I heard a whisper about this little delightful sweet shop and cafe opened up in Inwood, just few months ago in March. I am always looking for a pastry shop that can really deliver the high quality, tasty sweets, so I went out there to check them out. It is an upscale and modern Pastry Shop & Café, offering selection of baked goods and savory items.

They had an interesting set up, with regular entrance, and a window…quick ordering section? I am not sure if they are actually using the window for that, or using it as a show window, which works really well, as their sweets looked pretty awesome from it. It was more than enough to get me excited to see what else they got inside.

The inside was not too big, but not too tiny. The interesting part was that they had the kitchen right there. We got to see them creating their cute truffle chocolates. That is pretty cool. The pastry chef greeted us with a warm smile, which was extra nice. They had 2 tables, and counter seats by the windows. Not much seating, but I guess it is more a pick-up-and-go kind of place.

 

The interior was modern with wood, tile, and cool light fixtures. It was pretty cold in there, but I assume they do that to keep the chocolate and whatever the sweet goodness they are making cool, so that they won’t start melting away. Regardless of the cold temperature, they had warm and cozy atmosphere, quite relaxing.

In there, they had soooooo many beautiful looking pastries, chocolates, cookies, cakes…you name it they had it! Everything looked so great that I didn’t know what to do…I wanted to order 1 of everything!

 

They also had refrigerated window showcase, in here, they had cakes, mousse, and cupcakes, fruit tarts, etc. and they all looked great and pretty… It was a dessert heaven in there for sure. The pastry chef has worked at various location and countries, including France, Austria, Italy and Japan. That is an impressive resume, and having an experience in pastry making in Japan, that is all I needed to hear…as I totally love Japanese sweets!

So after hard decision making process, we got few things to try out. What really caught my eye was this pretty chocolate dome. When I asked the staff what it was, I was told it is a “Pleasure Dome”… I mean, how can you NOT have it after hearing the name, right? So, of courser we got one pleasure Dome ($7.50/small). The staff, who was really nice and helpful, told us that it is a dome of milk chocolate, banana, and Brugal rum mousse with crunchy peanuts. I would say that sounds like a pleasure dome alright. When I opened this pretty dome up, the inside was this nice, rich, creamy mousse, and it was delicious! It had great banana flavor, and hint of rum, and the chocolate was really great. The crunchy peanuts on the outside added that nutty flavor, which went great with this dome. This one certainly have earned the name, it was very much pleasurable to my tongue and tummy.

Viennese Apple Strudel ($3.75) was pretty good, it was very fresh, high quality and flavorful. I am not a big fan of apple pie, apple tart, or apple strudel, but this one was really good. It had nice cinnamon flavor, and the thin pastry dough was nice and light. I think the freshness of it really got me, it was an excellent strudel.

I always like coffee cake, so seeing that they have Walnut Coffee Cake ($3.75), I wanted to try one. And they have done a great job on this one as well. It had the nice crumbly top, which is my favorite part, and lots of walnuts. It was moist and rich, without being heavy. They had crushed walnuts everywhere in the dough, addition to walnuts on top, which was really nice. I got pieces of walnuts in every bite.

 

And you know what would go perfectly with these yummy treats? Good cup of coffee. And guess what, they have that too! We got a large Coffee ($2.25) and large Latte ($4.00). They were both good, smooth, but nothing too special. It is so good to have a nice hot coffee with these desserts and pastries,  I am glad they have that here.

Since this is a chocolate kind of place, I wanted to try their chocolate truffles. They had three kinds, and we got them all ($1.50/each). White Chocolate Lemon Truffle was the first one. I love white chocolate, and never really thought of mixing that with lemon, but it was such a delight. It had a nice creamy center, but not too soft, still had nice solidity to it, just the right amount of softness. It had a hint of lemon, not overwhelming, and went great with white chocolate.

They also had Dark Chocolate & Salted Caramel Truffle, and Milk Chocolate Cinnamon Truffle. They all had really nice flavors, high quality chocolate and nice, mild flavor. None of the ingredients such as lemon, salt, and cinnamon were too strong, so that they are not fighting against the chocolate. It was really nice.

After tasting some of their creations, we were happy and satisfied. So, we decided to buy some other items to go, so that we can have them for breakfast the next day.

We got something called “Upside Down” croissant ($4.25), which was basically their caramelized croissant, dipped in dark chocolate. When I flipped it the right way up, it is clear that it was a croissant, but in a shape of small muffin. It was tasty, flaky, sweet. Caramel and chocolate had really flavors.

Pecan Sticky Bun ($3.50) was really lovely, lots of pecans, great flavor of brown sugar and cinnamon. It was airy but moist, nice texture, and almost crunchy pecans added great flavor and texture. I really enjoyed this one. 

The last one we got was their Chocolate Croissant ($3.50). It was ok, nothing too special. The croissant was airy and light, and the chocolate was very tasty. Even thought it didn’t have lots of chocolate in the inside, the quality of the chocolate was really high.

 

Overall, I was super happy with the discovery of this new pastry shop. Their pastries and desserts are all very well made, high quality, and very pretty as well. The craftsmanship speaks loud. The staff here was really nice, I didn’t get her name but she was very kind, warm, and helpful. The quality of her service was parallel to the quality of sweets. We were almost surprised at such warm service at pastry shop in NYC… which is sad, I know. But it certainly was a pleasant surprise. We will definitely go back again for more of their wonderful, delicious creations!!!

CHOCnyc – 4996 Broadway, New York, NY 10034