Rating: 5 paws out of 5
Spent: $2-3 per donut
Chain: No
Date Friendly: If you like sitting on a park bench
Note: They open at 6:30AM and close till all the doughnuts are gone / 7:00PM, closed Monday.
379 Grand Street
New York, NY 10002
(212) 505-3700
www.doughnutplant.com

Memories of the krispy kreme doughnuts are starting to fade and this comes with sadness.  This ferret truly miss the conveyer belt of goodness that have stopped.  Hopefully one day the machines will once again rise and start producing high quality doughnuts!

The Pomegranate doughnut was the first doughnut to be eaten.  I just couldn’t wait.  It is a basic yeast doughnut light and fluffy with a sweet Pomegranate glaze.  On top of that glaze they have taken one step further and placed pomegranate seeds on top of the doughnut.  But when it comes down to it, it just a good doughnut with pomegranate flavoring / seeds.

Peanut Butter Glazed Jelly Doughnut brought back many childhood memories of lunches.  The glaze was perfect, the glaze contains bits of peanuts pieces that worked well.  If you a chunky lover this was to appease you, if you a smooth guy, the bits of peanuts should not bother you.  The raspberry jelly amount in the doughnut was just right, there was not too much jelly to create a huge mess or overpower everything.

Creme brulee Doughnut, I was like WHAT!, $3 for this tiny doughnut, you gotta be nuts.  But after tasting it you will see that this is a creme brulee doughnut and requires extra labor to make.  There was no question about that.  Even though these are small (silver dollars in diameter), they have plenty of flavor.  The creme was excellent, not too sweet and the caramelized sugar glaze set this apart from the others.  I would not base a whole meal on these but it is a good side treat.

Blackout doughnut is a chocolate lovers dream.  It it not too sugary sweet but super rich in chocolate sweetness.   This cake based one was moist in the inside and had a very nice texture from the crumbs on the outside.  As I said before, if you like chocolate, you will like this one a lot.  Do not forget your glass of milk or coffee.

Tres Leches is the flagship doughnut that beat Bobby Flay, after tasting this doughnut, I gotta say wow this is a good doughnut.  This doughnut captures the essence of a tres leches cake.  For those for do not know what tres leches is, it pretty much translates 3 milks.  They are typically milk, evaporate milk or condensed milk, and heavy cream.  It is also nothing like caramel.  This flavor is very popular among the latin american countries.  This doughnut had a dense, moist, sponge cake like inside with a sweetness of the tres leches.  Along with that, it had a very nice not overly sweet glaze.

Marzipan Doughnut was mystery to me.  Marzipan is a candy that is normally used for holiday candy with an almond flavor.  This one as a bit weird to me.  I am guessing this might be one of those holiday favorites that people might want.

The chi tea is very sweet and tasty.  I typically do not like teas that sweet but many people have expected a spiced and sweet cream tea when you ask for a chi drink.  The coffee here is organic and taste pretty much like a well made cup of coffee.  You  pour it yourself out of a thermos tap, note the milk is from a glass bottle, so all you picky carton/plastic milk container complainers can calm down.

rack of doughnuts

Inner workings

box of doughnuts, YAY!

Pomegranate doughnut

Peanut Butter Glazed Jelly Doughnut

Creme brulee Doughnut

Blackout doughnut

Tres Leches

Marzipan Doughnut

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Rating: 2 paws out of 5
Spent: $5 per person
Chain: Yes
Date Friendly: After Date desert
Note: They price by weight, so becareful not to make a $100 frozen yogurt cup.
153 2nd Ave (Between Ninth and Tenth Street)
New York, NY 10003
212.260.4414
www.16handles.com

Hunting for deserts, is one of this hungry ferrets top priorities while roaming the concrete jungle of New York City.  Alas another frozen yogurt place, does this 16 handle place stand up to the multi-color fruits that dominate this market.  We will see if these 16 handles can make some funky fruit punch out of the competition.

The main catch of this joint is that they have 16 different flavors on tap.  On top of this they also have more than 40 toppings available.  With these options you can be as creative as you want to be especially since you control the proportions of everything.  This is definitely a plus compared to the dictatorship of the other lands.

First flavor I tried was pomegranate, it was not too sweet and sour like a pomegranate.   The flavor of this was not fake tasting which is a big plus.  The part I did not like about this flavor was that the ice crystals were not too pleasing.  It was not smooth and creamy, more of an extremely fine snow cone.  Similar to ice cream with a low fat content and possible refrozen after it had melted.

Next was original tart, ick this was too tart in my opinion.  I wasn’t very crazy about it.  Again the texture of it did not remind me of anything dairy.  No smoothness, richness or creaminess that I expect from a tart frozen yogurt.

The fruit toppings were fresh and plentiful of selections that you can pick from.  I guess there is no such thing as a perfect frozen yogurt place.  Just like Canada, I was disappointed again.

my creative frozen yogurt

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Rating: 3 paws out of 5
Spent: $12 per person
Chain: Yes, multiple NY locations
Date Friendly: Maybe
Atomic Wings
311 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
(212) 736-0340
http://www.atomicwings.com/

Oh how the giant buffalo can fly downtown with such tiny wings amaze many scientist.  We welcome the addition of these fine creatures to our land.  The lore behind these wings was that a brave Buffalo warrior was given the quest to bring these wings down to New City of York through the snow.  Let see if this Hungry Ferret will enjoy this snack.

