Archive for January, 2012

21 Jan

Doughboy Bake Shop

Posted by Billy in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , .

Today is a day of firsts here in New York City. It’s the first snowfall of 2012, bringing with it a blanket of white covering the streets. If you haven’t yet experienced it, the West Village is simply astounding under snow, and a must-add to anyone’s bucket list. The second of firsts is that I’m writing my first Coffee Crawl in the shop, on the WordPress app, from my brand new iPad. I’ve been long awaiting this moment for such a long time and it’s finally here! I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I am. Anyway, back to the crawl. Today I’m writing from a fantastic little spot in the West Village that’s only about 3 months old: the Doughboy Bake Shop. Located at 535 Hudson Street at the corner of Charles Street, it’s clearly in the perfect spot. You’re probably thinking that it may be a little close to Cafe Panino Mucho Giusto, but both places are very different. Doughboy is much more of a bakery (obviously) that sells coffee, which I’ll get to. CPMG features more food items that you would want to go to for meals, do you see the distinction (I hope you caught that movie reference quote).

Doughboy Bake Shop is in a store that has housed many other restaurants in the recent years. Before Doughboy it was a gelato shop and before that, more of a cake bakery. I never went in to either of those former locations, but now I’m venturing in because it’s much more up my alley. And I’m so glad that I did. The first impression that I got when I walked in was, “I’m in love.” The 2 employees working were incredibly friendly and chatty, which I love. We talked about everything from where they were from originally (one was from Iowa, which I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing but hope to one day), to what the meaning of the shop’s name was. Scattered around the bakery’s walls were images of soldiers. I suppose I should have known this, but after a peek at Wikipedia I discovered that a Doughboy is actually a soldier from the World War 1 era. They were named so because after marching through the dry terrain of Mexico, the soldiers would get covered in dust, giving the appearance of unbaked dough. Interesting fact…and clever name!! Props. Most of the baking takes place downstairs, but they do have a little oven in the main portion of the bakery I’m guessing for cookies, muffins and other necessities that they may run out of more quickly. Downstairs is where the bundt cakes, coffee cakes and other yummy goods come to life. I couldn’t find any stairs within my line of sight so I was curious as to how they were transported up…and then I saw the dumbwaiter. Yes, a dumb-waiter. All that I could think of was when Michelle Williams hid in her college kitchen’s dumb-waiter in Halloween: H2O. Of course Doughboy was nothing like that setting, but still it came to mind. For some reason I just love that they use it for transporting the baked goods between floors. I don’t know why, I’m just odd like that sometimes.

Next up, and my favorite portion of the crawl: the food. The delicious, fresh-from-the-oven, food. I honestly had no idea what I wanted to try….first. Doughboy has everything from blueberry and apple cinnamon muffins to banana bread with chocolate chips to an iced blueberry bundt cake. I simply couldn’t take it. I opted to taste the apple cinnamon muffin and my companion for this crawl had the banana bread with chocolate chips. Actually let’s be honest, I had both. The muffins had just come out of the oven so as I pulled the wrapper off and tore the muffin in two, steam rose out of the middle. I really enjoy seeing the steam. It adds that extra touch of “home” that makes everything taste better, as if my grandfather just pulled it out of his oven. The banana bread with chocolate chips on the other hand, I just can’t. I really can’t. It was phenomenal. I mean, obviously bananas and chocolate are going to taste divine, but this really pushed it over the top. I know that the picture doesn’t do it too much justice, but trust me. Trust. Me. The coffee that Doughboy serves up is courtesy of Mud. Mud Coffee is a staple to New York City and can be found in Brooklyn, at various coffee shops or at their traveling coffee trucks. My favorite to visit is in Union Square before hitting up Regal for a movie. But, being a very popular and huge force in the City, Mud adds the perfect complement to the treats.

I hope that this edition of the crawl sheds a little light onto what awaits you at Doughboy Bake Shop. I hope that the same two people are there every Saturday morning, serving me the same amazing banana bread and conversation because if so, this coffee shop just become one of my all-time favorites.

16 Jan

Cafe Panino Mucho Giusto

Posted by Billy in Uncategorized.

Taking it back downtown to the West Village yesterday, I headed on over to a local favorite, Cafe Panino Mucho Giusto. Located at 551 Hudson Street (between Perry and West 11th Street), it’s just a hop, skip and a jump from home. And to that point, you can usually find me here on Saturday mornings or whenever I’m not crawling for new coffee shops. That being said, before we even get into the crawl today, I already find this place to be one of my favorites.

Cafe Panino Mucho Giusto means, in my translation, “cafe and sandwich done right.” I can definitely attest to both being done very right. The cafe itself is already located in a beautiful part of the West Village, surrounded by other small businesses ranging from restaurants to clothing boutiques to nail salons. Outside, as you can see from the picture, benches and chairs are placed around for customers to enjoy their coffee and food purchases.  Inside the shop you are greeted with a living room/family room feel complete with antique chairs (some are wicker but very comfortable!) and gorgeous wooden tables and larger furniture pieces. Just walking into the coffee shop, I already feel at home and like it’s an extension of my own apartment, I even have my own spot at one of the tables (shown in the picture on the right). The music also adds to the ambiance nicely, usually playing either a light rock/pop or even classical at times. Basically, if you haven’t been able to tell yet, I truly find myself completely happy and at peace while dining, enjoying a great book, or sipping the perfect cup of coffee here.

