Housing Works Bookstore Cafe = Mecca?

Co-conspirator Jana and I found Housing Works Bookstore Cafe by semi-accident.  We had just had brunch in the Soho/Nolita area (we don't really know Manhattan geography yet) and weren't having much luck trying to find a place with coffee, open tables, and wi-fi.  That's a lie.  We found plenty of places along the way, but they were all missing that x-factor.  And that's just a way of saying we were being picky and indecisive.  I had read good things on Yelp about Housing Works, so we ventured toward Crosby St.  Eventually, after asking a Friendly-Looking Local where the heck to go, we happened upon it.  We walked in, and wowza.  It's a two-story-tall place with books lining the walls and a balcony along the perimeter for shorties like Jana who can't reach the higher books.  And there were plenty of tables available when we got there.  So we sat, we wrote, we drank coffee, we eyed others' knishes and soup with no small amount of envy, we perused the extensive and eclectic offering of books, and we felt good about ourselves... not only because we had found the place without anyone's help, but because the money we spent there went towards combatting both AIDS and homelessness.  Since that happy discovery, I've been back twice.  Once I couldn't find a table but did find Darren Aronofsky just outside, and the second time I was able to score a seat.  It's a bit of a commute for us uptown folk, but the ambience alone keeps us coming back... especially now that we're a bit more conversant with how to get there.  (Hint: it's at 126 Crosby St.)

Little Cupcake Bakeshop, Prince's Street

Little Cupcake Bakeshop in Soho is irresistible to the eye.  It sits on the corner with a white painted exterior, big bay windows and a door facing out onto the intersection of Prince Street and Mott Street.

Everything in the shop has the appearance of being coated in pink plastic frosting.  It’s almost cartoonish in its faux pink perfection.  Take yourself back to a sweetshop in the fifties and you have yourself Little Cupcake Bakeshop.  Everything appears to be as pleasant as you would find it in Pleasantville.  Unfortunately, like most things, this shop is not as pleasant as it appears. 

While the staff is kind and complying in getting your order in a timely manner, the cupcakes themselves leave one with a lot to be desired. 

I chose the peanut butter chocolate cupcake.  It was a vanilla cupcake base with chocolate-peanut butter frosting on top.  The cupcake base was unbearably dry and on the borderline of being stale.  It made me wonder when they make their cupcakes and how long they keep them before frosting them and putting them out for sale.  If I want something that tastes like it’s been mass-produced and sitting out for a day, I’ll go to Starbucks (sorry, but seriously).  The frosting was better in the sense that it seemed fresher, but it was so sweet and came from such a powdered-sugar base that the flavor was hollow and lacking in anything rich and delicious.  It tasted like the frosting glue you put on your Gingerbread house at Christmas and it did little except try to disguise how stale its cupcake base friend was.

If I had to recommend a cupcake, I wouldn’t recommend one at Little Cupcake Bakeshop.  Cupcakes run in the three dollar range in most NYC cupcakeries and those three dollars would be much better spent elsewhere…   Like Amy’s Bread or Crumbs.

Balthazar Bakery - it's French

At the corner of Spring and Crosby, (which makes more and more directional sense the more we explore SoHo - where the numbers disappear and every alley has a name) is Balthazar Bakery.  On our visit, the window display was laden with baguettes that extended like arms from a bread wheel that threatened to kiss us with its face as we tried desperately to locate the door to the bakery.  It's as though only a secret password would allow admittance to the shop of sugar and sweet.  Once actually inside the bakery, we were squished into the front of a very small, but very vibrant shop where our eyes were dazzled by what Dan affectionately calls "food pornography."  Everything looked appetizing with the colors of the decorated desserts as enticing as their smell and taste.

Frightfully expensive, the desserts were arguably worth every penny.  I continued on my cupcake craze, purchasing the only cupcake available that day: chocolate cupcake base with banana cream flavored frosting.  I'm not one to mix any sort of fruit flavoring with desserts, but the banana flavoring only enhanced the cream frosting.  And this was, in fact, cream frosting - not the hollow sugar-base that most cupcakeries use to distract you from the fact that your cupcake's cake is, indeed, stale.

Dan stole the show, though, by drifting from the cupcake tendency over to what the French call "noisettes."  I had to defer to Dan for the pronunciation of that word and I still don't think I got it right.  It was a cream filled pastry with a pie crust base and topped with mixed fruit.   I was, once again, put to shame for turning up my nose at fruit and dessert mixed together.  I will never doubt the combination again.

Balthazar also serves brunch and meals that take you through till dinner, but with the prices as high as they are, I would wait for mom and dad to come into town and take you out.  ;)

Habana Café

We are so SoHo hos.  After realizing last week that the rest of the area isn't as skanky as Houston Street itself and is, in fact, quite charming, we're smitten.  So we decided to return for brunch this week. (Another draw was that I knew that 30 Rock was filming in the area; and where the Fey goes, we soon shall follow.)  On our co-worker Fernando's recommendation, we went to Habana Café (17 Prince St.).  It's a small space that fills up fast, but we got their early enough on a weekday that we were seated right away.  (Should I be British here and say "straightaway"?)  The tropical decor is lively, the wait staff is friendly, and the coffee gets the job done... though some sugar packets would not have been turned away.  Just like we did at our brunch last week, Jana got eggs, and I got pancakes.  The buttermilk pancakes (served with strawberries, bananas, pineapple, and melon) were fine; and I enjoyed the Vermont maple syrup.  But Jana's huevos con chorizo was the standout dish.  Savory and sneakily spicy, it was a helluva "good morning."  I kinda hate the word "zesty", but it does, in this case, seem apt: the dish was zesty.  And I'm a sucker for anything served with black beans.  Never mind the fact that Jana spilled some black beans on the floor while posing with her plate for my camera.  (We're sorry, Habana wait staff.)  And best of all, the grub was cheap.  Cheaper than Houston Street is ugly.  Suffice it to say: Habana Café made a mark on us like Jana's beans made a mark on the floor.