Feeders Best Desserts LES NYC
Feeder’s Best Desserts LES NYC
Cupcakes, ice cream sandwiches, banana custard, rice pudding… give us more! Feeder loves sweet treats, especially the sweet treats that these Lower East Side bakeries are serving up.
Recently Feeder did a tour of the best sweet treats of the Lower East Side and compiled our experiences below. Be sure to read and let us know your favorite dessert spot in the LES! Or follow the same trail and do your own desserts tour of the LES. Your taste buds will appreciate it!
Mapped by Feeder:
Melt Bakery – Not your Typical Ice Cream Sandwiches
132 Orchard St, LES btw Delancey & Rivington
Who doesn’t love ice cream sandwiches? Especially in the dog days of summer, when ice-cream is the only thing that can cool you off and make you feel better. Well, look no more – Melt Bakery is focused and determined on bringing New Yorkers’ the best, most unique, and biggest ice cream sandwiches this summer!
Located on the bustling street of Orchard, Melt Bakery, is a tiny shop, with a counter, a cash register, and a small kitchen. Don’t’ be taken back by the size of the shop though, because it’s offering up a large portion of ice-cream sandwiches.
Warning: Don’t expect these ice cream sandwiches to be anything like a Klondike! Melt Bakery offers a variety of unique flavor combos such as – the Elvis with peanut butter cookies and banana ice cream or the Lovelet with red velvet cookies and cream cheese frosting ice cream. Let’s just say, they are worth it!
The flavors do change and they offer more flavors in the store than what the online menu offers. These ice cream sandwiches are a good bang for your buck (they are very large and are $5 each) and surely there is a flavor to chill everyone’s taste! However, there is no indoor seating or outdoor seating… so you will be carrying that huge ice cream sandwich around. If you walk up to the next block (which happens to be our next sweet treat spot), there is a wash & fold that has a bench outside of the store. Go up there and enjoy the ice cream, before it melts!
Feeder’s favorite pick: S’mores – graham cracker cookies & chocolate, marshmallow ice cream.
Feeder’s next best sammie: Lovelet – the cookies are more like a “cake”, making them light and fluffy. The cream cheese ice cream tastes just like icing! Love it! If you are more of a cake rather than cookie person, this ice cream sandwich is for you!
Sweet Buttons Desserts – Heavenly Banana Custard
84 Rivington St. between Orchard & Allen
A divine bakery featuring bite-sized cupcakes, panna cotta, and banana custards. When walking into this place, it feels a bit more “commercial-ized”, however, that’s not the case for this local pastry shop. The pastry chef, Karen NG, is a native New Yorker who attended the French Culinary School and that fancy schooling shows off! The chef makes sure everything is perfect, down to the containers used to serve the pastries. The custard is served from plastic square like containers – but very durable, I almost felt bad throwing it away. She also offers up other desserts in little mason jars (cute touch!). My two cupcakes came complete with a napkin and cute little bag. Sometimes little touches like that can make you love a place even more.
The interior is clean, white and purple, and the seating is modestly comfortable at most, but it works for a quick bite inside. Feeder notes that it may not be the coziest place ever, but it’s clean and crisp, which is usually something hard to find in the LES (known for a little more grunge… the good grunge, of course 
.
Now the baked good selection is phenomenal! Offering at least 15 different types of bite-sized cupcakes with off the wall flavor combos, chef Karen is serving up flavors like:
Blueberry Cheesecake – vanilla crumb, cream cheese frosting, blueberry filling, cinnamon graham cracker;
The Firecracker – chocolate crumb, raspberry vanilla swirl butter-cream, raspberry jam filling, fresh fruit, and sparky pop candy
…Just to name a few anyways. Each cupcake is a $1.50 and that’s not too bad of a deal for NYC! The custards and panna cotta are $3 each and Feeder raves about the Banana Custard – simply perfect.
The banana custard was light, fruitful, sweet (but not too sweet, tasted naturally sweet), and has the right amount of little banana pieces for each bite. Feeder suggests to skip the cupcakes (you can get a cupcake anywhere…) and go for the banana custard! It was amazing. Also up for grabs is the Chocolate Covered Monkey, which comes in a glass jar! It is a combination of the banana custard, chocolate mousse, cookie crumble, vanilla wafer, and whipped cream! MMMhhhmm MMM! Yum!
