Addicted to CUPCAKES!

I felt like an addict last night. After dinner at INOTECA down on Rivington in the Lower East Side, which is amazing and you need to go if you haven't. I think I've gone enough times where I don't have to read the glossary they include alongside the menu. I am in love with the tuna and capers sandwich, which is so simple and plain, but delicious. And thank goodness I'm writiing this because I was reheating my mozzarella en carozza from last night and it almost burned. It is SO good from this place. It's basically an epic grilled cheese.

Great wine and appetizers are always the bruschette, which most are so delicious and do change up with the seasons.

But here's where I go nuts...

I want dessert to take home. I was craving a cupcake from BABYCAKES, but also I am IN LOVE with the icing on the 'sexy red velvet' cupcakes from SUGAR SWEET SUNSHINE. We go to Sugar Sweet Sunshine and I'm buying six cupcakes for $10.50 for me and my friend. This place is so cute and the cupcakes taste homemade/box cake and SO yummy. Then I go for my vegan cupcake at Babycakes and spend $4.75 for one (though I think she over charged me a dollar, but I felt already weird by having her put the cupcake in my bag with the other baked items).

Above are my buys!

Babycakes vanilla spelt cupcake: always good and the icing is amazing that I was scraping the bag for the icing that stuck to it
Sugar Sweet sexy red velvet: the cake is nice, but the icing is like real whipped cream and holds up perfectly the next day
Sugar Sweet goodie goodie: simple chocolate cake with light peanut butter icing

New Food Adventures of February

New restaurant obsession...Azya in NYC!

It's a wine and chocolate bar and what kind of chocolate? Jacques Torres chocolates!

My friend and I started our night last Friday at Pad Thai on 8th Avenue and they have renovated since last I was there. It's so pretty inside and the menu is still amazing.

We tried the crab rangoon and SO yummy. I of course got vegetable pad thai and had to take half of it home because I was so full.

My friend got a mojito and I got this strawberry puree and gin martini and we were set. But then the waiter came over and freaked me out because he came out of no where and asked if we were ready for a third drink. It was buy two get one free. If we had read the sign beforehand, we could have gotten severely drunk, haha.

We found this place by accident. We missed out seeing a movie, so dessert and wine sounded perfect. We were walking around aimlessly and my poor friend was hurting - new shoe problems.

So before she hit me over the head and stole my wallet to take a cab ride home...we looked frantically for a place to go. But where to go? Googling and Yelp wasn't helping and then I found Ayza and when I realized it was Jacques Torres, jackpot!

Super cheap and absolutely delicious fondue, amazing chocolate strawberry martinis and you can order truffles a la carte. They have a dinner menu and so I think that may be in the near future.

I was meeting my assistant in Hoboken for a mother-daughter dinner and being my mom and I got there early, my mom freaked out over going to Carlo's Bakery..thanks television. So yes, we decided to see how far we could get to being allowed in and began to wait.

My feet were frozen, but we waited. Finally we were one of the last people to get a number for admittance and after 45 minutes, were still a half hour away. UGH!

I won't give details, but the most loveliest lady I know was able to get us in and not have to wait that last half hour. It was packed inside, so I wanted to leave. But my mom did spend like $65 on a few things and was excited enough to have a photo taken outside.

Verdict? The cupcakes were NOT worth the wait. But the coconut macaroons and canolis were fine, but I really did enjoy the lobster claws. Really good!