January 17, 2006
City Bakery-ish
"The cookies fell out of the box! All of them." [points to large, sadly empty box]"Oh no, how?"
"The cab was pulling away and the cookies...fell out! Now there are a bunch of City Bakery cookies on the road."
GASSSSP! NOOO! HOW COULD SUCH A THING HAPPEN? OH JESUS, WHY?! THERE IS NO GOD! PUPPIES ARE DYING!
That conversation isn't exactly word-for-word, and my reaction isn't as overemphasized as you may think it is. But the scenario happened! Kinda.
- Build A Green Bakery
I went to City Bakery's new unnamed "green" bakery that has been the center of a bit of controversy for its hush-hush presence. Until its true identity was revealed, it denied any affiliation with City Bakery despite that it was either obviously associated with it or the new bakery hijacked its cookies (COOKIEJACK!).
As you can see from the photo, it's somewhat no-frills (the ladder is a nice touch), but it's a pleasing design. And...it's so GREEN, in the environmental sense. Giving new life to materials like cork, bamboo, wheat, recycled jeans, and maybe somewhere, bits of millions of discarded Tamagotchis, you may feel like you're standing in a really nice garbage dump. Ha...ha. But maybe it's a sign of how we'll all be forced to live someday when we've robbed the earth of all its natural resources and must live in houses made of recycled fibers and like bunnies, eat our own poop. (What, would you rather eat SOYLENT?)
[Sidenote: For a crazy "green" structure, check out e-House. I made that website (because I made this one too), or else I wouldn't know about it. After having to look over all the info and such, it seems like making a "green" house is mega-super-duper-pricey, but I suppose it will be less taxing on the environment in the long run, which is the point. Or. Something. I don't know, I just want cookies.]
- cookies, sittin' around
The main things here are the cookies, obviously. Look at them, sitting in towers all prettily in the window. Like puppies in a petshop, looking on the outside world for something better. Hoping. For an owner. "Won't somebody buy me? I AM TASTY AND DELICIOUS"...wait, dogs probably don't think that. I dunno what dogs think. My life is a pet-less one. I am sad. Maybe cookies are for people like me who have unfulfilled childhoods.
I think I digressed.
- menu
I'm simple minded--I like simple menus. Ahhh, what do we have here...a simple menu! One price for an assortment of baked goods. And one drink that I don't like, so screw that. COOKIES! MUFFINS! OTHER STUFF I DON'T CARE AS MUCH ABOUT BUT I'M SURE IS MEGA TASTY! Hoorah!
Oh, so you're probably still wondering what that opening dialogue was about. When I was getting my cookies, a young woman delivering cookies from City Bakery looked a bit frazzled because she accidentally dropped a WHOLE BOX OF COOKIES ON THE ROAD. I suppose that if that's the worst thing that happens to you all day, your life is pretty peachy. No bombs. No war. No squirrel ninjas. But to think of all the cookies that gave their lives. Think of the children! I mean. Cookies! Wow, I need help.
- chocolate chip cookie
I've only eaten a City Bakery cookie once (before the Beck concert last spring, ooh what a good day that was; I ate a cookie afterwards too) but I think this one was...better. It's been a while so I could just be remembering it wrong, but this chocolate chip cookie looked twice as big as the one I had before. As for deliciousness...
HOLY CRAP, SO GOOD. JEEEEZZZ WHAT DID THEY PUT IN THIS? Seriously. WHAT. IS. UP. WITHTHISCOOKIE?! I suppose it's almost the antithesis of Levain's cookie; flat, crisp, totally different taste. And it's cheaper (well, it's smaller too; Levain's cookie could probably flatten a kitten). And. I. I love it. I was put off by the "secretness" of this bakery but...the...the cookie. The cookie. The. I can't even form entire sentences! I really like this cookie.
Okay, I'm going to try and give you more useful sensory information. Um. After eating this cookie (and I ate the whole thing in one day, of course), I felt like I bitch-slapped the FDA's daily recommendations for calories, sugar, and fat. The flavor instantly reminded me of a flat, thin, rectangular cookie I recall eating as a small child (as opposed to the large, hulk-like child I never was). I have no idea what this cookie is called--maybe it's just "yellow rectangular cookie", but I doubt it. Googling for a photo wasn't successful: in this photo, it looks kinda like the right-most cookie on the left side. Any idea what I'm talking about? Yeah? No? No.
