Mary's Pizza Shack

Had the privilege of visiting Sonoma, a quaint little town in the heart of the world's third largest wine country (Sonoma/Napa Valley) located in San Francisco. We stopped in Sonoma for a lunch break and then continued the journey to the other wineries. I was enthralled by the town's vintage charm -wooden white pillars and lamp posts adorned with Christmas heaths among pastel clapboard buildings.

The afternoon was cloudy with a burst of sunlight. Traffic was minimal. Women pushed strollers as they window-shopped. Old friends laughed over fresh coffee in the warm interiors of cafes.Tourists paused outside trinket stores to snap pictures (that's me).  

Along the short strip of stores was Mary's Pizza Shack. You couldn't miss it. A statue of a fat, oversized elf with striped stockings and curly-tipped shoes greeted you at the front with a large pizza. 

Once inside, I quickly learned that Mary's Pizza Shack is an Italian family-owned business. The restaurant received national recognition for its delicious pizzas. It serves Italian comfort food like soups, pizzas and pastas. This got me excited. You know how much I adore Italian food! ;)

The founder's grandson who looked no older than 12, greeted us and led us to our table. 

Pots and pans hung from a rod at the back of the restaurant, contributing to the restaurant's cheerful decor

Random snapshot of my dad's hands while I waited for the food

I ordered the seafood risotto because I hadn't tasted risotto in almost a year. It arrived in a big white plate.  Shrimps and clams were nestled in a bed of creamy rice, garnished with peas, herbs and a hint of lemon. 

Best risotto I've ever tasted. The shrimps were juicy and fresh. And the rice, soaked in a creamy pool of sauce, was cooked to perfection. Everything about it was delicious.

My brother contemplated between a pizza and a meatball spaghetti. He ended up going with a pizza called "Mary's Combination." Since my parents were interested in having pizza as well, they all decided to split the large pizza.

When our pizza arrived, our jaws dropped. I thought we ordered a large, not a Ginormous. I later learned that the restaurant's definition of a large pizza was 16" and 10 slices. My parents had only been in America for a week, and were still incapable of increasing their appetite to more than two slices of pizza. I think I saw a flash of panic in my mom's eyes the moment the waitress lowered the pizza onto our table.

The pizza was a lot larger than it looks. But it was worth every penny. It was topped with salami, pepperoni, cotto salami, mushrooms and sausage. Toss in the best meats in the world and you'll have Mary's Combination. (No bacon on there though)

I was full from my risotto but I helped myself to a slice anyway, and then another. It was so good! I highly recommend the Mary's Combination. I'm not a huge fan of meat but I really liked it. If you're a vegetarian, don't worry. There's a Vegetarian Pizza on the menu too, specially for you guys.

We ended our lunch with cake. I don't know how the thought of dessert even crossed our minds because we were bloated from all the carbs. But my mom was craving cheesecake and the blueberry crumble cheesecake caught her eye.

Lemon cheesecake caressed with sweet blueberries and streusel, with fresh cream on the side.

It was pretty sweet. Too sweet for my mom's liking. She stopped after several bites and made the rest of us finish it. The sourness of the lemon was barely detectable beneath the overpowering sweetness of the cake.

I'm not trying to be cheesy, but at least we ended on a sweet note. ;)

Photographed and written by Carissa Gan.

Beard Papa's

Imagine a world without bakeries. What does that leave us with? A sad, lonely world where people lack the liberty of taming their taste buds with the sweetness of a custard cream puff.

During my stay in New York over the summer, my of cravings for sweet treats were amplified with the surplus of bakeries. Every time I passed one, I couldn't help stealing a glance at the pastries on display. I would be compelled to enter for various reasons: the smell of fresh baked goods and hot chocolate brewing at the back of the shop, and the sight of dainty treats sitting on the display counter. 

Beard Papa's caught my attention one afternoon. Located on the Upper West Side, just a few blocks from Central Park, it was a small, cozy size and situated beside a cheese shop. I'd had Beard Papa's a few years ago and I'd always liked the cream puffs. It was a familiar shop in a foreign city.

I wasn't very hungry, but I went in anyway because my mind compelled me to enter. I'd gone in for a vanilla cream puff, but I saw the cute paris brests smiling at me from the display counter and I decided to get a chocolate-coated paris brest as well. 

Come to mama!

Half of the chilled pastry was shelled with frozen chocolate, leaving the other half exposed beneath the thin sheath of paper that contained it. The inside was filled with rich vanilla cream. The marriage of chocolate and sweet vanilla produced a luscious taste that made me want to buy a box of eclair paris brests to go. But I thought about the long subway ride home and decided against it.

