bean, because me and my two best friends call ourselves the beans, and i love to bake! we picked up a homemade pumpkin pop-tart while we were there, and oh my gosh, it was so good. the pastry crust was so buttery and flaky, and the icing on top had that crackly top that gave way to the soft, vanilla-y, cinnamon-y interior. the filling actually tasted like real pumpkin and brown sugar, not just pumpkin pie spices. i will definitely be getting another one of these soon. 

this is me standing in front of the baking bean stand, awkwardly smiling down at one of their business cards

The Poffertjtes Man

I JUST CANNOT FIND THE WORDS TO DESCRIBE THESE RIGHT NOW. oh my gosh they were insane. these should be the reason you go to urban space garment district RIGHT NOW. sorry about the caps. anyways, we walked up to this booth, and a woman is flipping these mini dutch

pancakes to golden perfection. naturally, we order fifteen of them. as soon as they come off the griddle, they are spread with butter that immediately melts over them all, and then sprinkled with powdered sugar. next, they're drizzled with nutella. each pancake is buttery and crispy and hot and sweet and drenched in chocolate-hazelnut perfection. basically what im saying is you need these in your life.

while eating our mini pancakes, these adorable, chunky little french bulldogs came by in a wagon, and somehow made my life even better.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

fall is my favorite season. i love wearing heavy sweaters in chilly weather and being able to wrap myself in blankets while sipping hot drinks. i love looking up to see red, orange, and brown leaves falling off trees and onto the streets where they lay patiently for me to crunch under my feet. i love halloween, and the decorations that come with it. but most of all, i love, love, love seeing pumpkins everywhere. pumpkin chai lattes at random coffee shops, pumpkin ice cream in every grocery store, pumpkin cakes and breads and cookies on every food blog i come across. my apologies for rambling about this ridiculous love for autumn that you’ve probably heard from every other seventeen year old girl in the world. but this obsession with fall and the flavors that come with it was what inspired these insanely delicious pancakes that everyone should be eating. 

while looking through my bookmarks, i came across the recipe for these pumpkin cinnamon roll pancakes that i found a few years ago, when i had first discovered the world of food blogging. i decided that this weekend was the time to finally make these beauties. i made a few changes to the original recipe, because i don’t like those soft pancakes that have no crunch on the exterior, and that was the type of pancake this recipe yielded. instead, i used the recipe for my absolute favorite pancakes in the world- the ones from Clinton Street Baking Company on the lower east side. Such fluffy, thick, and crunchy pancakes, oh my gosh. anyways, i took it upon myself to use that recipe, add in some pumpkin, and then use the original recipe’s cinnamon roll filling. my pancakes didn’t come out as beautiful as i thought they would, but i fixed them up as much as i could, and i can tell you right now that they were DELICIOUS. so pumpkin-y, so cinnamon-y, so warm, so crunchy, and so gooey. make these ASAP- they’re the perfect way to welcome fall. 

ingredients:
filling-
1 stick of butter, melted
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

pancakes-
2 eggs, separated
1 scant cup of milk
5 tbsp of unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 cup of pumpkin puree 
1 1/3 scant cups of all purpose flour 
1/2 tsp of salt
1 tbsp of sugar2 tsp of baking powder
1/2 tsp of baking soda 

recipe:
make the filling-
-in a small bowl, mix melted butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon together

-pour filling into a ziploc bag and zip it up

-put aside until ready to use 


make the batter-
-separate the eggs, putting the yolks in a large bowl and the whites in another bowl that’s large enough to accommodate an electric mixer

-add the milk, pumpkin puree, and melted butter to the large bowl with the yolks and stir to combine

-in a third bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda 

-combine the egg yolk mixture and the dry ingredients and stir lightly until just combined. lumps are okay

-with an electric mixer, whip the egg whites until they hold soft peaks

-add the whipped egg whites to the batter, and fold together gently until just combined. again, it’s totally okay if some of the whites show



-melt some butter in a large skillet over medium heat. add batter to pan to make whatever size pancake you like

-cut a small amount off from the corner of the ziploc bag with the filling
-starting from the middle of the pancake, squeeze the filling in a spiral shape onto your pancake immediately

-pancakes are ready to flip once bubbles appear

-flip and cook another two minutes

-stack em up and drizzle on some maple syrup or any type of glaze ya like

(http://www.recipegirl.com/2011/09/22/pumpkin-cinnamon-roll-pancakes/) and (http://www.buzzfeed.com/emofly/clinton-st-bakery-blueberry-pancakes#jbsll)

Eat Here Now: Hay Rosie Craft Ice Cream Company

             

a few weeks ago, my girlfriend, sarah, my fab foodie friend, brenda, and our lovely friend, sam all ventured-and by that I mean took an Uber- into the depths of carroll gardens. i had spent days staring at photos of their crazy yet delicious looking flavors of ice cream on Instagram, and more importantly, their BarnBurners, which im saving for last. after five minutes of photographing everything, we finally got to see what all the hype was about, and oh my gosh-the hype is well-deserved. everything we ate was incredible, and i can easily say Hay Rosie is one of the best ice cream shops in the city. totally worth the Uber to brooklyn.

this beauty is a double scoop of rough day (with sarah and brenda hiding behind it). its vanilla ice cream with chocolate covered pretzel pieces, cookie dough chunks, and swirls of peanut butter. again, the base was creamy and had an amazing vanilla flavor, and the mix-ins were fab. our cone was slacking a bit on the chocolate covered pretzels, but the cookie dough chunks most definitely made up for it. 