So in conclusion, I reeeeaaalllly like this cookie, and I reaaaalllly shouldn't have eaten the whole thing in one day because it was kind of large and my stomach is definitely not going to thank me in the morning. I ate lunch so late that I basically just ate dessert for dinner. Granted, I was eating dessert at my late lunch too, so my diet today was 2/3rds dessert and 1/3rd something else.
- something else
That was my something else. Yup, fried chicken cutlet in a bun, accompanied with coldslaw (behind the meeeeat), a slice of hard boiled egg, and a few slivers of pepper. I love Cafe Zaiya's sammiches and I know they're not healthy, but it doesn't fall into the "baked good" category, so...so...it's good whenever i eat something that isn't primarily wheat or chocolate, right? Look, there's protein and minimal vegetal matter. Woo!
- Sweet Melissa
Before Cafe Zaiya and "the bakery of many cookies", I went to Sweet Melissa on West Houston because I've never been there before and I like to greet my neighborhood bakeries by shoving my camera in their bellies and handing over my moolah for some unhealthy, sugary treats. We all win! Or lose. I haven't figured out which one it is. I guess when I get cancer, that'll count as losing.
- orange scented scone
Since I'm usually in a scone-y mood, I bought this $2 orange scented scone (the other choice was currant) and bit in to find that indeed, it had a nice orange scent, and indeed, it was too dry. :( Look, sad face! See it again, this time in bold: :( Wait, how about "errgh face"? >__< The scone's flavor wasn't bad, but I was so disappointed by it's dryness. And it's not the driest scone I've had. It hovered around the middle on my scale of "scone goodness" (scoodness!...nah, that doesn't work).
HOWEVER, there is a happy ending. I reheated the leftover half in the microwave when I got home and it was warm and soft. Mm. Much better. It wasn't great, but it was good. Concluding thoughts: good if it's not too dry, not something I'd long to try again, but worth trying once...if it's not too dry.
- mini banana cream pie
I think I will have to revisit the bakery for pie.
Before all the aforementioned fooding, I had gone to Jacques Torres to buy some gifts for a friend. NOTHING FOR MYSELF, believe it or not. ...Actually, I lied: I had initially bought a cookie for myself, but since I decided to go to the green bakery somewhat last-minute, I included the cookie in my friend's package. She can have the calories. :)
Posted by roboppy at 11:25 PM
Comments (6)
soo...until recently it seemed you'd rather be burnt alive rather than take Levain's cookies (which, incidentally, are still monstrously scrumptious after being kept for a week in a transatlantic plane) off your Favorite Cookie Ever List, I see that is somehow...questioned thanks to this no name bakery...
Posted by: Sophie at January 18, 2006 4:50 AM [#]
is city bakery the one that has that really good hot chocolate? somewhere in Soho I think, or near Union Square?
Posted by: rachel b. at January 18, 2006 4:24 PM [#]
Did you not run over and look for gutter cookies? *sobs* [God, I'm disgusting, I'm a cheap sugar whore, what can I say?]
I found I was very confused about scones when I was in the States. I'm used to English scones, which are always dry (unless they've just come out of the oven) and hence helped along significantly by a thick smothering of strawberry jam and a mountain of cream... lots and lots and lots of creeeeeeeaaaaammmmm.....
Posted by: AugustusGloop at January 18, 2006 8:05 PM [#]
Chicken cutlet in a bun?! Why that's nearly as heart breakingly delicious as katsu curry :)
that city bakery owner is either nuts or a genius. why didn't we ever think of opening a nameless bakery? I've never even had a city bakery cookie, only cups and cups of their hot chocolate with marshmallows until I feel sick. Oh but chee, such good cocoa.
our office recently relocated to 18th st...2 doors down from city bakery and i have to say, i'm just not feeling good about myself anymore. but i'm not depressed enough to stop. i glombed a chocolate chip cookie about 1/2 hour ago and found your site when I googled "city bakery calories". alas, i was hoping to find some actual numbers here. this summer, on some days, they're doing a drink that's half iced hot cocoa and half iced coffee. use it to wash down a coffee and then try to convince yourself you're an upstanding human being.
Posted by: susan ab at July 3, 2007 2:25 PM [#]
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I'll probably reply to your comment on this page. If you have something to ask me that's unrelated to this entry, please email me instead.
: This is the 
That was excellent. I especially liked the poop and the bitch-slapping. The dying puppies weren't bad either. Oh, and I'd like you to design web pages for me if I ever need web pages to be designed. Will you work for cookies or perhaps muffins?
Posted by: mzn at January 17, 2006 11:44 PM [#]