Friday 12 May 2017

#101 | DOMINIQUE ANSEL BAKERY


NEW YORK, USA

Perfect Little Egg Sandwich
Dominque's Kouign Amann ("DKA")
Cronut Pastry

Our first meal in New York was a sweet one...literally. We arrived the night before and didn't get to our airbnb until 10pm because of flight delays. Our host was so nice and friendly and we immediately felt welcomed in his home. There was a big printed google map of the surrounding area plastered on one of the walls, which he used to run us through where some of the nice nearby restaurants were, and where the nearest grocer and subway was located. Although we were hungry, we were also super tired so we decided to sleep on it and fix ourselves in the morning with a visit to Dominique Ansel's Bakery. I don't usually have sweet pastries first thing in the morning, but I read that the store sells out of their more popular items pretty quickly, so we got there early. When we arrived, there was already a line! While waiting, I had a brief chat to the lady in front of me. Her husband had come out of the store with a bag of goods, which prompted me to ask them what this line was for. They explained that it was for the cronut. Phew! It's good to know that I was lining up for the right reason, even though the realisation wasn't until after I hopped in haha. The lady then asks if i'm from Australia. She recognised the accent and told me that she was also from Australia, but had moved to New York a few years back. How cool is that? It's always nice bumping into someone from the same country when you're travelling. 

Ok, back to the food. So when we got into the store, there was another, albeit smaller line for orders. After you order and pay, you'll either be given the food to take with you, or they'll call you when it's ready. So while I waited around near the counter, the boy grabbed us a table in the courtyard. We had the Perfect Little Egg Sandwich which had fluffy steamed eggs with herbs and Gruyere cheese in a mini brioche bun, served warm, the wonderfully flaky and tender DKA, as well as a pear, honey and cream cheese cronut. A kouign amann is a buttery pastry that's like a cross between a croissant and brioche, with a crispy caramelised sugar outer layer. A cronut is a croissant-doughnut hybrid. There is a different flavoured cronut at Dominique Ansel's bakery every month, and according to the website, the flavours never repeat (wow!). Both these pastries were amazingly delicious and they were absolutely worth the wait. The cronut here was also much better than the ones I've had in Sydney. I'm feeling so sad as I'm writing this up at home. If I lived in New York, I'd probably visit every month to try a new flavour of the delicious cronut. With that being said, I guess it's a good thing I don't live there!

Dominique Ansel Bakery
189 Spring St
New York

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