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Food, Travel, Lifestyle — be happy and be CiCiLicious!

A Gateway to Cultures Through Food and Entertainment

Writers:
Ian Blei, Optimized Results
Mark Levy, Overland

Today, Cici visited the theater District of New York: Times Square and Broadway, where the entertainment industry started in America. Her journey included a bowling alley, Bryant Park, two amazing French restaurants, and of course a Broadway show.

For a truly unique experience, CiCi started her day at Leisure Time Bowling; below the depths of Port Authority. Surprisingly upscale, and boasting unique cocktails and a video game parlor, CiCi showed her prowess on the lanes.

Next was Le Perigord, named after a region in France known as a culinary Mecca, and as elegant and chic as its old world name suggests. Lunch Buffet doesn’t get fancier than this.

Afterward, CiCi went for a walk in Bryant Park, located between Times Square and Grand Central Station. If it had been evening, there would’ve been a concert happening, but the empty stage was still inviting.

After Bryant Park, CiCi went back to Times Square and was dazzled by the lights and marquees announcing all the shows, including “In the Heights,” the show she was going to see that evening. As a special surprise, CiCi got to meet with Shaun Taylor-Corbett, who plays Sonny in the show. “In the Heights” illustrates the real New York City, with its colorful characters bonding together to persevere.

CiCi fortified herself with another amazing meal before the show, with a stop at Le Bernardin; known for some of the best French seafood in New York. Chef Ripert strives to create dishes that feature the fish as the star of the “show.” CiCi got an extra treat watching the creations take place in the kitchen, topping it off with CiCi’s favorite part of any meal: a beautiful dessert.

For the perfect ending to her Theater District adventure, CiCi went to see the Tony Award winning “In The Heights,” filled with all the passion and flavor of NYC. The Theater District is the embodiment of America’s entertainment birthplace. It’s filled with everything from arcades to fine dining to live music to theatrical performances. When you hear the word “Broadway,” you know exactly where you are. Even “In The Heights,” shines as the real New York City; all about sharing dance, music, food, and friendship.

Take Action! Comment on this video for a chance to win a gift card. How? After commenting on my YouTube vids, email to info@foodparadisetv.com; subject: free gift card; info: name, address, contact info, how did you hear about us, did you comment on my YouTube vids yet? Happy eating and winning !! Subscribe, Like, Comment, and make Favorite to my YouTube Vids! Let’s also stay in touch on Twitter and Facebook. I check them daily and I’ll reply.

Website: http://www.foodparadisetv.com
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/ciciliciousvlog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/foodparadise
My address: 229 W. 28th Street, Suite 700, New York, NY 10001

Food, Travel, Lifestyle — be happy and be CiCiLicious!

A Gateway to Cultures Through Food and Entertainment

Writers:
Ian Blei, Optimized Results
Mark Levy, Overland

Looking on her iPhone for where to eat breakfast, Yelp recommended the “Dessert Truck.” It used to be a truck, before getting converted into a restaurant. As the saying goes, “Life is short; have dessert first!” CiCi helped in the kitchen making their signature chocolate bread pudding with bacon custard sauce for breakfast. With that in hand, CiCi headed to the Tenement Museum.

The Tenement Museum is dedicated to the immigrants who used to live in that very building. Walking through the tiny rooms, CiCi thought about their hard lives; starting with so little and sacrificing so much for a better life.
Walking back to the Thompson Hotel for lunch at the Shang Restaurant, CiCi met two guys painting a huge NYC style mural, appropriately including a Big Apple.

The Shang Restaurant is beautiful and posh, and CiCi enjoyed a fabulous appetizer; a mountain of noodles, shredded vegetables, and salted plum sauce Chef Susar Lee calls a Singapore Slaw. After lunch, CiCi was looking for something light and cool. She discovered Il Labratorio del Gelato; where they mix up amazing flavor experiments.

Next, CiCi had shopping in mind at a famous jeans and clothing shop called Earnest Sewn. With such a variety of clothing and so many interesting things to look at, CiCi could spend days there, but she had more places to visit. After seeing Economy Candy on Yelp, she had to check it out. Like a kid in a candy store, CiCi left with enough for a year.

Next it was on to La Vie; a restaurant highlighting French Mediterranean food served Moroccan style. CiCi was invited to their grand reopening party. Cozy and chic, with music, cocktails, and great food, La Vie is amazing fun; epitomizing the Lower East Side.

Take Action! Comment on this video for a chance to win a gift card. How? After commenting on my YouTube vids, email to info@foodparadisetv.com; subject: free gift card; info: name, address, contact info, how did you hear about us, did you comment on my YouTube vids yet? Happy eating and winning !! Subscribe, Like, Comment, and make Favorite to my YouTube Vids! Let’s also stay in touch on Twitter and Facebook. I check them daily and I’ll reply.