The original cream puff was filled with the same sweet vanilla cream that laced the insides of the previous pastry. The only difference was the texture... and the lack of chocolate. It was a crispy puff, sprinkled with powdered sugar. The inside was hollow expect for a generous pool of fresh, chilled cream. That left me feeling bloated.

The cream puffs come in a range of flavors, including green tea, dulce le leche, pumpkin and more! 

Read the reviews of other satisfied customers here and head over to your nearest Beard Papa's soon! 

Photographed and written by Carissa Gan.

Journey to Levain

When I was in New York, a friend told me I had to visit Levain Bakery on 74th Street for the best cookies in the city.

So one afternoon, I traveled with another friend of mine across the city to the Upper Westside just for a taste. We had Google Maps as our navigator. And it brought us to our destination, but to our dismay, it was just a another street of suburban apartments. There was no cookie shop in sight. We walked the whole stretch, scouting for a cafe or deli that read "Levain Bakery" to no avail.

We even walked the next block and refreshed Google Maps several times to be sure. It led us back to that street. Still no sign of the bakery. 

Frustrated and tired, we were just about to visit the neighboring streets for cookies, when I spotted it. 

There it was, framed in blue, a tiny little shop sandwiched between other colorful apartments. It was easily mistaken for another house. If not for the sign painted in mustard yellow across the glass window, I wouldn't have noticed it. 

So we walked in and to our surprise, there were only four kinds of pastries on sale and all of them were cookies: chocolate chip walnut, oatmeal raisin, dark chocolate chip and dark chocolate peanut butter chip. I suppose the bakery sells a variety of other pastries but I must have gone right before it closed, so everything else was sold out apart from the cookies. It worked out well though, because I'd traveled a half hour from the other side of the city just to taste the famous cookies.

My friend I each bought a dark chocolate peanut butter chip cookie.

It cost no more than $5 per cookie. I guess we both underestimated it. We thought we could finish the cookie ourselves. 

But no. It wasn't an ordinary cookie. It was huge. I cradled it in its white paper bag as we left the shop, feeling its warmth in my palms. It actually weighed a lot heavier than most cookies.

It was a massive slab of dark chocolate, embedded with peanut butter chips. Biting into it, I realized I had never tasted anything quite as good. It was soft and chewy with a hint of saltiness from the peanut butter, but drenched in rich sweetness from the chocolate.

The warmth of the dark chocolate dough melted the peanut butter chips, a creamy brown filing that curled out of its cookie cage, luring me in for another bite.

This was supposed to be a pre-dinner snack. But the cookie stole our appetite. Halfway through my treat, my stomach told me to stop. I was getting full. Really, really full. 

"This thing itself can be a meal!" my friend joked.

But she was right. It could. And maybe some people actually made it a meal. A substitute for a sandwich, or a plate of rice. A sweet, delicious, chocolatey and peanut-buttery substitute.

Our journey to Levain Bakery was worth it.

Photographed and written by Carissa Gan.

Pinkberry

Dish: Mango froyo topped with chocolate sauce, dark chocolate crisps and strawberries.

Venue: Pinkberry, New York

When I was in New York this summer, I met up with two guys I hadn't seen in three years, AG and Rain. It was a hot summer afternoon and we were craving something cold and sweet. So, they took me to Pinkberry for frozen yogurt (froyo). 

Pinkberry originated in West Hollywood, California in 2005. It burgeoned across the country and the globe, with more than 200 stores worldwide. Prior to this, I'd only seen delicious photographs of Pinkberry yogurts on my Tumblr dashboard. So to be standing in line in an authentic Pinkberry store that afternoon was a moment to remember.

Clean photographs of the six yogurt flavors were pinned on the glassy wall: original, pomegranate, chocolate, peanut butter, strawberry and mango. AG said the mango yogurt was the best. While waiting our turn, we talked about eating and living healthy - he told me about his trips to the gym and his vegetable diets, which I really admired but secretly knew I couldn't do. But anyway, we agreed that for the sake of our bodies, we'd try to keep our yogurts as simple and fat-free as possible. 

At the counter, I asked for a small mango yogurt.

"And what toppings would you like?" the cashier asked. "You can pick two kinds."

I surveyed the array of toppings: dark chocolate crisps, fresh fruits, roasted hazelnut pieces, cheesecake chunks, fruity cheerios, toasted almonds, gummy bears, and a whole other bunch of treats. I went with dark chocolate crisps (because I love chocolate) and strawberries (just to be healthy).

