Momofuku Milk Bar: Where New Year’s Resolutions Go To Die

I went to the gym last Monday, January 4th, and I couldn’t use “my” stationary bike. I say that it’s mine because it’s the same bike that I use at the same time, just about every day of the week. It’s the one that’s right under a ventilation duct and it’s lined up so that I don’t strain my neck watching one of the wall-mounted TV’s. I couldn’t use it Monday because there were about ten or fifteen people in the gym who aren’t usually there.

Why?

New Year’s resolutions.

It’s that time of year again, I guess. I’ve never been one for resolutions (sweeping generalizations-turned-promises made to yourself never end well), but if you are one of those people who declares a War on Ass Fat each New Year, do yourself a favor—don’t go to Momofuku Milk Bar.

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Located on 2nd Ave. between 12th and 13th street, Milk Bar is part of David Chang’s Momofuku empire. With Christina Tosi at the helm, Milk Bar is delivering some of the most imaginative, tasty, downright insane desserts available today.

Danielle and I went this weekend—a cold, windy Saturday—to experience the spectacle firsthand after salivating over the menu for a day or three. We spent a lot of money (more than we normally would on desserts, at least), took in too many calories, and documented the whole thing with my new Canon S90.

Here are the results (click all the photos for higher resolution images):

As you can see from the menu, there are plenty of options—soft serve (flavors change monthly), flavored milks, milkshakes, cookies, cakes, pies, breads, specialty spreads and drinks.

*Cue the divine intervention noise.*

There isn’t much in turns of motif at Milk Bar—and that’s fine with me. The most beautiful thing in the room is the food. Some bar tables to hold the Sriracha for your pork buns, free tap water, and TV On The Radio playing the role of muzak. Stainless-steel-meets-spruced-up-storage-room is what I would call it. And it works.

I wound up taking a bunch of shots of the Milk Bar packaging. I love the Momofuku peach logo, and I love how understated it is on their bags and cake boxes.

Pork buns? In a bakery? Before you even ask, I’ll answer it this way—because he can. David Chang’s pork buns are well-known and well-reviewed and now I understand why. We had two orders—one while we decided what to get and another because—well, they are just that amazing. $9 for a deuce is a little pricey (at the same time, three would have been a bargain), but completely worth it as far as I’m concerned. As Danielle said, “I could eat fifty of these.”

The Cinnamon Bun Pie came next. We ate it there because they served it warm. Remember those Cinnabon cinnamon rolls? Corporate? Oversized? Soulless? Well, forget them, because Cinnamon Bun Pie is much, much better. I love how the slightly bready back end of the slice mimics the “normal” cinnamon roll layout.

Oh, Crack Pie. This is one of the desserts that everyone brings up when you mention Milk Bar. I will admit that the hype built it up just a bit too much for me, but it was still really good. Damn good, actually. Think chess pie, but a bit different, or maybe even a light corn syrup-only pecan pie, but without the pecans. The star here is the crust, which is perfect and crunchy and I’d like to be baked in it when I pass on, please.

At this point, we headed back to the Bronx (although we did have a cookie in the car) to deliver some of the goods to my brother and mother. Mike requested one of Milk Bar’s flavored milks, specifically “Cereal Milk,” which they make by letting toasted Corn Flakes sit in local, organic milk. After the soak, it is strained through a chinoise and salt and sugar are added. It’s—flavorful, that’s for sure. It is an exact replica of milk that, you know, had cereal in it. Except more so. If this is your thing (it’s not mine, I admit) you will love it. My brother talked about it for twenty four hours, I swear.

Then there was the Compost Cookie, another Milk Bar favorite. On the menu it’s listed as having, “pretzels, potato chips, coffee grounds, oats, butterscotch chips, and chocolate chips” in it and I can attest to the presence of all of those ingredients. Milk Bar’s cookies are a different breed of cookie—deceptively heavy, very crispy on the outside, very soft on the inside, and very naked in terms of flavor—there is no doubt that the cookie was made with sugar, butter, and eggs, even with all of the junk poking out of it (and I use junk here as a very positive term). There is so much junk, in fact, that all the cookies have humps in the middle, my guess being that they were not able to hold their own weight during the cooking process.

We also got the Cornflake-Chocolate Chip-Marshmallow Cookie. Again, awesome. Again, not as light as I thought it would be, but in a good way. It definitely had oats in it, which was a nice textural change.

The Candy Bar Pie is a spin on Hershey’s Take 5 bar. What I liked the most about it was the separation of layers—it wasn’t just a mush of ingredients. Again, another amazing crust. My mother loved this.

If there was one disappointment for me, and Danielle too, it was the Chocolate Malt Cake. And I wouldn’t even say it was a disappointment; it just wasn’t as exceptional as everything else. The cake’s filling and charred marshmallows were good, but neither element could hide the dry, crumbly cake which was difficult to get out of the box in one piece.

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Please, be sure to head here for the gallery of all the pictures I took.

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In a world filled with dime-a-dozen designer cupcake slingers, It comes down to three questions:

Are the desserts at Milk Bar outrageous? Yes.

Are they delicious? Yes.

Can you go to any bakery and get the same fare? No.

For me, that pretty much says it all.

And there’s so much more at Milk Bar to try (we spent about $70, by the way)—more cookies, more cakes, breads, and soft serve. Not to mention the rest of the Momofuku empire—Noodle Bar, Ssam Bar, and Ko.

But be sure to get to Milk Bar soon, and please, let me know how it goes. For that matter, let me know before you go so I can come with.

Unless, of course, you’ve got New Year’s resolutions to worry about, in which case I would recommend staying as far away from Milk Bar as possible.

But if you’re weak and still go, please, stay off my bike at the gym, okay?


More soon.

JS

(Some background information for this review was taken from Wikipedia, Momofuku, and Eat Me Daily.)