Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Old favorites: Soba-ya and Spot Dessert Bar


One Saturday night, a couple of friends and I tried to get ramen at Ippudo, which was recently deemed the second best ramen in the city on Serious Eats. We arrived at 5:40 in the evening, to be told it would be a 2 hour wait! For ramen!!


So we went around the corner to an old favorite - Soba-ya. They are known for their soba, but I have to say, I get more excited by the small dishes. This time we got pork belly with a poached egg in dashi, pumpkin with shiitake mushrooms (the green things on the toothpick are fresh gingko nuts!), and shrimp shumai with the most interesting shredded rice flour wrappers.

For dessert we went one block over to Spot Dessert Bar on St. Mark's Place, Pinchet Ong's place. We got what was called Satay Peanut Crema with Concord Grape Sorbet and Condensed Milk Bacon Toast. Mostly we ordered because if there's bacon on a menu, probably I'll like it. It really was a deconstructed PB&J sandwich - not what I was expecting at all, and really delicious!

Soba-ya
229 East 9th Street
New York, NY 10003
(212) 533-6966

Spot Dessert Bar
13 St Marks Pl
New York, NY 10003
(212) 677-5670

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