"Would you like chocolate sauce?" she asked.

My mind lit up at the mention, and before I could stop myself, I said, "Yes, please." While I said that, AG blurted "No!" on my behalf. 

"Oh dang, too late to change my order now," I sighed with false disappointment.

AG looked pretty disappointed. He would've made a great personal trainer, but not today, because my lust for chocolate overpowered the urge to stay fit. You're hearing this from the girl who loves chocolate so much, she eats Nutella out of the jar sometimes.

The yogurt was creamy and rich. It was sweet to the tongue with a subtle hint of mango. The dark chocolate crisps were crunchy, and the fresh strawberry slices added a sour tang to the overall sweetness. And of course, the chocolate sauce made the whole experience richer and sweeter.

No regrets there!

Photographed and written by Carissa Gan.

Double Chocolate Brownie

Dessert: Double chocolate brownie

Venue: Starbucks

Price: $3-ish?

Brownies are an awkward dessert. Maybe it’s appropriate to say they are the hybrid of cookies and cakes. They are usually served with chocolates or nuts embedded in their surface, but unlike cookies, they have that spongy texture that resembles a cake’s. However, unlike cakes, brownies lack the rich icing and cream. Brownies never interested me… until one hot afternoon, when I decided to try that lonely piece of double chocolate brownie in Starbucks.

Its description read 410 calories. That was quite a major turn off, but I decided to take the plunge and purchase something I wasn’t crazy about.

The pretty barista packed it in a paper bag for me, and I took my first fudge brownie back to my apartment and laid it on a plate. The contrast was evident; a dark square block of chocolate against a dainty white plate laced with printed blue peonies.

I eyed the brownie, wondering if I would have the appetite to finish the entire block of it once I started. I would hate to force myself to finish it, and throwing it away would be a waste. It didn’t exactly look appealing: just an ordinary brown slab with rectangular chunks of chocolate nestled in. The cracked surface of the brownie strangely portrayed the creviced roads of a post-earthquake site.

It stared back at me, waiting, seducing me with its rich chocolate texture. Since chocolate and I share a loyal and passionate relationship, I decided to give this brownie the benefit of the doubt.

Lowering my fork into the brown mass, I watched small brown particles tumble onto the plate, creating a speckled muddle at the foot of the dessert. I lifted a small chunk of the brownie to my lips, unaware that any second now, my evening was about to change.

The light, buttery taste of the brownie surprised me. A second later, my taste buds detected the dark chocolate. It wasn’t extremely sweet, nor was it bitter. It was a perfect balance of sweet and buttery. Its dense and moist structure melted away on my tongue. I reached for a second mouthful, then a third, until I had eaten three-fourths of the brownie. As I chewed, the sweet sensation of chocolate exploded in my mouth, leaving a luscious aftertaste of chocolate and imaginary cocoa. 


With each bite, I reminded myself to savor the moment, because a fraction of the taste was disappearing with each second.

I finished the rest of the brownie over the next couple of minutes, enjoying the spongy texture until all that was left on the plate were brownie crumbs and grease marks. The taste of chocolate lingered in my mouth and I yearned for more. I had just gone down a path I’d not explored, and the journey was so tantalizing that I wasn’t ready for it to end.

This brownie scored a place in my heart. It had earned its reputation from a cookie-cake hybrid to the best brownie I’d ever tasted.

Photographed and written by Carissa Gan.

The Birthday Pavlova

Dessert: Pavlova

Location: Serai
Price: RM 14.80

I celebrated my birthday at Serai, an elegant Malaysian-Indonesian restaurant tucked into the flamboyant strip of restaurants at the Empire Shopping Gallery.

The beautiful pavlova arrived on a large white ceramic plate. The plate, carefully cradled by the fingers of a waiter, was slowly lowered onto the table as the rest of the restaurant crew sang "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" beside me.

Orange flames danced feebly on the wicks, but quickly vanished in one quick breath.

Forking the pavlova, the meringue crust crumbled away to reveal a soft, spongy texture. Strawberries and berries perched on a bed of fresh cream, waiting to be savored.

The sweetness of the cream overwhelmed the mild sour tang of the strawberries.

Pavlovas were named after a Russian ballet dancer, Anna Pavlova. The light, airy texture of this delicious dessert resembled the ballerina's style - delicate and smooth.

It was love at first bite.

Photographed and written by Carissa Gan.