             

a scoop of bangarang-sweet cream ice cream with rainbow cake pieces throughout. you know how in most ice creams with cake in it, the pieces get all icy and chewy and gross, like frozen sponges?  (i truly do apologize for putting that image in your head-or in your tastebuds) well that is not the case here!  the cake chunks were soft and springy, and tasted like actual cake. the ice cream was the perfect texture- light, fluffy, and so creamy. this flavor was super sweet, but in the best way possible.

HERE IT IS-THE BARNBURNER!!!!! (IM RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED IN CASE YOU COULDN'T TELL)!!!!!!! a BarnBurner is two pieces of anything delicious-in this case chocolate chip cookie dough-stuffed with your choice of ice cream, and then PRESSED IN A WAFFLE IRON. my fabulous team of foodies and i made the genius decision of putting brownie brickle crunch ice cream in the center of this, which was a sweet cream base with pieces of undercooked brownie (think a very soft, almost doughy brownie) and crunchy butter brickle chunks. literally every bite of this was perfect. each spoonful picked up some of the warm, brown sugary cookie dough, the hot and oozing chocolate chips, the cold, melty, creamy ice cream, the chewy, chocolate-y brownies, and the crunchy, buttery brickle chunks. if that doesn't sound like the most perfect thing you've ever heard, then there must be something seriously wrong with ya. anyways, the moral of this post is to get yourself to Hay Rosie IMMEDIATELY, because it will CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

Salted Caramel Peach Upside-Down Cake

before i talk about this delicious, incredible, heavenly cake, i want to make it very clear that i do not like fruit in my dessert. i'd choose a slice of chocolate cake over apple pie, i loathe the combination of chocolate and orange, and i cringe every time i see a dessert menu and read that an otherwise perfect dessert is accompanied by a berry compote. but as i flipped through the pages of Food Network magazine, i saw this cake and literally stopped breathing for a second. two days later, i found myself upstate, with family and friends watching me pull this cake out of the oven. the buttermilk cake base was perfectly vanilla-y. it was moist and light, yet crumbly, almost like the texture of cornbread. the topping was incredible- the fresh peaches soaked up the salted caramel, but managed to keep some of their bite while still absorbing the sweet and salty flavors of the caramel. a sprinkling of crunchy sea salt really puts it over the top. this cake was amazing, even for me, the hater-of-fruit-in-dessert. i am begging you to go make this immediately. 

ingredients:
cooking spray
1 & 3/4 cup of sugar
1 tsp of salt
4 peaches (sliced into 1/2 inch pieces)
1 & 3/4 cups of flour
1 tsp of baking powder
1/2 tsp of baking soda
1 stick of unsalted butter (softened)
2 eggs
1 tsp of vanilla extract
1 cup of buttermilk
course sea salt to sprinkle

recipe:
-preheat the oven to 375 degrees
-spray a square 9-inch pan cake pan with cooking spray
-combine 3/4 cup of sugar and 1/2 tsp salt with 1 & 1/2 tbsp of water in a medium saucepan. stir until mixture resembles wet sand (like this)

-cook this mixture over medium-high for 5 minutes, or until light amber, gently swirling the pan (NOT STIRRING). immediately pour caramel into the sprayed cake pan and quickly place peach wedges in rows (because the caramel will harden)



-place the pan aside, and combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and 1/2 tsp of salt in a bowl
-beat butter and 1 cup of sugar with a mixer on medium-high for 3 minutes- the goal is light and fluffy. then add one egg, beat, and repeat with the other egg. next, add the vanilla extract
-with the mixer on low, add 1/3 of the flour mixture and mix, then 1/2 of the buttermilk, and then another 1/3 of the flour, and then the other half of the buttermilk, and finally add the last 1/3 of the flour mixture and stop mixing as soon as everything is incorporated

-taste batter-because its delicious- then pour it over the peaches and caramel, and spread it evenly



-bake cake for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. it may be necessary at the 35 minute mark to cover the cake with foil to avoid it browning too much

-after the cake comes out of the oven, let it sit for 20 minutes, then flip it onto a plate and let it cool
-once cool, sprinkle it with tons of course sea salt, and serve!

(recipe from Food Network Magazine)