superflat monogram - takashi murakami for louis vuitton

Cocoa Mademoiselle 2.0

new address: cocoa mademoiselle 2.0

i'm really working on tweaking the finer points and expanding readership, so if you could comment with feedback/suggestions on the new site, that'd be very helpful. thanks!!

Relocation

Nonono...this isn't another "cocoamademoiselle is getting so old, i need a new blog name" deal. It turns out, I'm incredibly CSS, computer illiterate and want to expand the blog. Hence, the possible, gradual relocation to typepad, possibly my new best friend. Though I don't know what package I'm going to use yet.

Check it out here: here

Study: Financier Macarons

I'd never tried a macaron before this post. When I was in Paris, I wanted to Pierre Herme, the god of all macarons but never found the time to since his boutique was located further away from the hotel. I know...I call myself a food fanatic yet I can't even bring myself to visit the capital of all macarons?

I finally bought a pack of 8 from Financier Patisserie on Cedar Street (one of three locations in downtown Manhattan) along with a pack of chocolate financiers. And now that I've tasted them, I don't know why I waited so long.

To be honest, I don't even really know how to describe one. They're crackly on the outside from the meringue and moist on the inside due to their cookie composition and ganache filling, and they come in a variety of flavors. Apparently Pierre Herme even makes foie gras macarons. Now that I'd like to try one day.



It's a good thing I didn't eat all of these maracons by myself. They definitely become a bit too sweet after a while, no matter how good they are. I really liked the texture - both delicately flaky and moist - but I wish there was a bit more filling in them. All in all, a light and airy pastry.

Other than Financier, Bouchon, La Maison du Chocolat, and Payard are supposed to have decent to excellent macarons. Since I have a whole summer of work ahead of me, I hope to stop by at least once to try each of them.

More on Jeff Koons

I got off work early today and decided to hang out in the city for a while. After getting some studying done at the Borders on Broadway (I'm taking an economics course at RU), I walked around FOREVER trying to find Financier Patisserie. There are three locations in the downtown area, I had seen one of them before in passing when I was lost a previous time, yet nowhere did I see one today until about 15 minutes worth of searching. You may say, 15 minutes? That's not long at all. But when the area you're looking in is about only 3 square blocks, you start to feel like an idiot when you can't find it and then realize it was under your nose all along. -_- More on Financier later.

After that macaron, financier seeking debacle, I was making my way back to the Path station at Vesey Street when...wtf? A Koons work!? Meaning Jeff Koons, the balloon animal/plant artist who is currently exhibiting at the Met (see post below). Anyway, his Red Balloon Flower has been in front of 7 World Trade Center all along, and after two weeks of working, today was the first time I saw it, nestled in a small park in the middle of a fountain.



Turns out, Koons has 5 different colors of the Balloon Flower spread all over the world and they're predicted to be worth about $23.5 million. Dayumn. That's a whole lot of money for a giant balloon flower. But I guess at least there's comfort in knowing that it'll never pop. How much would that suck?

Anyhows, there's no reason why I'm mentioning this other than the smug feeling I got when I recognized the artist the minute I saw it. It was like recognizing all the "unknown" slides on my Art History final. And there were 20 of them.

New York with Laura, the third one

Since the May issue of Vogue came out, Laura (the third one) and I have been wanting to see the Costume Institute exhibit of Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy along with Jeff Koons' giant sculptures at the Met. So today, we had a sister-to-sister day in the city which took us from the upper east side to soho to brasserie les halles, a restaurant I mentioned on my New Years' resolution post.



The Koons exhibit only had three pieces, and I thought the balloon dog would be ENORMOUS. I was just a little disappointed. The superhero exhibit, on the other hand, was fascinating, I just wish I wasn't too lazy to sneak pictures; there were guards everywhere! They actually had the costumes Christian Bale, Tobey Maguire, and Michelle Pfeiffer had worn in the films (if only I could've touched the Batman suit!)

Afterwards we wandered around Soho, stopping at the official MUJI store and CB2, a crate and barrel lookalike, where I got a porcelain cup for 2 dollars and a funky stainless steel snack bowl.

The best of the day though...was food related, again. Between Soho and Wall Street, we got lost several times in Chinatown and Little Italy while also trying to look for Prune, a restaurant favored by chefs and New Yorkers for its adventurous and authentic French food.

Alas, by the time we realized where it was, we were too far...so we walked all the way down to Vesey and the Path station (it seems that everytime I go to NYC lately I do more walking than anything else...even eating!)

Anyway, we finally found our way to Brasserie Les Halles, where Anthony Bourdain was executive chef before becoming the celebrity that he is now, and since it was Memorial Weekend, the restaurant was almost empty. Perfect. Pics below; notice the gorgeous French Onion soup.



The soup was by far Laura's favorite dish while I was perfectly happy with my duck, which was crispy, fatty, and not at all dry (which is what I usually fear). I'm not a big cheese lover so a few bites of the soup were enough for me, but Laura kept going at it until there was barely anything left in the bowl. What I also noticed was that the chefs at Les Halles certainly know their potatoes. The mini homefries, the mashed potatoes, the chips were all crispy, lightly salted, and delicious. And I kept sneaking furtive glances at the Frenchman next to us munching on french fries (supposedly the best in New York) and a giant bowl of mussels. The crunch of the fries coming from him was unbelievable. Note to self: order that next time.

So...one new year's resolution accomplished. It's taken almost half a year; let's hope I achieve the others in a shorter amount of time.

The first of many

This summer I have an internship in New York which means that, along with work, play for me will mostly take place in the city. Yesterday, I went with Cathy, one of my closest friends from high school, for the first time since we've known each other (elementary school). I don't know what took us so long, but the day before, we planned a trip that would result in over 50 walked city blocks throughout the course of the day.



We visited Chelsea Market, walked down 14th to Union Square (hoping for some good finds @ filene's), made our way through a heavily congested farmer's market, oohed and aahed at the cute tableware at Fishs Eddy and trekked to Madison and 23rd, home of the famous Shake Shack, before working all the food off by visiting the MoMA.

The last time I visited the Shake Shack, I waited in line for about 20 minutes. This time, the line swung all the way around the park to the point where Cathy and I were evaluating our progress by strategically placed tree trunks and the posters for "shack-xercises." It took us an hour to order our food and only about 10-15 speedy minutes to actually get it, but as always, it was worth it.



The burgers were amazing...perfect meat:bun ratio, juice:flavor ratio, and the fries, crispy and lightly salted, just the way I like. I remember the hotdog being bigger and more topping-filled last visit, and this time it was too salty for me. I finally tried their custard as well; it was good we got a small because the chocolate chunks were extremely rich and the custard incredibly dense. We finished everything else but the dessert in about 20 minutes.

To me, the Shake Shack still provides the city's best burgers and fries. While we were waiting in line, a woman behind us also recommended the Corner Bistro, a place I've heard about through NYmag and seriouseats. And even though I'm always open to new and cheap places to eat in New York, I'll definitely be a bit biased when I do try Corner.

Chelsea Market
75 9th Avenue (Between 15th and 16th Streets)
Mon-Sat 7 am to 9 pm, Sundays 10 am to 8 pm
www.chelseamarket.com

Shake Shack
Madison and 23rd (Madison Sq. Park, Southeast Corner)
11 am to 11 pm
shakeshacknyc.com

Fishs Eddy
889 Broadway and 19th St.
www.fishseddy.com