First off, whatever anyone thinks about Herr Changers, you have to give him props for not only culinary creativity, but being self-aware enough to embrace the impish, childish impulses to name his baked goods after not only illegal, but low class, drugs. I am referring to none other than the Crack Pie. (For the record I also ordered two pork buns, which for nutritional purposes were probably turned straight into glucose upon inhaling; just like the pie. In my defense I had walked pretty much the length of Broadway from the UWS to the LES, so I figured I was safe from auto-inducing a diabetic coma.)

Anyways, back to the pie. Eating this pie was the same high I experienced in sixth grade while consuming Duncan Hines cream cheese frosting fresh from the plastic white can on graham crackers.  So smooth, so creamy. Can I get a Homer Simpson salivating sound effect, please?

Of course Chang’s Crack Pie does not taste like cream cheese. Or crack. (Not that I would know what crack rock tastes like). It’s actually comprised mostly of the building blocks that those of us with a sweet tooth crave obsessively: a super simple concoction of butter, brown sugar and heavy cream, and tastes, not surprisingly, akin to a burnt brown-sugar pie. A crispy crust holds this sinful mess together, and I could have eaten another piece, but I had gotten large slice of chocolate chip cake as a chaser. Did I mention the pork buns already? I admit, it’s kind of gimmicky, but I am all for food as entertainment if it’s done with enough snark.

After the sugar high had subsided I moseyed back to my hotel on the bleak UWS. I did manage to stop for a slice of spinach pizza.

Going for a slice.

The  next day I was on to more serious endeavors at Tom Colicchio’s Craftbar. Unfortunately my visit there was really just a mad dash, but I figured a mad dash is better than no dash at all. Started with a winter time classic: a beet salad of bitter greens, beautifully dark-rouge beets, and bright, meyer lemon-colored squash under the gaze of a study of Warhol-esque chickens in an alcove of the  main dining room. The salad was much like a great hair cut. Good hair cuts are good even after they grow out, and even when I was finished with my salad, the red stains on the white bowl that had housed the greens looked like a piece of modern art, or a child’s finger painting project.

I have to admit, I love D.C., but New York has given me a fevah for crack. Pie that is.

Image: NY Times

I was going to blog about this today at the magazine where I am interning, but the link to the video was down all day, so I thought better of it since the blog posting would really be sort of “eh” without the video clip. Hopefully the inimitable Mr. Rojas will blog about it tomorrow.

This video from vbs.tv is the latest installment in their “Munchies” series. The celebrity chef in the hot seat is David Chang, a native Northern Virginian.

He’s come along way from having afterschool snacks at Wu’s Garden in Vienna judging from this episode. Now he drops F-bombs with José Andrés (even media whore Gary Vaynerchuck shows up at Momofuku towards the end of the video).

A lot people are quick to label him an a**hole but quite frankly I found his self-effacing humor quite refreshing. He freely admits less than formidable knife skills and that one of the reasons he started his own restaurant was because he needed to prove to himself that he could meet a challenge.

Anyhow, click the link below and sit back and enjoy the ride around town, folks. Beware the F-bombs, though.

David Chang makes his \”Munchies\” debut.