Blue Ribbon Bakery

I got an exciting voicemail a couple weekends back from a surprise visitor. One of my best friends from college GreekGoddess was in my city. She recently switched jobs and her training brought her up north. My friend K.Adler and I got the surprise alert and dinner plans were immediately in the works.

K.Adler, GreekGoddess, and I all met during our good ol' undergraduate days at Virginia. GG was a second year when K.Adler and I came in as first years on the swim team. Scary to think that was almost nine years ago. Since then we have all gone our separate ways, but dinner that night at Blue Ribbon Bakery (K.Adler's pick as it's one of her and her husband LeMec's favorite places to eat) reminded me distance and time does not sever close ties among friends. We caught up that night like no time had been lost and I realized how much I miss their friendship.

Blue Ribbon Bakery has the corner spot on Downing and Bedford. You can't miss its large open windows. As I approached the entrance around the corner, I glanced inside to find a cavernous dining room filled with smiling faces (and stomachs). I guessed this must be the place. Walking by I got a warm feeling inside of curiosity and wonder, it reminded me of the feeling I get when I walk by the Saks Fifth Avenue Christmas windows. This was going to be a special night.

I walked in and found the crowd bustling and staff zipping in and out of the tightly packed tables in the dining room. I heard my name called from the left and found GG and her new beau waiting, and K.Adler and her husband sipping on wine and beer, already enjoying themselves and the surroundings. The bar is immediately to your left when you walk in and it was a pretty tight fit. K.Adler and GG scored a corner seat by the window and we hugged and cheered over our excitement that we were seeing each other for the first time in months.

LeMec and K.Adler go to Blue Ribbon Bakery often and it showed as one gentleman (uncertain if he was a host or the manager) kept coming over to check on us, and gave us an update on how our table was doing. This treatment was greatly appreciated (and always is when you're at a bar waiting on a table). It gets on my nerves when you order up a strong cocktail and they come to seat you as soon as you've taken the first sip. You want to tip out the bartender but are left with some confusion as to whether or not the tab will be transferred to the table. Nobody wants to stiff the bartender. This said kind gentleman even gave us a choice of tables when two opened up, and we chose upstairs.

Blue Ribbon Bakery is one of the Bromberg brothers' five restaurants. Their others include Blue Ribbon Sushi (one in Brooklyn, one in Manhattan) and Blue Ribbon (also one in Brooklyn, one in Manhattan). The two brothers from New Jersey studied at Le Cordon Bleu in France, which translates into "The Blue Ribbon" in English. In 1995 a 140 year old brick oven was discovered in the basement of a bodega at 35 Downing Street in the West Village. The oven was originally used as a neighborhood oven and later by a family who owned a bakery. It had been dormant for 75 years before its discovery. The Bromberg brothers used this brick oven as inspiration to create their restaurant Blue Ribbon Bakery, and the brick oven downstairs still remains in use. The breads are sold wholesale to NYC restaurants (sadly not to us yocal locals yet). If you have to use the bathroom, head downstairs and the famous oven will be to your right.

After more catching up on the most recent news in our hectic lives, we were escorted to our six-top table along the banquette. Girls inside, boys on the outside. There was a long mirror that went from one end of the banquette, and the combination of this and the large square windows opened up the space. The walls were of exposed brick and I felt myself sinking in to the warmth and charm of Blue Ribbon.

I grabbed my menu to glance at the choices and was overwhelmed. The appetizers ranged from French fries to herring in cream, from pate to beet vinaigrette, from shrimp boil to pickled tongue. Something on the diverse list of appetizers was bound to please someone's tastebuds. LeMec recommended a few dishes and we fully trusted his choices. We ordered one steamed artichoke for the table, two asparagus vinaigrette plates, and two mushroom ravioli dishes, not to mention the bread basket that came to the table. There was a sourdough bread, a darker wheat bread, and an olive bread. All the breads are made downstairs in their bakery (go to the bathroom so you can see the bread elves in action). The olive bread was moist and salty and I couldn't stop putting my hands in the bread basket to "try" another piece. The steamed artichoke was hot and juicy and the vinaigrette dipping sauce was the same one served with the asparagus. It was light and had a citrus-y dill flavor. I think they are building a site for Blue Ribbon products, let's hope the vinaigrette will be one of the things you can buy. The asparagus was perfectly cooked with a slight crispness to it with the vinaigrette drizzled on top. The vinaigrette made this dish, and now whenever I see or hear asparagus I'm going to want BR's vinaigrette to go along with it. And last and liked most I think, we had the mushroom ravioli. There were three or four on the plate and we were all fighting for the last bites of each. The raviolis were rich in mushroom and cream, like pillows of goodness. I loved halving them with my fork and seeing the pasta dough wrap around the mushrooms inside.

For our entrees we all chose something different. My friends have fun with the fact I keep a restaurant blog and they wanted to give me as many tasting possibilities as they could. LeMec tried the fried chicken with mash potatoes and collard greens. The chicken was soft and tender on the inside with a cackling crispness on the outside-just how fried chicken's supposed to be. K.Adler tried the generous Hummus platter with iceberg and cous cous salad. I stole some of the warm pita and dunked it in some hummus. The hummus was the perfect proportion of garlic and chickpea. I tried the salmon with asparagus and mash potatoes in a mustard sauce. The generous filet of salmon was grilled to perfection and topped with crispy potato flakes. The mash potatoes were thick but not too thick. I grabbed gobs of them in my fork and the salmon, mash, mustard trio was excellent. GreekGoddess tried the French onion soup, that came out in a giant bowl, more like a cauldron, that was big enough for a family of four to share. I tried a big spoonful of onions and cheese and it was just the right sweetness and saltiness. And last but not least GG's new beau tried the rack of lamb in a roasted tomato sauce. Since we only just met, I decided it was too early for me to be reaching across the table and stealing food off his plate.

As if all this wasn't enough, the dessert menu had too many inviting things to try and ordering one (though it would have been enough to satisfy our full stomachs) was not sufficient for our curious tastebuds. After some discussion, we went with the hot fudge sundae (GG was like a little girl in Dylan's Candy Bar over ordering this dessert) and the banana walnut bread pudding with banana caramel sauce. The sundae was larger than life-I could have gone swimming in it, as was the banana walnut bread. Hot fudge was erupting out of the ice cream like an overflowing volcano. The bread pudding put all its cousins to shame. It was tightly packed but the bread was soft and light. A spoon of the pudding dipped in the caramel sauce put me over the edge of content. The Bromberg brothers definitely get my blue ribbon for excellence.

(BR gets three apples, temporarily blogger is not allowing me to upload images)
35 Downing Street (between Downing and Bedford)
212.337.0404