The wings were generously well coated with beautiful sauce.  These wings were all well cooked and pump.  The wings did not have the signature fast food wing of being dry to the bone or tiny where you would need a magnify glass to see.   I had tried the levels Hot and Suicidal, hot was more vinegary than hot in my opinion.  Suicidal is hotter but not unbearable.  For those that can tolerate generally hot wings, I recommend suicidal.

The fries was crispy and well done.   The gravy addition was a good compliment to the fries, a much welcome change to the typical ketchup.  Too bad we will lose the 1 serving of the vegetables for the day.

The salad was fresh and the chicken was not dry.  There was no brown edges or old looking lettuce.  The dressing was tangy and flavorful but taste very commercial.

Buffalo Wings

More Wings

Waffle Fries

Waffle Fries with Gravy

Chicken

Chicken Salad

Rating: 4.5 paws out of 5
Spent: $5 per person
Chain: Yes
Date Friendly: Yes
Note:
between 18th + 19th St
170 8th Ave.
Nework, NY 10011
212 488 2510
http://www.pinkberry.com/

Oh the long forgotten Frozen Yogurt seems to have come back into fashion. This time with arsenal of fresh fruits and crunchy sugary cereal toppings. The Hungry Ferret will ski down the “soft swirls of chilly bliss with a distinct pouty peak” to look for a sweet healthy treat. [Pinkberry TM]

The two main flavors at every chain location of Pinkberry are Original and Green Tea. Coffee and the shaved ice is listed on the website but not available at every location. Pinkberry is frozen yogurt, but it is not your frozen yogurt from the 90′s. This formula that the Pinkberry came out with has a very rich, smooth, and creamy texture.  The reinvented frozen yogurt has a bit of tartness and maintains its nonfat low calorie base.

” Fruit toppings, cut fresh on-site, include: strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, blackberry, banana, kiwi, mango, and pineapple. There are also a variety of dry toppings to choose from, including: almonds, carob chips, chestnuts (new topping), chocolate chips, Cocoa Pebbles, Fruity Pebbles, coconut, mochi (rice cakes), yogurt chips, cookies ‘n cream, granola, and Cap’n Crunch. Pinkberry has introduced seasonal flavors like pomegranate seeds and lychee for holiday and summer seasons.” [toppings via wikipedia]

As you can tell listed above, the toppings can add a good amount of extra calories to the mix.  The two flavors that the Hungry Ferret had tasted, were quite good.  The original flavor can be closely described as vanilla with a tartness.  It was not bland, fatty tasting, overly tart, half melted or have sharp ice crystals in it.  Those previously mentioned are all the downfalls of a frozen yogurt treat.  The  Green Tea had all the good elements of green tea without the bad.  This was one of the best examples of usage of green tea in a desert.  Usually the outcome is horrid, the extremely bitterness or weirdness of flavors just ruin whatever the artist was trying to create.

Because of the simplistic idea of quality control and freshness of fruit and toppings, Pinkberry has earned 4.5 paws.

*Update: Pinkberry has received the National Yogurt Association for Live and Active Culture Yogurt seal.

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Rating: 5 paws out of 5
Spent: $15 per person
Chain: No
Date Friendly: Yes
Note: Chicken is made fresh, can take up to 20 mins, cash only.
71-22 Roosevelt Avenue, Jackson Heights, NY 11372
(718) 205-6662

With the recently popularity of the Korean fried chicken stands, there has been a lot of winners and losers in the fried chicken game. The Hungry Ferret will dig deep and look to the skies for an answer to the age old question, ” It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a flying chicken?”

Out of all the different flavors of fried chicken, the best the Hungry Ferret tasted is “Soy Garlic”. They claim the taste is out of this world, well it is according to me. So what makes a good fried chicken? Lets look through the steps of how the perfect fried chicken is made.

1: use fresh chicken and cook to order.
2: have a flavor that is well balance and perfect.
3: have the skin crispy and thin.

But really I believe the 2 main things that make this fried chicken so good is the flavor and how the skin is. Flavor is some secret voodoo that the chefs at UFC has come out with. The skin is really crispy and separates from the main portion of the meat. The best way to describe it would be comparing it to another dish, Peking duck. Peking duck when prepared correctly, the skin is suppose to separate from the meat after pumping air in between the meat and the skin. Well somehow the UFC master chefs have figure it out to do this to their chickens dishes. UFC has won the elusive 5 paw award.

The sides here are also good, the chicken comes with a cabbage salad with thousand island dressing. The Fresh thick fries have a very crisp outside and soft potato inside. The macaroni salad has nice sweet tangy creaminess that most will enjoy.

Interior Decor

Macaroni Salad

French Fries

Chicken Wings

Up close chicken wing