Socarrat Paella Bar

My go-to spot for paella, Socarrat Paella Bar, recently opened a wine bar next door to the restaurant, and I went to check it out for dinner. We started with the classic pan con tomate, bread rubbed with olive oil, garlic, salt and tomatoes.

Next up was the incredible Iberico tres leches queso, a creamy and mild cheese complimented perfectly with dried cranberries.

The chorizo imperial was nutty with a hint of spice.

Unfortunately the tuna belly wasn't as good as the everything else, and I wouldn't order it again.

We moved next door to the restaurant for paella, but started with one of my favorite dishes on the menu, the menestra de veduras - snow peas, fava beans, asparagus, fresh corn, tomato and salty serrano ham in an addictive serrano-flavored broth.

Then came the perfect Socarrat Paella, a perfect mix of chicken, fish, beef, shrimp, peppers, mussels and clams with crunchy rice.

We finished with slices of the almond ice cream cake, topped with crushed almonds.

DessertTruck Works

I think I've found the ultimate dessert from the newly opened DessertTruck Works shop. The warm chocolate bread pudding is buttery, rich, creamy, gooey and comes not only with scoop of cream on top, but also with a smoky bacon custard sauce and a crisp chocolate cookie. It's heaven.

The adorable olive oil, thyme and honey mini cake is incredibly light and fluffy with a custard filling and a spring of thyme on top.

Baohaus

I adore steamed buns, and I'm so excited about the opening of Baohaus on the LES. There are 3 options of the authentic Taiwanese Gua Boa, and I tried the pork belly and the vegetarian. The vegetarian option with fried tofu and spicy sauce was really good, but I fell in love with the succulent, melt-in-your-mouth all natural Niman Ranch pork belly bun, with a hint of sweetness from a mix of crushed peanut, cilantro, Haus sauce and Taiwanese red sugar.

Paris Sandwich

After hibernating most of this weekend with a cold, I decided to venture out to Paris Sandwich, a banh mi shop that opened in my neighborhood a few months ago.

The meatball baguette arrived on perfect bread - a thin crunchy outside with a soft inside that was easy to eat. The meatballs were delicious and topped with cucumber, cilantro, carrots and Vietnamese mayo.

The hot honey lemonade was a nice surprise - with a lemon slice floating on top it was tart but soothing with the honey and instantly made me feel better. At $5 total, this is definitely a place I'll be frequenting.

Manny's giant brownie

On a work trip to Minneapolis this week, a colleague and I opted for dessert at Manny's Steakhouse. We decided to order the brownie and a few minutes later out came the biggest brownie I've ever seen. It was easily an entire pan of brownies left uncut on the plate. It could have fed our whole office, but after stuffing ourselves with the moist, caramel filled brownie topped with whipped cream, ice cream, strawberries, hot fudge AND caramel sauce it looked like we barely made a dent.

brownie, before and after

Francois Chocolate Bar

I’ve been missing Payard since it closed last summer, but finally made my way back uptown to check out Francois Payard’s new chocolate café incarnation, Francois Chocolate Bar. On the top floor of a jewelry shop, the café offers the signature chocolates as well as a range of decadent chocolate desserts and is a perfect place to get a chocolate fix.

There are several flavors of hot chocolate, and I tried the milk chocolate version with Nutella and it was incredibly rich and creamy.

The verrine tout chocolat was out of this world, with layers of dark chocolate sabayon, dark choc leaves with fluer de sel, chocolate macaron, chocolate mousse and caramel chips.  

Torrisi Italian Specialties

A turkey sandwich was always just a turkey sandwich until I tried the house roasted turkey from Torrisi Italian Specialties.

The turkey is glazed with honey, garlic and topped with thyme for incredible flavor.

Used in the panama sandwich with lettuce, tomato, onion and spicy mayo, this is a turkey sandwich like no other.