David Lebovitz

The first place I had on my list of places to go in New York City was BabycakesNYC. Ever since I saw the video of the staff having a blast, I was transfixed on going there to participate in the fun and frolic.

Babycakes NYC is owned by Erin McKenna, and features vegan desserts made without gluten or refined sugar. There's also treats for people who keep kosher, and those on soy, egg, and casein-free regimes. Not all desserts fit into those categories, but for people on various diets, this place is a godsend. When a few people I mentioned it to said to me, "Gluten-free? No sugar? Is the stuff any good?"

If you're wrinkling your nose, if Salted Butter Caramel Doughnuts dripping with caramel syrup and Chocolate Cake, moist from sweet agave nectar don't sound appealing to you (like they do to me), then fine. More for the rest of us.

I'll spare you any quips about feeling like kids in a candy store, but from the squeals of delight all around us (and there was no one under eighteen in Economy Candy), there we were, a roomful of adults, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling displays of candy—from the new to the long-forgotten. And I could hear every few moments someone saying, "Oh my God!" or "I LOVE these!" from people reconnecting with their favorite sweets from the past.

My favorite candies of all time are Orange Slices, jellied wedges of orange coated with tooth-crackling sugar crystals. Man, I could eat a jumbo bag of them. I also like Dots, but you have to be careful if eating them at the movies because if you don't hold each one up to the screen and check before you pop it in your mouth, you might accidentally eat one of the green ones.

Of course, I never heard of Kyochon. But when I was walking by it with my pal Matt, he said, "Oh...Kyochon!"

To me, it looked like another fast-food restaurant. And normally, I'm not a fan of fast-food, but Asian fast-food? Sign me up! So much of their food lends itself to quick service: noodles, fried chicken, sushi, and croquettes.

Fast-food, or course, has taken on a somewhat different meaning. But 'fast' doesn't have to mean 'bad', it just means that it's food that can be prepared and served quickly. And many ethnic meals, from French crêpes, Mexican tacos, Hawaiian plate lunch, to Japanese bento, are good examples of fast, and healthy, fare.

I woke up this morning, and could not even make it through to the second half of my flagel.

My stomach was stuffed from yesterday, which began at Baked in Brooklyn, then extended through to a burger and fries at Shake Shack, across the border to Connecticut for steamed lobster, then back into New York City with a quick detour through the Apple store, then home to polish off the box of cookies I absconded with from the boys at Baked. Because, you know, I had to eat them while they were still fresh. Right?

So you can imagine that I didn't wake up with much of an appetite.

However...

Could the Doughnut Plant be the best place in the world?

I'm sorry, but I don't remember the name of each and every doughnut we had at Doughnut Plant in New York City. Frankly, I was so caught up in ordering doughnuts, passing them around, trying to take a few snaps, while going berserk over each and every flavor of doughnut we tried, my sanity took a temporary leave and I just let the overwhelming experience of being surrounded by fluffy, just-made, extraordinarily wonderful doughnuts pass over (and into) me.

It was standing in the middle of a storm of doughnuts, literally playing referee between the hungry mob I arrived with.

I sometimes think about stepping back into the restaurant world. I miss being around all that energy and cooking alongside others instead of toiling in the kitchen all by my lonesome (...and with you, of course). But it's nice to bounce ideas off of others and do more involved presentations, plus I'll admit, I miss having a team of dishwashers on staff just as much—or even more.

I love what the new generation of pastry chefs have been doing. There's lot of fresh talent out there, and I guess I should just continue to leave things (and the pots and pans) in their hands and be happy to remain a stay-at-home baker.

It felt a little funny heading over to Porchetta for lunch. I mean, I live right next to Italy and had amazing porchetta there just recently. So why am I taking a lengthy subway trip down to the East Village for lunch?

And I was tempted even further when I was on the way to meet my friend Shira (who I met on a boat trip on the Côte d'Azur last year) for lunch, and I passed a 'San Francisco-style' burrito place that tugged in the pit of my slightly bulging stomach at my sense of nostalgia for the famed tummy-torpedos I remembered so well.

But like the people who told me that that Mexican food and BBQ in New York aren't going to be as good as where they originated (which I find partially true, but I've had great French food in New York and wonderful Italian fare in San Francisco, so perhaps I'm becoming a little too globalized for my own good) I'm going to agree that it's pretty hard to replicate a San Francisco burrito. So in my twisted logic that says you can't get a good San Francisco-style burrito in New York City, but good Tuscan roast pork is a possibility, porchetta it was. And boy, am I glad when my convoluted reasoning works out.

Tradition schmadition. Something I've noticed every time I come to New York is that the bagels keep getting puffier and puffier. (Which happened before everything started going 3D.) When I eat a bagel, I want a chewy exterior with lot of seeds on it and enough dough inside to support a swipe of cream cheese. I don't want a whole loaf of bread in there. Is that too much to ask?

Roaming around the streets of New York, I've seen bagels practically as round as a baseball and others as fluffed up as a burger bun. And I know you're not going to believe this, but I even saw bagels with dried fruit in them. Oy. What is this city coming to?