It is interesting how color affects our taste buds, and also our appetite. With so many food made for photos nowadays, it gets our curiosities high, and expectation of a good time also high. I have been wanting to try out Dylan’s Candy Bar since I have seen some yummy looking photos. We finally made our way over there. The exterior is as colorful as it can be, and inside was even more grand…

Candies everywhere, from floor to ceiling, wall to wall. All kinds of bright colors coming at us, we didn’t know where to look. One thing was certain: everywhere we looked, we were looking at some kind of sweets.

And they had all sorts of sweets, from candy, carmel, chocolate, jelly beans…you name it, they have it. You rather be biting into junk food like burger and hot dog? Not to worry, they had super cute chocolate with burgers and hot dog design on it! LOL.

With all these choices, you might have hard time selecting one. Well, why not look at what your favorite celebrity likes to help you with that! They have “Famous Favorites” wall, where many celebrities share their favorite sweets. Some of them have autographs or message written on it too. They of course have the Lauren family in the center, like Ralph Lauren, fashion designer and father of Dylan Lauren who owns Dylan’s Candy Bar.

I spotted some movie stars, comedians, singers and so many more! Steven Spielburg, Tina Fey, Michael Jackson, Bill Clinton, Selena Gomez, and Oprah just to name a few. My beloved Huge Jackman was there too!

Then there is this HUGE chocolate bunny! And I mean, HUGE. He goes all the way up to the ceiling. You are not allowed to touch him, but you can see some parts like his hands and sleeves that had some secret love from adoring customers.

 

If that is not enough, not to worry, there is a lower level with even more stuffs! The staircase was lit up, and had bits and pieces in it, which made it whimsical.

 

 

My favorite part of their staircase is the platforms. Each platform had a message made with candies on it. One said “Stairway to Candy Heaven” and another said “May Each Step You Take be Sweet”

 

So, what’s in downstairs? Well, it did say stairway to candy heaven. They have candy everywhere! So many different kinds, colors, sizes and flavors. Your wish is their command… It is also a great place to get some gifts for your sweet tooth friends and family!

If you are not wanting to get sweets, or if you already bought enough sweets, you can get other stuffs too. They have bags, accessories, towels, t-shirts, toys, etc.

 

And some unusual items like World’s Largest Gummy Bear (this thing weights a ton!) and Jelly Belly Draft – basically, beer flavored Jelly Beans.

But, if your heart is really deep with fudge, they do have fudge section, of course! It is hard to miss, and they do offer all sorts of fudge and other little sweets in this section.

Just look at these colorful concoctions! I don’t know exactly what they are, but they sure were pretty and appetizing! We didn’t get anything here since we were going to be having brunch soon… Maybe next time!

Before we head back upstairs, I have to mention one last interesting thing I found here at the lower level. It is a 3D Magic Candy section! I know! Here, they can create candy in 3D format, using 3D printers.

And what’s really cool is that you get to design what kind of candy to be made in 3D! It can be anything from butterfly and bugs, but it can also be messages. I see that a Japanese customer tried a message design with Statue of Liberty in it.

Now that we explored the entire store, two stories of them, it was time for the Dylan’s Candy Café & Bar to be open. It is located on the higher level, one floor up from the main street level. It was closed off until the open time, which was 11am on this day. The pole holding the red tape was also filled with candy. They are dedicated to putting candy everywhere…

Right at the top of the staircase, they had a little ice cream shop. And there is no doubt that they are ice cream shop. Just look at those huge ice cream cones hanging from the ceiling! If you want ice cream but don’t want to go into the Café & Bar, you can do that here. There is a little counter seating space right next to the register.

Since we were headed to Café and Bar, we passed that ice cream shop and went to the right. They had a host/hostess station there, and they took us to our table.

The inside was nice and bright with lots of natural light coming in, with the wall facing the street covered with window. The interior was as whimsical as their shop downstairs. Vivid colors against clean, white color.

 

They had mainly two dining areas, first room with table seating of all sizes, and the back room with bigger booth seating and more table seating. Off to side of the first room was a small area that probably is for people who are waiting for their table. Since we arrived just when they opened up for the day, we were the first customers!

 

The back room is really adorable. The round booth are in colorful cupcake shape! They looked so much fun! Most of the customers with kids were taken to these special seats. If I go back, I want to sit here, even without any kids…

And the round table in the middle had, of course, candies! They had glass top, and underneath was filled with colorful candies.

In the middle of the back room are the regular table seating, and they also had large group table all the way back as well. In this room, they also have beautifully decorated bar, as they do serve alcoholic beverages. Just look at the bar stools, resembling red and white mint candy.

 

We took advantage off of the bar and ordered a couple of cocktails to go with our brunch. The first one was Tropical Splash ($13), which is made with Coconut Rum, Dark Rum & Triple Sec, with orange juice, pineapple juice & a splash of Grenadine. It had very Summery look, with pop of colors from orange candy, lemon and lime slice and mint leaf.

