Clinton Street Baking Company and Restaurant

A friend recently celebrated a birthday and I decided to treat her by sharing a breakfast together at the birthplace for our new cookbook obsession: The Clinton Street Baking Company Cookbook. There has been quite a bit of buzz about this small lower East Side restaurant and bakery since husband & wife team, Neil Kleinberg and DeDe Lahman, opened in April 2001. Their mission was to make the best baked goods in the city, hand-mixed in small batches, using quality ingredients such as cage free eggs. Soon large crowds were lining up for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Their cookbook was named one of the best new cookbooks for 2010 by the New York Times (read article at this link). Both the pancakes and the buttermilk biscuits were on our mind as we've heard so much about them.

The Clinton Street Baking Company and Restaurant is located at 4 Clinton Street (between East Houston and Stanton), New York, NY.  The Lower East Side is a trendy yet rough and tumble neighborhood of old time tenement buildings and stores as you can see from a previous post I did about the neighborhood at this link. It may not be where you'd expect to find what was rated as the "best breakfast/brunch" spot by Time Out Magazine or the "best pancakes' by New York Magazine, among other honors which you can read about on this link.

The menu offered many tempting breakfasts, as you can see if you double click on the photo above to enlarge it. I really couldn't get a photo of the inside, as we were seated almost elbow to elbow in the small 32 seat restaurant, and I didn't want to annoy the diners at that table.

None of that mattered when our breakfast was served!  I chose the "Country Breakfast" of three eggs, grilled "cure 81" ham steak hash browns and a buttermilk biscuit. I had especially wanted to try the buttermilk biscuit as they were modeled after the ones that were served in the once legendary seafood restaurant from my youth called Lundy's. That restaurant has been sadly closed for many years so it was nice to taste their wonderful biscuit again.  Martha Stewart has called Neil "The king of buttermilk biscuits," and she is right!  My biscuit was flaky, tender, "melt in the mouth" good! The entire delicious breakfast was so large that the only thing I ate for the rest of the day was a small bowl of soup for supper.
Martha Stewart was kind enough to include the Buttermilk Biscuit recipe on her website, and there is also video to view of her and Neil making the biscuits on her show, which you can see at this link.

My friend had the pancakes served with warm maple butter.  She could have had wild Maine blueberry, banana walnut or chocolate chunk pancakes for the same price, but we both had decided we wanted to try them plain, so as to really see if we liked the basic pancake recipe in the cookbook.

They were served with a raspberry jam on the side which was wonderful!

Neil whips the egg whites separately from the yolks and then folds them slowly into the batter in increments when he makes his pancakes, which makes them extra light and fluffy.
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Again, he demonstrated cooking his pancakes on the Martha Stewart show and you can see the video and get the pancake recipe at this link.  Over 600 pancake stacks are served a week in this little restaurant so you know that they must be good!

Of course, as a bakery, they also have cake and pies, pastries and muffins, cookies and biscuits for sale which you can see listed at this link. All are available for pick-up only, and most must be ordered 48 hours in advance.

We enjoyed our breakfast celebration so much that I think we'll be making a trip back to the Lower East Side and the Clinton Street Bakery and Restaurant very soon!

I'm linking this post to Jenny Matlock's Alphabe Thursday for this week's letter "Y" and I took the liberty of linking this post for Yummy, Yolks and Yes, those were wonderful biscuits and pancakes!

I'm also linking to Michael Lee's "Foodie Friday" on her blog Designs By Gollum and Sandi's Friday's Favorites on her blog Whistlestop Cafe Cooking.

Thanks to all the hostesses!

Beautiful Homes in Mill Basin, Brooklyn

This home in the Mill Basin neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, has been in the local news quite a bit lately.  I won't go into the whole sordid affair of why the people living in this house have been making headlines, but suffice it to say it is sometimes true that real life, factual events can have more twists and turns than the most unbelievable works of fiction.  Reading about these recent events made me desire to pay the Mill Basin neighborhood a visit and to take a walking tour of the neighborhood.

(All photos will enlarge if clicked on once and then again when they re-open)

Mill Basin was named after the many tide mills that were once located in the tidal marsh lands in the area. Situated along Jamaica Bay, Mill Basin was called Equandito (broken land) by the local Canarsee Indians, who sold the land to developers in 1664. It became part of Flatlands, and remained a rural area until 1890, when a lead-smelting plant was built in the area. The other main industry was fishing for the crabs, oysters and clams that lived in Jamaica Bay.  Around 1909 the ill effects of heavy industry resulted in the filling of the marsh land, and after World War II, development companies bought up the land and residential development began. Today, Mill Basin is an exclusive residential neighborhood  known for its expensive and luxurious homes.

