Momofuku Milk Bar

Momofuku Milk Bar is an adult playroom. In part its a grown-up version of all the things we loved as kids. The cookies, cake, pies, soft serve, and milk. Walking into the bakery, it feels grown-up. It feels like a place where adults would go to do grown-up things. A bakery for serious people.

But the longer I stood there, the less adult it felt. I started to wonder about the cereal milk and how the best thing about cereal is the left over milk . You start to realize the compost cookies have potato chips in them. A child's dream or at least one I would dream up if I could be a child again. Potato chips in a cookie? Are you kidding me? Then the smell of fresh cookies started to permeate the place. I could not get over feeling that the entire place was just a great playground for adults who have not grown up yet, or for those who have forgotten they were once kids.

But that's not to say everything is perfect. I've come to this conclusion about David Chang's line of Momofuku joints: Not all the food will blow me away, but I have to respect the attempt. There's a certain playfulness about the environment he tries to build and the menu his chefs de cuisine try to deliver. They really are just kids in playground. Having fun. This was the most apparent to me at Milk Bar.



My chosen cake for this visit was the Arnold Palmer Cake (above). It was not mind blowingly delicious. But it did taste like an Arnold Palmer and it did get very close to quenching my thirst. It was a good cake and I had fun eating something I usually drink.

As for the cookies, I was able to get my hands on the cornflake-marshmallow-chocolate chip cookie, compost cookie (potato chips, pretzels, coffee grounds, chocolate chips, graham crumbs, & butterscotch chips), banana cookie, and a chocolate-chocolate cookie.

The cornflake-marshmallow I enjoyed way more than I expected to, mostly because I expected it to be sweeter. It was still sweet, but not as much. The compost has grown on me for its different texture, but at first I found it disappointing. The banana cookie was my favorite. Mostly because of my love of banana's and its ability to become a 'session' cookie, something I could eat all day. The winner by far though was the chocolate-chocolate. Something so decadent and rich that my friend ended up having it with a nice glass of red wine which made me think: 'Why didn't I do that?'