Junior's will offer free cheesecake or layer cake when you order a lunch

In celebration of National Dessert Day on Friday, October 14th, and the publication of Junior’s Dessert Cookbook, Junior’s is offering a free slice of its famous cheesecake or slice of its skyscraper layer cakes with the purchase of any dine-in lunch or dinner entrée on that day at its four locations: Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, Grand Central Terminal and Times Square in Manhattan, and MGM Grand at Foxwoods in Connecticut. Junior’s website has more info.  Related: SeriousEats NY rates NYC’s cheesecakes. (more…)

Bond Street Chocolates, Jacques Torres, Junior's Cheesecake, L.A. Burdick, Michel Cluizel, Nunu Chocolates | 4 Comments »

The gold Buddha is a specialty of Bond Street Chocolates

Whenever I post this photo of the gold Buddhas from Bond Street Chocolates I always get 100 emails.  There’s a good reason for that – these Buddhas are beautiful, little works of art.   They’re also unique, reasonably priced and you get to feel good about supporting a small NYC chocolate shop.  At $10 for a small and $20 for a large Buddha – you simply can’t miss with these.

See the entire Bond Street “Divine Collection” here.

Bond Street Chocolates is located on 63 East 4th Street.

PS- Don’t forget if you enrolled in Amex’s “Small Business Saturday“promotion – the deadline has been extended to Dec 31st.

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Bespoke chocolates strawberry Balsamic

When I reviewed Bond Street Chocolates I said that it reminded me of the NYC I grew up in because they only have one location vs. a whole chain of clones.  I also noted how hard it was to find Bond St. (not being on Bond Street and all).  Well, both of these comments apply to Bespoke as well.  The shop is located on “Extra Place” – on a dead end street, so it really has to be your destination  if you are ever going to try the place.  Finally, just like Bond Street, the staff at Bespoke is super friendly.  Even before I started snapping pictures and threatened to unleash the massive influence of the dessertbuzz.com empire – they were super nice and willing to chat about their chocolates.

Bespoke chocolates pretzel covered sea salt caramel

The specialty of Bespoke is truffles, often with unusual and powerful flavors and unique textures.  The one non-truffle chocolate I tasted was the  hazelnut praline.  It had a great “roasted” flavor to go along with a rich dark chocolate.  I loved that it wasn’t sweet at all.  Imagine the flavor if you mixed Nutella and your favorite dark chocolate and then somehow put them in a toaster.

Single-Estate Colombian dark chocolate truffle

The strawberry balsamic truffle had a very understated strawberry flavor.  It was the opposite of a strawberry flavored Italian ice.  The balsamic reduced the sweetness even further.

Hazelnut Praline

The pretzel sea salt caramel truffle was my favorite.  The simple formula of salty and sweet with a great texture of pretzels simply can’t be beat.  The most successful mainstream example is the chocolate filled pretzel nuggets inside Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby ice cream.  Except here the chocolate is handmade and the pretzels are still crunchy.   If you go to Bespoke you would be a fool not to get at least one of these.

Recommended: Pretzel sea salt covered caramel truffle, strawberry balsamic truffle, Single-Estate Colombian dark chocolate truffle and the hazelnut praline chocolate.

Bespoke Chocolate, Bond Street Chocolates | 5 Comments »

The gold Buddha is a specialty of Bond Street Chocolates

If you think a box of chocolates as a gift is “old school” or something your parents generation did, it’s time to get over that because New York has some great chocolate makers that specialize in small batches.  These shops offer about a dozen different types of ganaches and individual chocolates- but each one is usually very special.  One day back in June the DessertBuzz team visited a few of the best small shops in Manhattan, Bespoke Chocolates, Bond Street Chocolate and Kee Chocolatier.

Dark chocolate ganache - Bond Street Chocolates

You could easily miss Bond Street Chocolates  1) it’s not on Bond Street and 2) the tiny shop is below street level and very understated.   Understated but cool Bond Street  Chocolates reminds me of the New York City I grew up in.  Unfortunately it’s a part of a dying breed on New York Stores –  special one-of-a-kind shops with character that can’t be found anywhere else.  The staff is also super friendly and knowledgeable  about all their products.

Standard chocolate ganache

Bond Street has the best “standard” dark chocolate ganache I have had in a long time.  I consider the dark chocolate ganache to be the benchmark.  Why?  Because  before you can get fancy with elderberry root and roasted valencia peanuts you have to able to make the basics.  At least that’s what I think.

Most of the Bond Street chocolates, including the plain chocolate ganache, have an impossibly thin top layer of chocolate surrounding their soft or fluid-filled centers. I can’t imagine how difficult it is to accomplish this or how much time it took to perfect this technique – all I know is I like eating it.

Each piece of chocolate is really a little work of art and to drive home that point Bond Street sells beautiful gold dark chocolate Buddhas in two styles that will elicit an “oooh” from even the most jaded New Yorker.  I can’t think of a more perfect gift than one of these dark chocolate Buddhas.

Aside from their great standard chocolate ganache,  I also recommend their Tequila Herradura Ganache and Haitian rum chocolates.  The dry tequila which is devoid of any sweetness matches up perfectly with the dark chocolate.  The tequila ganache is quite unusual in that you can really taste the tequila. I would even say you actually experience the tequila.  If you had 6 of these (something I might do) you would catch a nice buzz.

Passionfruit Caramel

The Haitian Rum has a similar sensibility to the Tequila except that rum is a much sweeter alcohol so the overall “sweet factor” of the piece is increased.  Which of the two you prefer will depend on your fondness for said sweet factor.   If you like rum you should try one of these anyway, even if you think it will be too sweet as none of the Bond St. chocolates were too sweet.

The other member of team DessertBuzz really liked the Passionfruit caramel ganache as well.  I think I liked it too but recused myself from judgement since on this day I had already consumed 3 rounds of chocolates, two slices of the World’s Best Chocolate Cake and some macarons and could not be counted on to judge anything sweet for at least another 4 hours.

The square shaped tequila Herradura chocolate

Recommended: Dark Chocolate Ganache, Tequila Herradura, Haitian rum, and Passionfruit caramel

Bond Street Chocolate is located at 64 East 4th Street.

Their web site is here.

Bespoke chocolates, Bond Street Chocolates, Kee Chocolatier | 3 Comments »