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Momofuku Milk Bar at first glance
All the cool kids had gone already and reported back with their stories. Blondie and Brownie reported of a line that was over an hour. Nick from Beef Aficionado eloquently described his experience at Momofuku Milk Bar. There was much buzz surrounding the new Milk Bar that opened this past weekend. Located adjacent to the Ssam bar on 13th street, Momofuku Milk Bar proved that people still cannot get enough. The latest creation of the David Chang's Momofuku empire was worth all the hype.
Two items really caught my attention, and those were the compost cookie and the pistachio cake. Early word on the street by Ed Levine was that the compost cookie was a high concept creation that didn't really deliver. He preferred the peanut butter cookie. Blondie wrote that the peanut butter left a weird after taste and that the compost cookie was better.
I only got the compost cookie so couldn't tell you if the peanut butter was as good. But if you can only get one cookie, the compost cookie at Momofuku Milk Bar is a good choice. At $1.75, it's a decently sized cookie for a fair price.
Sometimes when you go to upscale bakeries, you run into the trouble of not getting your money's worth. I know the food writer Phil Vettel of the Chicago Tribunes thinks it's an empty phrase to say something like, "you really don't get much for what you spend." But Phil is a fucking moron and is out of touch with people who spend their own money on food. Get a clue Phil, and unplug your head out of your ass. Oh shit, yea I said it. Moving on.
The compost cookie has butterscotch chips, chocolate chips, pretzels, and potato chips. It makes it a really dense cookie and weirdly enough all the components work out. I couldn't really taste the pretzel and the potato chip part but the butterscotch and the chocolate chips were definitely in play.
The pistachio cake was not as successful of a dessert for my tastes. A slice of the pistachio cake features three layers of pistachio cake along with two layers of lemon curd or something like it. The top layer was a pistachio cream and there were some of these crunchy white stuff that I couldn't figure out. But who am I kidding, my taste buds are lame.
Lemon, almond, and pistachio are the three dominating flavors in the Momofuku Milk Bar pistachio cake. The domination comes in that order. It's like creating a fantasy basketball team called the Ramon Sessons and KG is actually your best player. That's all fine and dandy because everyone loves KG and lemons, but if it's a pistachio cake I just kind of expected more Ramon Sessions. Wow, that made no sense. It's ok.
I think if your like a citriusy flavor to accompany your cakes, you would love the pistachio cake. I would probably get it again in the future. There are also other cakes in the Milk Bar that look super interesting like the Dulce de Leche cake or the Chocolate chips cake.
As of now, if you look at the Momofuku bakery bio page, you'll see a lil blurb about Christina Tosi and Marian Mar. It reads: "christina tosi and marian mar are both graduates of the french culinary institute. they are bouley alums who met at the tompkin's square dog park. they are aspiring diabetic old ladies who wear matching sweat suits. shout out to wd-50." Definitely shout out to wd~50 because you know who was in line on Sunday at 3pm? None other than the head chef of wd~50, Wylie Dufresne.
I wanted to take the camera out and snap a picture of him in the bakery because that's like a surefire way to get linked on Eater or something. I want to say that the reason I refrained was due to respect of his privacy, but it was probably because there were 20 people behind me in line and it would have looked weird to bust out a camera to take a picture of a chef enjoying his day off.
There's no seating at Momofuku Milk Bar, just high counter type of tables for you to stand and eat at the same time. The tables are free of clutter as people take after themselves and clean up. I saw someone clean up his clutter, and them proceed to use his hand as a towel, gathered up all the crumbs in his area, and then put that away in the trash. That seemed above and beyond to me, and I never would have thought of it. So my question is, when you go eat at a place where the unspoken rule is to clean up after yourself, how often do you take care of the crumbs?
Sign up to the feed and never miss a post!Posted by Danny on November 17 2008 at 3:45 pm
if they gave shout-outs and knew who he was, why'd he have to wait in line? If I had a bakery and a world famous chef walked in, i wouldn't make him wait. the wait did make me kind of pissy and a little sour on the whole experience.
Blondie on November 17 2008 at 3:57 pm
@Blondie,
They definitely knew who he was. A couple of chefs from the Ssam bar side of the restaurant came over to chat with him when he was about to order and afterward, he talked to Tosi for a little bit too. And I heard if you have the chance to go weekdays, it's just a regular line and the wait is not bad.
