Smetannik -- Bakery La Brioche Cafe, Brooklyn, NY
Bakery La Brioche CafeWe're pretty sure that Alex Guarnaschelli has it out for us.
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| And If She Didn't Before, She Definitely Will Now |
Granted,
90% of her Best Thing I Ever Ate choices were made before we even began
writing this blog, but still -- the woman seems hellbent on sending us
to the farthest ends of the earth in order to procure some culinary
"delicacy" (we use the term loosely), and for what purpose?
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| See? The Literal End of the Earth |
Her picks
are random at best (miso soup in Portland, ME, anyone?), terrible at
worst (the caramel apple of Charleston, SC, which shan't be spoken of
again), and just plain NOT WORTH THE EFFORT in so many cases (you know,
Alex, they also serve stuffed grape leaves IN MANHATTAN).
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| Manhattan -- So Close, and Yet So Very, Very Far |
In this vein, we are hauling ourselves all the way to
Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, in order to procure some smetannik (sour cream
cake) from Bakery La Brioche Cafe, which Alex spoke of on the SLICED
episode of Best Thing I Ever Ate (keep this SLICED theme in mind, please
-- it comes back again later).
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| Never Have We Ever Been to Brighton Beach -- Oh Wait |
In theory, we came up with a very solid
plan for this outing -- Vodka would meet Ginger in Brooklyn Heights in
order to take a jaunt on Jane's Carousel (we have an odd obsession with
carousels; it's pretty much our only way of pretending we live in Disney
World), followed by venturing, together, lest we die, to the Q train in
time for Di Fara pizza to open at noon.
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| Honestly, the Things We Do In the Name of Blog Completion.... |
After we avoided Di Fara's
monstrous lines and consumed Sunny Anderson's favorite pizza, we would
hop back on the Q to Brighton Beach for Alex's silly cake. Needless to say, this plan blew up in our faces.
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| Brooklyn Is, Generally Speaking, Not Our Friend |
The
trouble began when we reached Di Fara at 11:59am on the dot and found
barely six people waiting in line outside. Great news, right? WRONG.
In a stroke of just-our-kind-of-luck, there is a cardboard sign
plastered on the door stating that they are having "oven mechanical
issues" and "might" be opening at 1:00pm.
Ain't nobody got time for this nonsense, Brooklyn.
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| PULL IT TOGETHER, PEOPLE! We Have Couches to Go Home and Sit On! |
Because
we were born with the patience of toddlers, we immediately leave the
premises and high-tail it for Brighton Beach. And within minutes of our
arrival, we nearly get mowed down by at least four cars. Thanks
for the warm welcome.
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| Just Try to Cross This Street Unscathed. We Dare You |
By default, we don't quite fit in with the Brighton Beach community for a few reasons:
1. we're not in bathing suits,
2. we believe pedestrians have the right of way,
3. we're not speaking Russian.
Without being
maimed by vehicular manslaughter, we manage to make our way to Bakery La
Brioche Cafe, which looks... nothing like a bakery. In fact, it takes
us a second to even find the baked goods among the plethora of fruit,
groceries, and other standard bodega items.
Why, Alex Guarnaschelli -- WHY???
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| Is This a Bakery Or the Brighton Beach Branch of Fairway? |
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| Yes, You'll Find the "Bakery" Section on the Shelf Above the Citrus |
When we finally stumble upon the two shelves of pastries, we find the smetannik pre-packeged in aluminum sheets all the way to the side.
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| Um, What Now? |
Yes,
you read that correctly -- PRE-PACKAGED. Call us finicky, but wasn't
the whole point of this place being featured on the show the fact that
the customer could choose how big of a SLICE of cake they wanted? We
call false advertising.
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| We Demand a Refund on Something We Haven't Even Purchased Yet |
We buy one PACKAGE of smetannik, along with a giant
meringue contraption (Ginger) and an overblown cheese danish (Vodka).
Our whopping total is -- wait for it -- $.7.74. $7.74 for two huge
pastries AND a cake. Perhaps we should move to Brighton Beach.
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| Oh, Who Are We Kidding? We Prefer Throwing Money at Our Problems and Then Complaining About It |
Among the growing list of faults concerning La Brioche's
cake policy, they also do not have any forks with which we can use to,
you know, eat said cake.
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| Well, Much As We Enjoy Eating Like Cavewomen.... |
This results in Vodka clandestinely swiping
two from a take-out joint further down the avenue, and then brandishing
them in her hand like a weapon as we made our way toward the boardwalk.
"What's wrong with this park?" Ginger calls, pointing to the greenery across the street.
"We're
going to look at the water. I'm giving you the full Brighton Beach
experience," Vodka replies.
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| Brooklyn, You Are Indeed a Fascinating Place |
Unfortunately for us, the "Brighton Beach
experience" means settling on one of the only shaded benches in the
entire town, while most of Brooklyn's homeless population catches a few
Zs around us.
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| Would Any of You Care for a Slice of Cake? Oh, Sorry -- It's NOT SLICED |
We peel open the cake container and jab our forks into
this creation which -- keep in mind -- Alex Guarnaschelli had ventured
over an hour out of Manhattan to procure.
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| No Judgment, Alex, But We Prefer to Waste Our Time in the Company of Our TVs |
We chew silently for a few moments, and as we have established, nothing good ever comes from us being quiet.
"It doesn't taste like... anything," Vodka finally pipes up.
"I like the texture," Ginger tries to be positive. "You
know, relatively." Dense layers of cake are piled on top of each other,
cemented together by what is allegedly sour cream frosting, but which
essentially tastes like flavorless glue. Only because we are starving
(thanks a lot, Di Fara) we manage to consume one-third of it, hoping
with each stolen forkful that it would get better.
It doesn't.
It doesn't.
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| Our Ability to Consume Food We Don't Even Enjoy Never Ceases to Amaze |
Our own respective pastries, while
they at least taste like SOMETHING (hazelnut in Ginger's case; cheese in
Vodka's) are decidedly fine. They're at least marginally better than
this non-sliced cake, but worth a trip to the edge of Brooklyn, they are
not.
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| They Like Things Large in Brighton Beach |
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| This Doughnut Could Use Some Glaze |
"What is that, Staten Island?" Ginger asks, pointing to a hunk of land in the middle of the ocean.
"I
thought we were facing England," Vodka replies, and it takes us a
second before we sputter into idiotic laughter, realizing how truly
moronic our conversations are turning.
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| Of Note, We Rarely Know Where We Are |
"So we're giving this 2 stars, right?" Vodka asks.
"I mean, I don't think it's inedible."
"That's why it's not 1 star. But would you ever get this again?"
"No. Never. But doesn't that mean 3 stars?"
"I
feel like they should get a demerit for not being sliced," Vodka
explains. And so it is settled: 2 stars for some vaguely edible cake
that we had to travel over half of the eastern seaboard in order to
fetch.
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| A Sign We Shall Never See Again |
We pack up the remainders of our bargain basement purchases and
stare out at the ocean one last time, feasting our eyes on Staten
Island and/or England.
And grateful, for once in our lives, that Alex Guarnaschelli hasn't sent us there. At least not yet.
Lol...thanks for the laughs and the memories! You see, my hubby and I do the same thing! We visit various food establishments that TV chefs suggest! You would have been equally disappointed with Di Far pizza! Sunny was soooo wrong about their pizza...or maybe they only make great pizza for famous people? I think the people on those long lines must be first timers or other people like us who are following the advice of the TV foodies! Great blog post!
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