Website: http://www.foodparadisetv.com
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/ciciliciousvlog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/foodparadise
My address: 229 W. 28th Street, Suite 700, New York, NY 10001

Food Paradise TV: Food, Travel, Lifestyle Videos

Let’s eat our way through New York City with Foodie CiCi Li

www.foodparadisetv.com

Lady M Confections

Lady M Confections prides itself on creating the freshest and finest cakes and confectionary delights.

Lady M^® cakes are hand-made following recipes that have been refined over the years to provide the highest quality in taste and appearance. All products are prepared fresh (not frozen) without the use of food additives or preservatives. The special care and attention in creating Lady M^® cakes has led to a loyal following. Lady M^® cakes are served at New York City’s top restaurants and at the homes of an ever-growing private clientele.

Lady M^® cakes are available for delivery throughout Manhattan with a 24-hour notice. Select Lady M^® cakes are also available for shipping throughout the United States via FedEx with a 48-hour notice.

We hope that you will have the opportunity to experience Lady M^® cakes and that they will bring joy to your table.

By AMANDA HESSER

Since it’s impossible and foolish to claim that something is the best of anything in New York, I’ll hedge my bets and say that the Mille Crêpes at Lady M Cake Boutique, just off Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side, is at least the second-best cake in the city. It succeeds so splendidly not just because it’s wildly delicious but also because it’s a clever design. Any number of decent pastry chefs could have come up with it. But they didn’t. (Or at least they didn’t look it up in some old cookbooks, but more on that later.) A team of mysterious investors at Lady M did, and they have filed to trademark the name Mille Crêpes.

Here’s what it is: 20 (as opposed to 1,000) lacy crepes layered with clouds of whipped-cream-lightened pastry cream. The top crepe is spread with sugar and caramelized like creme brulee. A fork plunged into a slice slides like a shovel through fresh snow. You get a whiff of smoky sugar, then layer after silky-sweet layer.

The components of the Mille Crêpes — the crepes, the pastry cream, the whipped cream — are plain as can be. It’s the way they are constructed, with every proportion considered and refined, that makes you think differently about cake. ”The recipe has to be perfect,” said Hideyuki Niwa, who bears the title C.E.O. of this single-location bakery. ”The cream itself has to be firm enough so the cake doesn’t collapse. The crepes have to be baked thin enough so that when you cut through with a fork, it can’t be an impediment. We’ve had many failures.”

Most bakeries are born out of love and butter and modest ambition, but not Lady M. The shop on East 78th Street is a clean, bright box done completely in white, with a sleek glass pastry case jutting through the room. In the back are a handful of tables; not even a cash register is visible. What little color there is in the room comes from the cakes and pastries themselves — eclairs, a paper-thin apple galette and fruit tarts, none of which compare in style to the Mille Crêpes.

Niwa, who was previously an investment banker, prefers to talk about sugary, comforting confections in terms of branding, strategy and intellectual property. He would not say how many investors were involved in Lady M or even where they were from. ”We wanted to be the Maison du Chocolat of the cake industry,” he said by way of explanation. The company began in earnest in 2002, selling cakes to restaurants, which it still does. Its green-tea Mille Crêpes, for instance, is served at Megu.

When I asked if I could speak to a pastry chef about how the Mille Crêpes is made, Niwa said that company policy didn’t permit its pastry chefs to speak to the media. ”We’re not interested in them being personalities,” he said. Niwa was also evasive when asked what inspired the Mille Crêpes. After many phone calls, I was allowed to visit the production kitchen in New York’s baking ghetto, Long Island City. The pastry chef, whose name I agreed not to mention, was marvelously precise, assembling the layers of docile cream and crepes in less than six minutes. (Niwa likes to time the chefs and find ways to shave off precious seconds.)

Back home, I decided to try to crack the mystery of the Mille Crêpes. I opened ”Joy of Cooking,” and right among the pancake recipes is one for crepe cake, made with a dozen crepes layered with lemon sauce. A similar version, layered with whipped cream and jam, called gâteau de crepes, appears in the Larousse Gastronomique. As the book explains, filled layers of crepes is an age-old recipe.

The top-secret Mille Crêpes is feasible to make at home after all. Using the crepe recipe from ”Joy of Cooking,” the vanilla pastry cream from ”Desserts,” by Pierre Herme and Dorie Greenspan, and my own whipped cream, my gâteau de crepes was charming the way the sagging roof of an old cottage is, and darn tasty.

But in fact, food is like fashion. Others may mimic, but style and faultless execution are the mark of a determined individual. People may copy Lady M’s Mille Crêpes, but when they want a perfect specimen, they will go to the store — or just pick up the telephone and have it delivered to their doors.