The Doughnut Vault

Ken and I were in Chicago over the weekend for a wedding and stayed in the city on Saturday at our friend’s apartment. Since we didn’t have much time to meet up with our friends, Angie suggested we have doughnuts from The Doughnut Vault and even offered to wait in line for us while we were driven into the city by Ken’s parents. The Doughnut Vault draws lines down many blocks (or so I’ve read) and they start selling in the morning and close shop when they sell out (usually early afternoon). They only sell five types of doughnuts and everyone LOVES them:

Angie bought all of them (and John snuck in a doughnut from Dunkin Doughnuts because he wanted to see if Ken and I could tell the difference). The doughnuts: vanilla glazed, chestnut glazed, blueberry glazed, Dunkin Doughnuts, buttermilk, chocolate glazed and sugar:

Our favorites were the buttermilk and the vanilla glazed (we managed to polish off the doughnuts after getting back from the wedding around midnight and not being able to locate the McDonalds). They’re good, but they’re definitely not Doughnut Plant good. They remind me of Dough (in Brooklyn) but I like the inventive flavors at Dough more than the ones at The Doughnut Vault.

Organic Avenue Love*Deep Cleanse

After dining a ton of meatballs at Meatball Madness, burgers at the Burger Bash, fried chicken at Fried and a TON of tacos at Tacos and Tequila, I decided to do another cleanse. This time, I’m trying Organic Avenue’s Love*Deep three-day cleanse:

It comes with seven juices (well, it’s actually six but they give you a shot of chlorophyll to start your morning). The juices are quite different from the other cleanse I’ve done, the Cooler Cleanse but I’ll report back on this one!

Victory Garden

Victory Garden is an absolutely AMAZING frozen yogurt spot in the west village that I discovered because I had a voucher for two frozen yogurts. Ken and I ran there on Sunday (in the rain!) and ended up thoroughly enjoying our frozen yogurts.

The shop is very cute – located on Carmine Street next to Grey Dog Coffee and has a cute bench and a doggy bowl with water in front of their storefront:

The store sells frozen yogurt (made from goats milk) and also lots of other cute products made from goats milk:

You can even schedule a pick-up for goats milk from the farm where they receive all of the milk! They change their frozen yogurt flavors a lot – the day we went, they had original (slightly tangy with a hint of citrus), salted caramel (the most popular flavor…a little sweet but really good), chocolate (swirled with salted caramel), and Taste of India (made with pineapple, turmeric, cardamon, and other spices):

We ordered an original and the taste of India:

And the chocolate with salted caramel:

We walked through Soho while enjoying our frozen yogurt even though it was freezing and we were sweating from our run. The frozen yogurt was so delicious I can’t wait to go back and try more flavors!

Hong Kong Street Cart

Madison Square Eats is open once again (yay!) and we’ve been going there for lunch everyday. Christine introduced me to Hong Kong Street Cart and we ordered the same lunch – a duck bun and the green mango chicken salad. The vendor is actually at the end of Madison Square Eats (close to 25th street):

The duck bun comes with one piece of duck (with the skin on), with hoisin sauce and green onions:

It was a little too fatty (and expensive) for me. Not something I’d order again.

The green mango salad with chicken was an okay choice but I shouldn’t have put all of the dressing on the salad because it ended up making it too sweet:

The salad also had soba noodles, cashews, fried taro and lots of green salad mix but for $9, I thought it was a little pricey (there wasn’t that much chicken!) Don’t think I’m going to return to the street cart, especially since Roberta’s is back!

Fried

On Friday night, I went to the Burger Bash in Brooklyn (hosted by Whoopi Goldberg!) and then headed back into the city to Fried, a fried chicken event at Hill Country BBQ. I already ate almost every single burger at the Burger Bash so I didn’t have much space for anything else…but managed to eat a couple of things.

My favorite of the night was from Hill Country Chicken – Mama El’s chicken strip in a waffle cone with a little honey sauce:

The chicken was a tad dry but the sweetness of the waffle cone was really awesome.

Fried chicken popsicles were also pretty good:

Michael’s Food and Drink (in Miami) also came and had a really good peanut-based dessert:

A little too sweet but a perfect pairing with all of the fried chicken. Other favorites: Mono + Mono’s soy garlic (I love Korean fried chicken!), Red Rooster, and David’s favorite was a fried chicken with collard greens (not sure where that came from). There was also live music, a bing photo booth, and lots of coffee because the event ran until midnight! Another fun NYCWFF event that we attended!