restaurants


Over at New York Magazine’s Grub Street they’ve put together a list of NYC’s best PB&J’s. The good news is that it doesn’t take much to try your own version of a chef’s version.

1. The Elvis at Peanut Butter & Co.
“Excellent peanut butter, honey, sliced banana, and optional (but recommended) bacon on white toast.”

2. Chunky Peanut Butter & Jelly triple-decker at ‘Wichcraft.
“They grind their own peanut butter, make their own seasonally inspired jelly (rhubarb in the spring, Concord grape in the fall, and currently plum), and ingeniously layer it between three slices of Pullman-style bread with the jelly on the top and the peanut butter on the bottom, preventing this lofty concoction from becoming a soggy mess.”

3. Peanut butter, banana, coconut, and ginger at City Bakery.

4. The Memphis at Swich.
“Amy’s golden-raisin semolina bread lends this variation on an Elvis (peanut butter, banana, and honey) an unusual flavor profile thanks mainly to the fennel seeds in the bread.” (served warm from a panini press)

5. CB&J at Bouchon Bakery.
“… made with rich cashew butter instead of plebeian peanut…layered with apricot jam between two thick slices of brioche and meticulously squooshed in the sandwich press until the lavishly buttered bread acquires a St. Tropez tan.”

Meet Max Brenner. He is the self-proclaimed Willy Wonka of our time, references abound at his Union Square shop and restaurant, not the least of which are the pipes of (allegedly) chocolate snaking their way around near the ceiling. It’s a fanciful place, and is as much for the eye as the tastebuds. Desserts are playfully named, imaginatively served and everything available for purchase at the gift shop.

It was the attention to aesthetic details (Brenner’s elegantly whimsical china among them) that led me to believe our dessert would send me into orbit a la Wonka. I ordered the Eskimo, a waffle cone with two scoops of ice cream accompanied by two little crunchy toppings, each in their own dish. The presentation was delightful, but the “dark” chocolate ice cream did not deliver, the warm chocolate sauce was overly sweet and too milk chocolate-y for my taste. My inner child was served but my adult palate was disappointed. I did steal a bite of my mother’s molten chocolate cake, which, though well executed, seemed banal compared to the otherworldly confections on offer. The confections in the gift shopped looked promising, but again I suspect the presentation outweighs the cocoa quotient.