Doughnut Plant: Your Sugar High

It was a dreary morning on an unusually cold Friday in March. She sat there watching the NBC Today show, like she did every morning. The morning hour of the show went by and the noon hour - New York Live was on. As she cribbed about the weather to her folks back home, a sweet treat lightened up her grumpy face.

Enough with background score already!! Let me get to the scrumptious part of the post - The Doughnut Plant. This delicious delight is presented in the most unique ways here at the Doughnut Plant - with over a 1000 reviews on Yelp.com it has to be on your must-eat list while in NYC. Their doughnuts are so popular they have stretched their offerings to as far as Japan and Korea too!

They have doughnuts made three ways here - yeast, cake and filled. While the yeast doughnuts are light and fluffy , the cake doughnuts have a chewy texture which is like cross between a classic birthday cake and a buttery pound cake and the filled doughnuts like its name are oozing with creamy custards and sugary house-made jams.

So, as we are in line waiting to bite into these sinful discs of sugary goodness, the wall and seating decor at the store catches our attention. As you can see here, everywhere you look there are doughnuts in reel and real!



Carrot cake, peanut butter & blackberry, coconut cream and pistachio were some of the unusual doughnuts on the menu. The wait was over,choices made - vanilla bean, roasted almonds, chocolate, blackout and creme-brulee put in a brown bag. They run out of the popular doughnuts of the day, so you need to get there early or like us, you'll miss out on the days specials.

That said, we took our doughnut-seats. I bit into what was one of the most delicious bites of my life - creme-brulee. This bite sized creamy doughnut bursts in your mouth and you cannot help but go um-yummmmm like I did. So much so that, my hubby dearest got back into the long line of hungry customers to get a few more to-go.

While I'm gonna sleep dreaming about waking up to coffee and creme-brulee on a Sunday morning, you can choose to drool over, get to Doughnut Plant on 23rd street, Chelsea Hotel, between 7th & 8th avenue or simply put it on your bucket-list of must-eat-while-in-NYC !!

Ciao...

Go Green : St.Patrick's Day

The calendar hits March first week and hints or perhaps more-than-just-hints of green pop-up everywhere. From bake shops selling green cookies to the most popular "party city" advertisements on TV, you cannot escape the green madness. Specially if you are from New York city, home to the largest St.Patrick's Day parade outside of Ireland, you rather blend in!

Celebrated every year in the 2nd week of March, the day is dedicated to the Irish Saint - St.Patrick's. This cultural and religious holiday is welcomed by the Irish and all the Irish wannabe's by being a part of and watching from the side walks of downtown New York - the famous St.Patrick's Day parade. The key to feel part of the crowd - YOU HAVE TO GO GREEN.
Locals and tourists all clad in shades of green clothes, funky green accessories like beads, beer, hats, green eye-liner and some even have rats on display, like the one I have on my head here(green of course!).


While crowds gather to enjoy the parade and watch as bag-pipers and performers march the streets, revelers have their own celebration happening alongside. The Irish pubs in the city score the highest on the party meter, while other pubs give out free shots for customers dressed in green.
Considering the Irish love their beers and on a day when gallons of it is being gulped down, get ready for some madness on the streets and down-under in the subways.

Last year, we were down there on the streets, scrambling to get shots of the performers at the parade and a sense of Irish patriotism. Its not only Irish vibrations we feel on ground but in the air too - This a little different, it is the strong smell (almost a stink) of Irish wannabe's strutting the streets of New York, leaving behind clouds of beer. This year round, we skipped the parade and decided to step outside later (when the weather opened up) that evening and oh-boy we were not prepared for what we saw!

As I have always said, when in New York, you are guaranteed to be entertained in more ways and places than you can ever imagine. On the subway ride, we got into one of the cars with a bunch of drunk Irish Wannabe's and from that moment on it was show-time. This one guy, put up a pole-dance show with the rest of his gang cheering him on, thank god he was not dressed like one ;-). The trains on this day are a green overload, with people shouting, screaming and giving the sane onlookers some nasty looks and one-liners.

All this said, it's religious for some and revelry for others. Either way, experience the madness, enjoy your free drinks and make merry as you get ready to welcome spring!

How Restaurants trick you!

As foodies, my husband & I are always on the lookout for restaurants serving up diverse cuisines in an ambiance to match. In our quest, we discovered that buying restaurant deals off popular websites like Groupon and Gilt City (our favorite) turn out to be big money savers.

Off late what we also discovered, was what seemed like harmless tricks by restaurants to begin with, that at the end weighs down heavily on your pockets! On a lovely weekend night, we settled in on our table at a downtown tapas restaurant. Dimly lit, with long wooden community tables,high chairs and low lying lamps, we were ready for our culinary sojourn. There came the very friendly and smiling waiter, we had taken our picks & ready to order. Just as hubby was about to rattle away his choice for the evening, the waiter brought out his secret weapon! So, this is how it goes - "Tonight we have our specials, freshly caught shrimp and aged prosciutto from Spain, would you like to try one of these". Like a kid in a candy store - hubby is excited at the thought of eating something he is deprived of usually, thanks to anti-red meat me! So, he goes ahead and orders the aged prosciutto. The prosciutto arrived and was thoroughly enjoyed and downed, the tapas plates kept coming and soon so did the bill! To hubby's utter shock, while the other tapas plates were priced at $10, the special of the day prosciutto was a killer $24...

That was it, we had learnt our lesson! Just last week, when we went out to this fancy dining place, the waiter came by and put out his specials for the night and we kept calm and went with what we saw on the menu! Good for us, because the special appetizer for the night was just a mere $56!!

So, buckle up and stay strong, do not getting carried away with tricks like these!

For more tricks click here - restaurants use to make more money

Ciao...