To Divinity and Beyond

Forget about all the pretense and big hype over the tiny Chang-ified stretch of the East Village (running East-West, from 1st to 2nd Avenues, and North-South, from 10th to 13 streets) that, for a brief moment, asphyxiated our concern for anything other than the Chang-centric; that had a stranglehold over the New York dining scene; that begged us to be cool; that amassed a cult-like following; that spawned a new category on standardized forms: those who "know about" David Chang, and those who don't (and the subsequent social maelstrom caused by those who heedlessly check the latter box); that has consumed us whole.

It's that good.

Speaking only of the Milk Bar, I willfully proclaim that David Chang deserves the buzz and accolades his dessert establishment has been receiving. (AND awesome pastry chef Christina Tosi, who I incidentally sat next to one night at Falai; she and her [boy?]friend, a chef at wd-50, were enjoying the tasting menu and chatting with the chef. My friend and I had a hunch they were people in-the-know, so we just had to chat them up. I didn't believe her when she first told me she was the pastry chef at Milk Bar, so I googled her the next day and--a-ha!--I found scores of websites featuring Ms. Tosi, including a video of her sharing her Milk Bar pie secrets with Martha Stewart. Why didn't I make friends with her?! ;))

It didn't take long to spark my foodie curiosity for this place that opened in November '08; but I have to admit, I was nervous about what a guy, famous for his offal and pork creations, could provide for my sporadic sweet tooth. Nevertheless, I begrudgingly visited the store (I had no excuse, really; it's only a few blocks away from me) and tried the compost cookie (reflecting the "garbage can" of different ingredients), the cornflake chocolate chip marshmallow cookie, and the candy bar pie.

THIS is the place to go if, like me, you place as much emphasis on texture as you do on taste.

The cookies (less than $2 per) are fantastic; they are the epitome of the ole' adage butter makes anything taste good. And good these cookies taste. The initial crunchiness from the surface as you first bite into the cookie leads to a soft, chewy, delicate, and sweet interior. The different flavors (especially in the compost cookie--coffee, chips, pretzels, butterscotch) all meld together and compliment each other so well, you get a taste of every ingredient in every bite (the main reason why chopped salads are far superior than regular ones, by the way). I like the cornflake marshmallow cookie better because the combination of the gooey marshmallow, the crunchy cornflake, and the chewy cookie is like an exploding melting pot of textures and flavors in my mouth: a perfect combination.

Now to the Candy Bar pie. Oh, the Candy Bar pie. This pie basically changed my outlook on dessert: because of this pie, I have a sweet tooth. The pie is honestly so good, sometimes I'm nervous to go back out of fear that it won't taste as good as the time before. I want to preserve the blissful, heavenly feeling that I experienced when I first tried it.

(The picture isn't terribly appetizing, I realize, but I kept the pie in the to-go package to show everybody the temporary home the Milk Bar provides for its delicacies.)

Like the compost cookie, this pie (just under a painful $6; I know, I know) is a hodge podge of ingredients, including pretzel, peanut butter nougat, caramel and chocolate crust. The hard chocolate-covered pie shell, with whole pretzels that push out from beneath the chocolate like veins on your arms, gives way to a soft, gooey peanut butter and caramel filling. I'm not even a huge fan of peanut butter or pies in general, but it doesn't have that totally mushy filling like a pumpkin pie does; it's soft and the peanut butter nougat makes it a bit grainy-in a good way-as if the peanut butter was granulated, giving it more of a bite. The crunch of the shell comes full circle when you get to the bottom crust that is made of what tastes like cookie crumbs. All I'm saying, friends, is that the pie is WONDERFUL. Seriously, I think about it all the time, at random times throughout the day, imagining the uninhibited, harmonious, heavenly, nothing-can-ruin-this-moment feeling I have when I eat this pie. Come to me, Candy Bar pie. I will consume you. I will devour you. Guilt free.

Momofuku Milk Bar has tons of other goodies (including the Crack Pie, which is apparently so amazing they've copyrighted the name. I still have yet to try it, because I haven't gotten the guts to order TWO slices of pie, but it seems more mushy--aka not as much my scene), but I always find myself going for the trifecta of the two cookies and the pie, or some 2-part combination of the three. The other pies don't intrigue me as much.

They do, however, have pretty incredible and super creative soft serve. Flavors I've tried include: lemon verbena, cherries jubilee, strawberry shortcake, sweet and salty cucumber, rosemary (think olive oil gelato at Otto), Cap'n Crunch, and cereal milk (a soft serve version of the Milk Bar's sweet and delicious cereal milk). They rotate their soft serve options every few months, reflecting the flavors of the season and the moods of the pastry chefs.

Be happy and Carpe Diem!