We had a lazy start to Day 2, taking some time to recover from walking in blistering cold weather the day before. Our phones claimed we walked more than 4 miles, but I never know if I can trust those figures.
We finally headed out and arrived at Roberta’s in Bushwick before noon. The entrance was semi-unmarked.
We stared at it for a while, not sure if that was a real entrance. And if it was, were we cool enough to walk through an entrance like that? Then a huge lunch party exited and asked me to take their picture. I walked in. Wood burning ovens fascinate me, inducing a trance-like state, so I didn’t make eye contact. Where were the breakfast pastries? “One door down”, I was told. One door down looked wrong, but I walked in anyway. Someone in there told me it was yet another door down. And it was.
In Baltimore, you always ask before snapping pictures. We were doing the same in NYC out of habit. Everyone had given us looks like, “Who asks permission to take pictures in 2017?” Roberta’s was the first and only time someone appreciated that we asked first. Anyway, they were out of garlic knots already. The breads looked good and the croissants looked great. We got the sticky bun and chocolate chip cookie.
The sticky bun was advertised as salty and it was, almost inedibly so. The salt was mostly on top, though, and the interior was actually good. I wonder if they use their croissant dough for the sticky bun. At first, I did not like the cookie at all. It felt crispy in an overbaked way. As I kept nibbling, the crispness gave way to a soft center. However, the cookie’s crumb did not change from the edges to the center. I don’t understand how they did this. When I imagine a cookie with crisp edges and a chewy center, this is exactly what I think of. The chocolate was layered very well, too. Both the sticky bun and cookie had a savory quality I couldn’t quite place. Maybe they bake them in wood-fired ovens.
Next, we quickly dropped by Dough Doughnuts in Bed-Stuy. I wimped out and got a cinnamon sugar doughnut. I wish I had tried one of the other flavors to see what type of ingredients they used, and to see if the toppings were well-balanced.
For something savory, we stopped by A&A Bake and Doubles Shop. I had saved this place since reading about it in the Cheap Eats thread. It took a couple minutes to find the shop. And I didn’t realize what I was after is actually called a “double” – I had never heard that term before. But for $1.50, the double here was a steal. It reminded me a lot of a Punjabi breakfast item called “bhatura”.
Nearby we saw a halal eatery named Abir. Curious, we walked in. The menu was eclectic. Their offerings included pizza, burgers, and steam table items. A lady was vigorously stirring a pot of grits in the back. We finally settled on a beef roti.
To me, roti is a simple flatbread I eat with many weekly meals. I know in Malaysia it means something different. In this case, “roti” meant a filled paratha-like flatbread. But not filled like how I am used to. Rather, they took the paratha over to a steam table, topped it with various beef and vegetable items, and folded it like a package. It felt (and tasted) like a shortcut method, but I haven’t looked into it. We saw a dedicated roti shop driving out toward Clinton Hill, and next time will probably check that out.
