On the Road #2: Snacks and Vino

NB: I wrote this post yesterday afternoon in Word before I went out for the evening. I'm posting it now.

Just traveled down the #1 line and got off at 72^nd Street. If you find yourself in that vicinity you will not be short on baked goods or vino.

Noticing a sign for a free wine tasting, I stumbled into Pour, a wine shop that goes out of its way not to sell the brand that you can get everywhere else. This place is unusual also in that it does not organize its wines by region, but by characteristic – bold, crisp, etc. These are the sections in this wine shop. And each section has pictures of which foods go best with the wines located therein. I tasted this red wine from Apulia (Italy), Cantine de Falco Primitivo (and then bought it for $13 before tax). The staff are helpful, I might add.

I staggered out, a little buzzed (one reason why I usually prefer beer – it doesn’t get me drunk as fast), and went next door to Crumbs. This bakery seems to specialize in cupcakes, and they have the standard vanilla and chocolate. But they also have snickerdoodle, red velvet, piña colada and (the one I left with) fluffernutter. This was only $3.50. And though it looks like there’s a mound of icing – whipped, not hard, but thick – there is actually a whole lotta cupcake underneath it, and it was very moist, more so than most cupcakes I eat which tend to be far more muffin-like in their consistency. These people are doing something right that Giant just is not. Enough so that I’m going to buy their 16 mini cupcake sampler tomorrow for $16. Gotta take something back home for the folks, after all.