Dough Donuts Blood orange donut: Brooklyn Donut shop Dough Donuts serves ginormous donuts with vibrantly colored glazes. This blood orange donut came with a candied slice of blood orange. Brioche-based dough makes the donuts neither light and fluffy nor overly dense - somewhat middling as far as small-batch donuts go. Blood orange glaze was very sugary but had a decent citrus flavor. Best part was definitely the candied slice, with its sharp tart flavor. 3.0/5.0
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Ample Hills Creamery Lemon ginger sorbet and Snap, Mallow, Pop ice cream: Family friendly ice cream shop Ample Hills Creamery is probably as Brooklyn as an ice cream store can get. The flavors are completely made in-house, hand-drawn illustrations act as signage, and flavors like “gooey gooey butter cake” and “Nonna d’s oatmeal lace” hearken back to an extremely classic American childhood that I can only imagine those that had cookie jars in their kitchens may have experienced. AKA this is a very white-person ice cream shop (not to denigrate - just stating the f... (read more) 3.0/5.0
brooklyn icecream marshmallow amplehillscreamery lemon ginger sorbet snap mallow pop ice cream 3.0
Hanco's Honey Green Tea with Lychee Jelly: I'm not homesick per se, but I do find myself frequently sad about the lack of good bubble tea options in NYC. I think I had 5 different bubble tea stamp cards in the bay area, and I only have one for NYC, at a bubble tea shop that closes at 8pm during the week (Mr. Wish). Given that most of my bubble tea purchases in Berkeley or SF were late night impulses, I don't get to drink much of it here. Hanco's, a Vietnamese sandwich shop close to me, has pretty bad boba from my previous experie... (read more) 3.0/5.0
drinks brooklyn hancos honey green tea lychee jelly 3.0
Peter Pan Bakery Blueberry glazed donut: One of my co-workers graciously brought a selection of donuts from Peter Pan in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, a local favorite I've always wanted to try. This glazed blueberry cake donut was as good as any cake donut I've had, which is to say ok but not really a style I'd choose on my own. It has a crumbly, slightly dry texture; the sugar glaze was extremely sweet; the blueberries, though, felt generous and were slightly tart. 3.0/5.0
dessert brooklyn peterpanbakery blueberry glazed donut 3.0
Brooklyn Crafted Mango ginger beer: I was hopeful about this fruit-flavored ginger beer, which I found at Brooklyn Fare in downtown Brooklyn. Purchased in a set of four bottles, the apricot-tinted drink contains bits of ginger sediments throughout. Sadly, the soda drank very sweet, reminding me of generic fruit-flavored gelatin snacks you can get from Asian grocery stores in the candy aisle. The ginger flavor was faintly present, mostly visually rather than in taste. 2.5/5.0
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Hanco’s Black milk tea with boba: Went to 5 different supermarkets in Brooklyn to look for fish sauce and could only find Thai Kitchen brand. Stopped by Hanco’s, a Vietnamese sandwich shop a few blocks from where I live, to ask where to find. They told me there were no asian grocery stores in the area and I would probably need to go to Chinatown. The sandwiches at Hanco’s were pretty good, but this bubble tea was quite bad - very diluted and milky tasting, with overly chewy boba. Might need to go to Chinatown for that too. 2.0/5.0
drinks brooklyn hancos black milk tea boba 2.0 bubbletea