Danny on November 17 2008 at 4:29 pm
Sunday is Wylie's day off, I see him in Ssam Bar all the time. So yes. They know who he is. :) And sometimes even Wylie has to wait for a table.
kathryn on November 17 2008 at 6:34 pm
Wow. Phil Vettel bitchslap and nonsensical fantasy basketball reference? Nobody is taking your mancard away today motherf*cker!
Dennis on November 17 2008 at 10:15 pm
The crunchy white stuff on the pistachio cake are "milk crumbs" - pretty tasty imo, but I would have liked more of it on the cake. My favourite (sweet) Milk Bar offering is the brown butter bun with cream cheese filling. Make sure they warm it up for you...it's ridiculously tasty :) I like down the street from Milk Bar and have to walk past it on my way to work every day...there's definitely no wait on weekday mornings...spotted just two people inside at 8:30 this Monday morning.
Kathy on November 17 2008 at 11:32 pm
wth is with this MilkBar place? Man oh man i wanna go back to NYC. i wasnt some Dumplings and some cookies now at 11:45pm.
Oh and to your question about cleaning up before yourselves. Shoot you've cleaned up already whats a little crumb to wipe off the table? just wipe it up, i wouldnt go as far as shining up the table, but i'll do my part for the next paying customer.
Steve on November 18 2008 at 12:47 am
I wouldn't use my bare hand, though - I'd use my last napkin (I take 3 usually, one to wipe my mouth, one for my hands, and one to clean up, is that weird?).
Nice bitchslap, price definitely plays a factor in how high I rate something ("Good but so not worth $25" sometimes). I don't have an expense account for expanding my waistline.
DC is so overhyped. I hate that guy now. BOO.
Yvo on November 18 2008 at 11:04 am
I'm with Yvo, crumbs can be swept away with napkins. I'm gonna have to take a day off to enjoy Milk Bar..
talida on November 18 2008 at 3:30 pm
@Kathryn,
See, that's so cool that he waits for a table even though they know him there. It's very down-to-earthy.
@Dennis,
Hell no!!! hahaha, who am I kidding? It's gone already!
@Kathy,
Ooooh milk crumbs. Yea I wanted more of those things. And brown butter bun? mmmm... that sounds delicious!
@Steve,
Dumplings and cookies sound like a good idea. I had that in the reverse order the other day.
@Yvo,
Haha, I saw your post and why you're not a DC fan. See, price does factor into everything! It mighta been good, but probably not worth the $300 for the bo ssam!
@talida,
That's a good idea... take a day off to enjoy some of this... oh man I am hungry just thinking about doing that!
Danny on November 18 2008 at 11:24 pm
Steve is one of the more anal guys about being clean. I remember when I would leave my drink on a table for 30 sec. and when I came back to finish it, he already threw it away.
Jack on November 19 2008 at 2:32 am
@ "HU? Jack Does"
Oh Jack .... come on man you remember back in the days u were a bit of a slob. i had to clean up after you all the time. oh and u played kinda violently during recess. I wonder how u ever got that Sportmanship award *ahem*! lolz
steve on November 22 2008 at 12:08 am
KC, Cy and I went to Momofuku milk bar yesterday and sampled all of their cookies and breakfast stuff (volcano and egg sandwich). I think we agreed that we liked the peanut butter and chocolate ones the most. The blueberry and compost ones were good, but the peanut butter and chocolate ones were better since they weren't that overly complicated and not as overly sweet. We didn't get to try the cakes since we were there for breakfast (cookies for breakfast!), but maybe next time.
Anne on November 23 2008 at 1:30 pm
You can't tell the pretzels and potatoes are in there cause they would make too close match to be noticable in that mix for anything other than salt.
ToddC on January 9 2009 at 2:09 pm
Haha, someone asked me what's in the Compost Cookie for real (cuz I posted on it yesterday) and I Googled Compost Cookie... this post is the first result :) I definitely taste the pretzels and potato chips but it's 4-5 months later so maybe they've refined the ratio a bit so you can taste each component better. I thought there was cheese doodles though. lol
Yvo on April 1 2009 at 9:52 am