The houses are probably the type that most would not expect to find within city limits, and especially in Brooklyn, but as I have showed on previous posts about the Brooklyn Heights, Bay Ridge and Victorian Flatbush neighborhoods, Brooklyn has many upscale housing areas among it's more modest neighborhoods.

Some more examples of custom built, single family houses (double click on to enlarge)

Every time I visit Mill Basin -- or some also refer to it as Mill Island -- neighborhood, I am always astounded by the many newly built homes that have replaced older homes that I remember being there.

Small ranch style houses built in the late 1950's and early 1960's are purchased and then demolished.....

...and large, mostly three story homes replace them.

As you can see in the photos above a smaller one story home is on the left and a newer replacement home is on the right.

A fascinating statistic I saw at this link states that the average population density of a square mile in Brooklyn New York is 34,917 people per square mile, while in Mill Basin it is only 9,079 people per square mile. Although the homes may not have a property lot as large as homes in the suburbs, and are fairly close together, I am surprised that even that large a per capita ratio exists!

Mill Basin is an interesting neighborhood and another fascinating facet of Brooklyn, New York.  I hope you enjoyed coming along with me for a virtual walk in this neighborhood.

On a personal note, my grandsons have been bonding and "L" is having such a nice time being a big brother to his new brother "M."  Thank you all for your congratulations and best wishes!

I'm linking to "Mosaic Monday" on Mary's blog Little Red House  Thanks Mary! Click on the link to see many wonderful photo mosaics!

Geethu Mohandas Hot Stills

Cool Geethu Mohandas Looks

Hot Geethu Mohandas in Saree

Gowri Munjal Hot Stills

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Hot Gowri Munjal Looks

Cute Gowri Munjal Looks

Hema Malini Hot Stills

Cute Hema Malini Smile

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Isha Sharvani Hot Stills

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Cute Isha Sharvani Smile

Hot Isha Sharvani Looks

Jayashree Hot Stills

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Jyothirmayi Hot Stills

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Kalyani Hot Stills

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Karishma Kotak Hot Stills

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Karthika Hot Stills

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Hot Karthika Looks

Karuna Hot Stills

Cool Karuna Looks

Cute Karuna Smile

Pink Orchids and Pastries for Pink Saturday

For Beverly's "Pink Saturday" event on her blog How Sweet The Sound I thought it would be fun to show a collage of some of the beautiful pink orchids I saw last weekend at the New York Botanical Garden's Orchid Show. Click here my full to see my full post about the orchid show and to see more of the outstanding displays of over 5,000 live orchids!  (All photos will enlarge if clicked on once and then again when they re-open)

Some more of my photos from the show..

In close proximity to the New York Botanical Gardens is Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, which is a wonderful area full of many old world Italian shops and restaurants. I did a few posts showing some of the delicious ethnic Italian specialties you can find there on which you can read on this link and this link. We stopped to make another visit after going to the gardens but because it was a Sunday not many establishments were open except for bread and pastry stores and restaurants. 

We decided to go into this pastry shop in the area with the pink awning for a special reason.

Cafe Egidio located at E. 187th Street between Arthur Avenue and Hughes Avenue, in the Bronx, and established almost a hundred years ago, is well known for their authentic cookies and pastries. We wanted to buy special St. Joseph's pastries for the St. Joseph's Feast Day which has just passed on March 19, but the sign in the lower portion of the window for "Sanguinaccio" really caught my husband's eye with delight!

Here it is!

I will leave it up to your imagination as to what sanguinaccio is, as it is not something everyone would find appetizing unless you grew up eating it. My husband's mother used to make this special sweet treat once a year, and he declared that Egidio's sanguinaccio was as good as his Mom's! A wonderful compliment to them.

We did purchase a couple of the special St. Joseph's pastries to take home to enjoy later.  On the left are Zeppole di San Giuseppe, which are fried dough, layered with a vanilla egg custard, then topped with a candied cherry on top, and on the right are Sfingi di San Giuseppe, which are reminiscent of a cream puff, and are filled with cannoli cream, chocolate chips and topped with a candied orange peel. I think it would be safe to say almost everyone would enjoy eating them...they are so good!

Pink orchids and pastries ...who could ask for a better treat to welcome Spring?

Thanks,  Beverly for another wonderful Pink Satuday weekend!