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Archive for February 6th, 2010

The Cupcake Kitchen

06 Feb

Place: The Cupcake Kitchen, 100 Main Street, Irvington, NY

Attendees: Jeffrey, Pat, Shelley, Sylvia
Overview:
Pat:
What I had: Scrambled Eggs with peppers and onions, coffee, a bite of Sylvia & Jeff’s cupcakes.
What it cost: $6.00 for the eggs, $1.00 for the coffee, $10.00 including tax and tip and my pilfered cupcake portions
Worth it?: Probably not
The rating: 3/5
The details: I really enjoyed my scrambled eggs, which were runnier than eggs you usually get elsewhere (I prefer them that way). The veggies seemed fresh, if a bit soggy in the scramble. The toast was stale but offered a nice texture to contrast the soft eggs. However, there didn’t seem to be jelly or jam. The coffee was basically cafeteria quality, though at a dollar with unlimited refills it’s hard to complain about that. While I didn’t order one, you can’t go to The Cupcake Kitchen, without at least sampling the eponymous product. I stole a bite from Jeffrey’s chocolate cupcake with mint frosting and Sylvia’s red velvet cupcake. Both cakes were exceptionally moist, and both frostings were airy and buttery. Sylvia’s cupcake had a perfect cake to frosting ratio, but Jeffrey’s seemed to have a bit less frosting than I might have preferred. At $2.75 a pop, however, it’s hard to recommend your indulging beyond an occasional special mood/event.
The recommendation: Try the cupcakes once, go elsewhere for breakfast


Sylvia: I had the bacon egg and cheese on a toasted croissant and a cup of coffee.

The sandwich was a little sad looking on the plate. It wasn’t the best I’ve had, and for the price (4.50ish?), i felt like it should have come with something more or even a choice between bacon or sausage. I’m not a big fan of bacon, and I’ve had bacon which has made me second guess that. This time was not one of those times. The coffee was nothing special, and the milk for the coffee came in a coffee cup, which made the addition of milk a rather mess inducing process. I would have to say that breakfast wise, it was more of a weekday type breakfast, except the food took a little long to come to us. The breakfast menu was also limited to eggs, omelets and french toast. There apparently were specials available, but we did not know that until the end. For the price and portion size, I’d say it really wasn’t worth it. Nothing i couldn’t have quickly whipped up myself at home.
But the good news is, the cupcakes were pretty darn good. Apparently, according to a little blurb from The Westchester Magazine, the cupcakes are made with all natural fresh ingredients and local butter (but why serve the fake log cabin syrup??). I had my favorite type, the Red Velvet. The cake was moist and the icing wasn’t overpowering the cake nor overly sweet. I would say, this is a great place to meet up with friends and share a cupcake (or a bunch!) in the very cute and very cheery 50’s esq diner decour…but not so much breakfast.

Jeffrey: After arriving on time at the predetermined time of 9:15, the three of us waited around for our final member who was running a smidgen late. That gave us time to look over the breakfast menu. The selections were few and variety was lacking. I finally decided to have the French toast and a cup of coffee.
The coffee was served in small cute cups, which were fine. The milk was served in the same exact type of cup. I believe that if one is serving coffee, one should also serve the milk in a vessel that is made for pouring into another cup. Instead, when adding milk to our coffee, we ended up spilling some on the table or the serving plates the cups were on. I did not enjoy seeing spilt milk. I was about to cry.
Eventually the food arrived. It took a bit longer then it should have. After all we were the only other people in the place. As the plates were being put on the table, we looked at each other’s food and the first impression I got was from Sylvia’s plate. An order of a bacon egg and cheese on a croissant was haphazardly put together and plopped down on a plate. My order of French toast was two, albeit thick, slices of bread that just so happened to come into contact with eggs and milk before being cooked up. In all honesty, the French toast was decent enough, but the lack of real maple syrup killed the deal. The “syrup” was the store bought cheap sugar water that had a picture of a log cabin in hopes to lure you into the belief that it’s real maple syrup.
The amount of food on the plate was also lacking. Two slices of French toast and no sides. Yes, there was a sliver of an orange, but there was nothing else. Even when asking for some type of potato side like home fries I was shot down because they don’t have anything like that on the menu. All this for somewhere around seven dollars is completely not worth it.
Taking into consideration to selection of breakfast items, quality of the meal, and quantity of the meal versus cost, there is no way I can possibly give the Cupcake Kitchen a good review for breakfast. This is more like a cupcake bakery that just happens to serve a few breakfast items. The portions for this meal were too small to be satisfying. This is not a weekend breakfast location.
On a side note, we did order a few cupcakes after breakfast to try out their namesake. The cupcakes were indeed delicious. I do recommend them if you need a cupcake for a special occasion, or a Monday.

Shelley: Arriving at the Cupcake Kitchen in Irvington on this very cold Saturday morning (and early, too–ahem, ahem!) I was looking forward to something hearty and warm, something to stick to my bones to get me through the long day.
Unfortunately this breakfast fell short.
The menu presented a small selection for breakfast, certainly not as much variety as I’ve grown accustomed to over the past several weeks–just three choices of eggs (sunnyside up, over easy, and scrambled), some basic omelettes, french toast, cereal, bagels, and croissants/muffins. I decided upon scrambled eggs with sourdough toast and a side of bacon.

After a somewhat long wait (there’s just one person working the grill at CK, at least on this particular morning), I was presented with eggs that were too runny for my liking, leading me to send them back. After a little more time on the grill, the eggs were cooked to my satisfaction. However, the rest of the food was not up to my standards. The three strips of bacon accompanying my eggs were thin and dry, and the toast, which I believe should have been crusty and crunchy on the outside while still maintaing a softness on the inside, was just hard and brittle all over, making me think that it was a bit stale.
The portions, for the price of $6.50, were a bit small and left me still hungry. I have a suspicion that CK does this on purpose, to lure diners into ordering one of their signature cupcakes.Given its name, this is where Cupcake Kitchen seems to focus its culinary energy. I ordered a vanilla cupcake with vanilla icing.

The cupcake was a reasonable size. The cake was moist and fluffy, and the frosting was nicely sweet and creamy, not too sugary.

The atmosphere was cozy and the blue and white colorscheme was soothing. I liked the retro diner tables and chairs, although sitting by the door in winter was not our best idea. The service was fine. The price was comparable to other restaurants for breakfast, although I don’t think that the food I got was worth the price.
I’d be interested in trying Cupcake Kitchen for lunch and I would definitely go back for their cupcakes, but for breakfast I’d prefer to go elsewhere.

 
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