The second half of Cafe Panino Mucho Giusto’s translation, “sandwich done right,” is also all too true. Aside from just their sandwich selection, they also do coffees, baked goods and other delectable treats very right! On my recent trip, I not only had the standard scrambled eggs, bacon and toast, but I also ventured to try the Baker’s Muffin. This looked like a simple muffin with a raised top, but no, it was amazing. Powdered sugar decorated it’s fresh-from-the-oven top and just the right amount of sweetness was found within. Basically, after the very first bite, my mouth could not stop watering. So, I had to try to abate the need for more deliciousness with one of my favorite drinks of all time, a hazelnut latte. I know that Starbucks and Au Bon Pain and other such chain coffee shops also prepare this coffee drink with the same syrups, but Cafe Panino Mucho Giusto does it perfectly every single time. I’m not sure if it’s the barista’s attention to detail or just the care that’s put into every cup made, but it’s great.

I hope that you can all now see why Cafe Panino Mucho Giusto is right at the top of my “Coffee Crawler’s Highly Recommended” list. Amazing ambiance, delicious baked goods and fantastic coffee drinks make each and every experience here one that I look forward to.

7 Jan

Think Coffee – West Village

Posted by Billy in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , .

Happy 2012 my caffeine-addicted coffee crawlers! I know it’s been quite some time, (read: way too long) since my last java journey, but I’m finally back in action. It’s no excuse, but 2011 turned out to be an incredibly busy year for me, which temporarily pried me away from my duties at hand. Well enough of looking at the past, let’s get to the present and future. And what better way to do this than at Think Coffee in the West Village.

Located at 73 8th Avenue and 13th Street it’s practically in my backyard (if I didn’t live in New York City and actually had some grass and something more than the ‘concrete jungle’ to call a backyard). Some of you reading this, if you venture out to try this shop, may recognize its location. This building was the former nightclub Mansion. I myself never had the chance (opportunity?) to check it out, as it was much before my time as a New Yorker. Being who I am, however, I would much prefer a coffee shop to a nightclub in my neighborhood any day. Carrying on. It’s actually quite gorgeous here and I can still see the remnants of a nightclub atmosphere pervading the space: high railings where partiers would have placed their drinks as the people-watched, tall almost 13 foot ceilings, great acoustics, and massive. Yes, Think Coffee is probably three times the size of a normal city Starbucks location. The front 3rd of the coffee shop is dedicated to a small seating area complete with marble tabletops and beautiful leather sofas. The middle of the coffee shop is where the magic happens: espresso machines, coffee roasters, bean grinders and kitchen where food is prepared.  Their pastries and muffins are shipped in but items such as oatmeal, granola and sandwiches are made in-house. The back of the coffee shop is another seating area. From my experience thus far, not many people venture back there as it’s a little oddly arranged with a lot of awkward open space. If this place is to succeed, something needs to go down back there because the crowd isn’t that large that’s eating here and it’s simply wasted space.

Unfortunately like too many coffee shops in the area, as soon as I walked in this morning I was greeted by blasting rock music and an unfriendly staff. I’m not sure why this atmosphere and attitude is prevalent at far too many businesses. It really does nothing to bring back customers in my opinion. I mean, I completely understand that pouring coffee to the West Village community is the last thing anyone would want to do at 8AM on a Saturday morning, but at least pretend to enjoy it. I don’t know, that’s just my opinion. Signs are scattered around the space which call out 2 main points, one the at I love and one that is quite frustrating: “10% of after-tax profits from this Think Coffee are donated to Hudson Guild, which runs a variety of educational and other programs for youth, teens and seniors in Chelsea and surrounding neighborhoods.” This is absolutely fantastic and a great business move. Supporting local initiatives and charities is one way that will keep a neighborhood “family” coming back to support. The second glaring sign reads “Welcome, WE DO NOT HAVE WIFI please enjoy your CONVERSATION.” Yes, the bolded areas here are actually bolded on the signs. I get that having WiFi will create people lingering and taking up space, but come on, even my park and the Starbucks across the street from my apartment offer WiFi.

The coffee here was decent: a very light roast, not too strong or overwhelming flavor. They do however claim to visit the farms where the beans are grown and say that the use only farms and farmers that are environmentally and socially responsible, another factor that will keep this neighborhood coming back for more. “Organic” and “sustainable” are two hot descriptors that coffee drinkers of today love to see. I tried their 7-grain muffin as well this morning and found it quite enjoyable actually. I was expecting, being as it’s the “healthy” muffin, that it would be dry, lacking in flavor and just all around bland. Much to my surprise it was the opposite of all of that: moist and freshly baked-tasting with a delicious light crumb topping. I may actually come back for this again.

All in all, I give Think Coffee a so-so rating. There are just so many things they could do with the space that they just haven’t thought through yet. It’s a shame really, because the business is not picking up and they’ve been open for about 3 months now. Despite my lackluster rating, I hate seeing businesses be slow. Hopefully it will pick up for them. But if you’re in the neighborhood, do stop in and see for yourself the former Mansion nightclub-turned-coffee-shop. I will stop in for my muffin, but you will most likely find me across the street at the Starbucks where I can actually blog live on WiFi and not save it to publish later.

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