Spot Dessert Bar

On my way to brunch at Paprika in the East Village (which is delicious and super affordable), I walked past Spot Dessert Bar on St. Marks.  I knew I had to stop by to pick up some dessert.  And boy am I glad that I did.  I grabbed two cookies (chocolate mint and a coconut macaroon with nutella and almonds) and two cupcakes (vanilla caramel Vietnamese coffee and mocha Maldon salt caramel) and brought them home to Alex.  We devoured all of it in less than 5 minutes.  

Details after the jump!

We loved everything I brought home, but totally disagree on our favorites - or at least our favorite cookies.  My favorite thing overall might have been the chocolate mint cookie.  The texture was amazing - nice and crunchy on the outside, and then super soft on the inside.  And then it was nice and minty.  Alex on the other hand loved the coconut macaroon because he thought it was "more interesting" than the chocolate mint cookie.  I do agree that the addition of the flakes of sea salt on the macaroon totally made the cookie, as did the use of nutella.  I have had a ton of chocolate-dipped macaroons, but nutella?  Yum.  As for the cupcakes, we both agreed that we preferred the vanilla caramel Vietnamese coffee cupcake (that is such a complicated name but it is delicious, I promise).  While the mocha cupcake was a bit moister, the flavors of the vanilla caramel cupcake were better.  Unlike the cupcakes from Billy's and Magnolia the frosting at Spot isn't cloyingly sweet and overwhipped until it's extremely stiff, nor was the frosting piled sky-high enough that you almost feel like you are eating more frosting than cake.  The cake to frosting ratio here was perfect.  Also unlike most of the cupcakes I have had in NYC, the cake itself was moist and flavorful.  While cream cheese frosting remains my undisputed favorite icing, I honestly didn't miss it here at all.

Momofuku Milk Bar now has some competition for my dessert affections in the EV.  The next time I am down there I am going to stage some side-by-side competition between Spot's cookies and the cornflake marshmallow chocolate chip cookie from Milk Bar.  I can already unequivocally state that I preferred the vanilla caramel Vietnamese coffee cupcake to the various cakes and pies I have tried at Milk Bar.  And as soon as it's warmer out I am going to try Spot's ice creams and sorbets.  They have awesome topping options - basil seeds, fresh fruit, coconut macaroon pieces, etc.  They also have more flavors and less strange flavor choices than Milk Bar does (rosemary flavored soft serve anyone?).  Right now Spot is offering Vietnamese coffee, condensed milk, and Ovaltine ice creams.  I believe they also had raspberry and coconut sorbet.  While none of those flavors are quite as exciting to me as Milk Bar's fireball and lemon verbena soft serve, they might prove to be just as delicious and far more exciting to other people.  I know the topping options at Spot had me all excited.  I can't wait until spring!