Top Bites of 2014

Happy 2015! We're a bit late jumping on this bandwagon but looking over this past year's food shots made us drool all over again. We named Tara Kitchen's Lamb Tagine our favorite local food of 2014 on All Over Albany but couldn't resist reminiscing over these wonderful bites too: 

Sweet Sue's Breakfast Pasta: As if breakfast pizza wasn't amazing enough, we've found a new brunch favorite in this wonderful carb-filled bowl of fresh pappardelle with smoky bacon, earthy portabella mushrooms, spinach, and tomatoes all topped with cheese and a perfectly poached egg. The moment that velvety egg yolk breaks and coats those beautiful strands of pasta is magical.  Once you twirl a forkful into your mouth, you'll want to shovel the rest. 

DeFazio's Linguini with Clam Sauce: 2014 was the year of tasty carbs. DeFazio's is well-known for its pizza, winning the 2014 All Over Albany Tournament of Pizza Championship. But it was the pasta that left a memorable impression. Made in-house and from scratch, this pasta doesn't get any fresher or better, except maybe with some tomato sauce and a few shakes of freshly-grated parmesan cheese. 

Cider Belly Doughnuts: The classic cinnamon sugar doughnut topped FUSSYlittleBLOG's 2014 Tour de Donuts but it's the glazed ones that we can't get enough of. With rotating flavors like butter rum, apple cider glazed, and German chocolate among a slew of other unique flavors, you'll quickly find yourself filling up an order for a dozen or two. It's not easy picking a favorite but the coffee-flavored ones are stellar. The Stacks Caffeinator Belly was an extra special pick-me-up treat; made with Stacks espresso and glazed with coffee, it was the ultimate jolt of flavor.

Casa Dominica Cuban Sandwich: J's been obsessed with cubanos ever since watching Chef The Movie. Casa Dominica makes a mean pernil, translating to a juicy and flavorful Cuban sandwich. Yes it's a Dominican restaurant but the roast pork is key to this dish. One bite of this sandwich is an explosion of flavors. It's pork on pork action with shredded pernil and slices of salty ham; the combination of meat with melted swiss cheese, zip of mustard, and briny pickles blows any other ham and cheese sandwich out of the water. As an added bonus, you'll even find bits of crispy pork rind throughout each bite adding extra texture and flavor. 

Council Rock Brewery Burger: More 607 than 518 but Council Rock Brewery in Cooperstown churns out good beer and good food. This hands down was the best burger of 2014: maple-glazed angus, topped with brie, pickled green tomatoes, on a pretzel bun. It's a lot of unorthodox ingredients but they all complement each other very well creating a satisfying salty and sweet flavor combo. Sadly it's not on the regular menu. 

More Top Bites:
+ Top Bites of 2013

Nibble Inc.

It was love at first bite when we discovered potato doughnuts at The Holy Donut in Portland. So when we heard Troy's Nibble Inc. was inspired by Maine's unique take on a beloved staple, we were super excited. Our expectations were pretty high especially after being greeted by this massive sign of adventurous flavors.  

Doughnuts are made to order, which means fresh fillings and glazes, so prepare for long wait lines. Love that Nibble Inc. incorporates local ingredients and partners into its products, including Rare Form Brewery, Brown's, and Sweet Sue's. 

The lemon fruit tarts at Sweet Sue's are stellar. In doughnut form, the Local Lemon curd filling had the same sweet and tart flavor that we love but the consistency of the filling was a bit runny, most likely because we got a fresh-out-of-the-fryer doughnut.

In addition to classic flavors, you'll find playful ones like maple bacon and cocktail-inspired ones like the Upstate Sour made with whiskey glaze, lemon-lime icing, and blackberry cassis filling. As much as we wanted to love the booze-inspired glazes, the filling far outshined its counterpart.

There's no doubt that tasty, high quality ingredients are being used but sadly the star of the show kind of fell flat. The potato doughnuts we've had in Portland were moist and crumbly but these were so heavy, dense, and tough. We came in during a pretty high volume morning so I wonder whether the doughnuts spent too much time in the fryer, or perhaps the recipe needs a bit more tweaking; it's only been two weeks since Nibble has opened its doors.

The one doughnut J and I both agreed was the best out of the four we got was the dark chocolate sea salt. This one had the soft(er) crumb that we were looking for. Plus the chocolate flavor really came through, especially with the touch of saltiness and honey glaze.