I liked how the oranges were not real orange, but they were candies. Not that I am a big fan of those candies, but that twist made their drink very unique. And I liked how it came in the old fashion mason jar mug. It was like drinking a spiked sweet tea. It was very strong and had very nice fruity flavor without it being overly sweet.

The second drink was Toasted Marshmallow ($13) made with Vanilla Vodka, & Whipped Vodka with Godiva caramel, cream & a toasted marshmallow. Well, as you can see, the marshmallows are NOT toasted. We were told that the bartender was out, and that the manager was making the drinks. And he felt that the torch that is used for marshmallow is leaking gas… so he had to make it without torching them. Disappointed, but it was still really tasty. I liked the creamy-ness of the drink, and yes, strong. But, it was really sweet though, a bit too sweet. Good thing my hubby has sweet tooth.

So, how did we liked the drink overall? You can see that we certainly did enjoy them both!

Moving onto the food. We ordered Beer-Battered Fish Tacos ($16) and Mega Burger ($17). The Beer-Battered Fish Tacos are served with flour tortillas, creamy chili sauce, crunchy cabbage & queso fresco. Three nice size tacos came on a wooden cutting board, which was cute but took a big space on our tiny table.

The tacos had nice, big piece of fish in it, instead of having shredded or small pieces of fish. I thought it was great! And the taste? Delicious!  I must say, I didn’t have high expectation for this dish, but they surprised me, in a good way. It had a little kick to it, which I loved, and overall, it was really nicely done, high quality dish.

 

Mega Burger is made with 100% beef topped with cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato & an onion ring. You can choose the type of cheese, and we went with cheddar. On the menu, it says that it will be cooked Medium, but our waitress told us that we can change it to our preference if we want, which was nice.

 

The burger was stacked up high, but I thought it is a bit small for a “mega” burger…but it was a nice size, very meaty and satisfying. As you can imagine, it was not easy to bite into it without squashing it a little bit.

The patty was juicy and flavorful, and the ingredients were fresh and tasty. It was pretty good, again, better than we expected it to be. The bacon was cooked just right, tomato and lettuce were fresh, and onion ring was big and tasty. Buns were soft potato rolls, which we really liked also.

And the fries, they didn’t look anything special, but they were pretty good too. Crispy outside and soft and potato-y in the inside, just the way I like. We asked for mustard, and the waitress told us that they only have regular mustard and honey mustard, no Dijon. So we asked for honey mustard. It was really strong! Tasted like house-made honey mustard, tangy, sweet and spicy. Nice!

Now, the dessert. We decided to share one dessert, as they do specialize in sweets. They have nice selection of shakes, sundaes, and all sorts of interesting desserts like dessert pizzas. We went with the one called Best of Both Worlds ($12). The bottom half is milkshake and top half everything else including waffle cone ice cream, hence best of both worlds. They have three different kinds, Carnival, Brownie Fudge, and S’Mores. We chose Carnival. First of all, look at the size of this baby! It was so impressive that the customers sitting next table to us had to get a photo of it. LOL.

Carnival comes with Cotton Candy ice cream & Strawberry ice cream with cotton candy clouds. But as you can see, it comes with so much more than that! It had cotton candy, orange rock candy stick, whipped cream with sprinkles…

Sour Power Belt candy (which was SUPER sour!!!), and a little gummy bear! The little guy was so cute, I felt bad biting into him… And there is a thick straw somewhere in here for drinking the shake.

The cotton “clouds” was very soft and had nice pastel colors. I don’t remember the last time I ate cotton candy… They had sprinkles attached to the rim of the mug with frosting, which was extremely sweet. I say it is for show only, not for consumption, unless you really love something that is extremely sweet.

 

And how big was this exactly? You can see how huge it really was in these photos. My hubby said that it is bigger than my face, and I say that is so true…! Needless to say, it is better to be shared…

We were completely stuffed after the meal. It was really great, so much so that we thought it would be. Service was slow, even though it was not so busy. We didn’t really see our waitress much. She was very nice and friendly, just not efficient. We asked for refill on water, and she completely forgotten about it. We finally got water maybe 30 minutes later… The food and dessert also took a long time to come out. When the restaurant is not busy at all, I don’t know why it takes so long to prepare the food. But, it was at good quality and we enjoyed them all.

They have three single bathrooms near the ice cream bar by the staircase. I don’t know if all of them are the same size or have the same look, but I used the one that looked like it is the biggest. It was equipped with diaper section for parents with little babies, which is a good thing to have at a candy store.

Even thought it was clean and spacious, it was not very well kept. They had not paper towel, nor seat cover. The light fixture was not installed, making the wires exposed. I think it is very important to keep the bathroom all updated and stocked…

Overall, we had a really fun brunch here, good drinks and good food, and yes, dessert! I do feel that this spot might be more for tourists, but the quality of food and drinks are still good, and it was fun to dine at such whimsical atmosphere. They do need to work on the speed and attentiveness of the service, but other than that, we enjoyed it fully! So, next time you are having cravings for sweets, you know where to go…

Dylan’s Candy Bar – 1011 3rd Ave, New York, NY 10065