The flavors are there and with a bit more room for improvement, I can see us coming here more often. It's the kind of shop that's right up our alley so we've got high hopes for Nibble Inc. in the coming months. The Capital Region needs more places that think out of the (doughnut) box. 

currently snacking on...

... cappuccino apple cider donuts from Cider Belly Doughnuts. Truth be told we also snacked on plain, cinnamon sugar, glazed, chocolate, and maple ones but our favorite so far are these coffee-flavored ones. They're light and fluffy with a crispy exterior with us enough sweetness from the glaze. They've especially tasty if you're lucky enough to get a few warm and fresh ones. 

Fly Creek Cider Mill

My folks were in town and it was on a whim that we took a day trip to Fly Creek Cider Mill near Cooperstown. Normally, Fly Creek is a mecca of samples from pickled vegetables to apple wine, cheese, fudge, jellies, jams, sauces, dips...you name it they have it. The list goes on and it's a delicious tour of the country store. The cafe next door is a great spot to grab an icy cold apple cider slush (free with a coupon from various visitor's guides) and an array of apple goodies from doughnuts, pies, dumplings, and cookies. For the kiddos and kiddos at heart, there's a coop of live geese, chickens, turkeys, and ducks who would be very happy to be fed corn treats for a mere quarter. There's also a play area, plenty of educational apple and cider related trivia, and displays of John Deere tractors. 

This past weekend just so happened to be the Annual Cider Festival and the line to get into the shop and the cafe were crazy long but we did not miss out on our small share of freebies. It's not every day that the International Society of Apple Parer Enthusiasts come to town. We arrived toward the end of the day but managed to sneak in samples of freshly pressed cider and sliced apples, sliced the old-fashioned way of course. 

Created with flickr slideshow.

The core of apple parer enthusiasts were a happy bunch of volunteers demonstrating the lost art of peeling an apple and slicing them through an array of antique yet functional machinery. There was even a demonstration of hand-pressed apple cider. 

It was a fun little side trip for us, but our main goal was to get a bite of the famous Brook's BBQ chicken for dinner and boy did it hit the spot. Nothing beats charcoal roasted meat. 

The Crisp Cannoli

All Over Albany's blog post inspired me to try the cronut craze that has plagued NYC. Fans wait hours in line for the original version at Dominique Ansel's in the city. I was overjoyed to find this half-doughnut, half-croissant concoction at The Crisp Cannoli in East Greenbush, and no crazy long lines around the block...yet. I forget whose Twittter feed I saw this amazing news on but once you bite into one of these puppies, you'll understand the hype.  

It took us three drive-bys to finally locate The Crisp Cannoli. It's located on the corner of a very unassuming building but inside are cases of wonderful pastries and sweets including the coveted cronuts. J and I hold very high standards when it comes to a good croissant. We use to get these amazing chocolate ones from TC Bakery when they were on Colvin Ave (now relocated to Saratoga) and haven't had a great croissant since until now. I can't compare this cronut to other cronuts, or crodo as it's called here since "cronut" seems to have been trademarked, but the magic is in the croissant dough. It's got to be buttery, flaky, and crispy on the outside yet chewy on the inside and this crodo hits all the above. It's as much fun taking a whole bite out of a crodo as

it is to pick apart those beautiful layers of sugared dough. It's no dainty pastry, be ready to be covered in lots of sugar. The Crisp Cannoli makes three wonderful versions of the crodo: glazed, vanilla custard-filled, and nutella filled. Try all three, you won't be disappointed; but I gotta say my favorite was the nutella filled one. 

The filled-to-order cannolis looked pretty damn good too but the lovely woman at the counter talked us into trying their other croissant invention: The Crodoli. Made to order, we were sold at freshly fried croissant dough filled with their homemade cannoli cream, dusted with sugar and drizzled with chocolate for good measure. This was best enjoyed right out of the fryer and boy did we enjoy it. I was expecting the crodo and crodoli to be heavy and greasy, but both versions were surprising light and crispy. With a name like Crisp Cannoli, the cannoli cream in the crodoli definitely lived up to its name; not too sweet and melt in your mouth creamy. We can't wait to come back for more crodos, crodolis, and of course cannolis. -R