Feeder’s Recommendations: Banana Custard ($3) & Chocolate Covered Monkey ($3)
sugar Sweet sunshine - Chocolate Chip Pudding & Vanilla Cupcakes that will turn any Frown Upside Down
Seriously, Feeder discovered why this place is called sugar Sweet sunshine – because it’s super sweet and will make any day a smiley-sunshiney day after you have some of its pudding and a cupcake. It’s unpretentious, open air setting is comfortable and relaxing. The décor reminds us of the 60’s and the open concept walls connecting the front of the shop to the sidewalk is very inviting!
Sugar Sweet Sunshine is most famous for their puddin’ (like custard) and most notably, their banana pudding. But listen up!! Skip the banana puddin’ and get the chocolate chip puddin’ – it’s unreal. It tastes like chocolate chip cookie dough (right from the tube) and it’s amazing that they capture this flavor in a pudding! There are 4 sizes – go for the shot, which is only $2.50. It’s small, but the dessert is sweet and if you want to try something else, then you don’t need much more than a shot of the pudding.
We’ve had a few of their cupcakes, and Feeder wasn’t convinced until a certain cupcake met its lips. This cupcake changed our lives and it should change yours too — The Sunshine – Yellow cake with buttercream icing and priced at only $2! The icing is the perfect amount of sweetness (pretty sweet) buttercream icing that is smoothed over a moist, rich yellow cake. Heaven to our tastebuds. Feeder is a huge fan of Buttercup golden cupcakes and this is a close second (we are still debating if it can take first – but the cake was slightly moister). It’s only 50 cents more than the bite-sized cupcakes at Sweet Buttons and it’s a full sized cupcake (so skip the cupcakes at Sweet Buttons and get one at sugar Sweet sunshine).
These chefs are offering up some of the happiest treats in the LES and Feeder demands that you try sugar Sweet sunshine! Our best recommendations are the following:
Chocolate chip pudding – a must try for anyone who loves cookie dough! ($2.5)
Sunshine Cupcake – So sweet and amazing, you’ll come back for more and start to wonder if it’s the best cupcake you’ve ever had. ($2)
Morgenstern’s Fine Ice Cream Parlor – Quirkiest Ice Cream Flavors South of Houston
Feeder recently shared a new Feederie Alert on Morgenstern’s, but we wanted to add it to the best of the dessert list too because, well it was phenomenal!
A new ice cream parlor, nestled on the quiet part of Rivington St. across from the Loreley Beer Garden, is serving up exotic flavor infusions into the traditional vanilla and chocolate ice cream standards.
When we say exotic – we mean it! Flavors such as Vietnamese Coffee, Durian Banana, and Cardamom Lemon Jam. However, this may be the highest quality ice cream that I’ve ever had! Each flavor is carefully chosen and folded into the ice cream and your palate will be pleasantly satisfied with any flavor combination. The dips of ice cream are a nice portion (not too much, not too little) and are $4 for one dip or $6 for two dips. Feeder suggests that you go for 2 dips for $6 and get one flavor that you know you will like – say the Bourbon Vanilla – and another flavor that you just want to try (maybe the Black Ass Licorice? Or Raw Milk?). That way, it’s not a total loss if your taste buds are a little shocked by the wacky flavor.
This place is a must try and a great addition to our sweet treat list! For more info on Morgenstern’s read our feederie alert post here!
Adding one place in Nolita – It was close by and we couldn’t resist! Only a couple blocks away from Morgernstern’s is the wonderful (and funny) Rice to Riches. It may be nestled in Nolita, but it’s close enough that we wanted to include it on the dessert tour of the LES!
Rice to Riches – Rice Pudding with an Attitude!
Rice Pudding for dessert? Uhh, what? Ehh, YES! Rice to Riches is serving up some of the best flavored rice pudding in Manhattan and Rice to Riches serves it with attitude! Offering fun, funky flavors with unique names, such as Sex, Drugs & Rocky Road and Fluent in French Toast, this place is sure to be a favorite among all.
The attitude you ask? Well, the attitude is on the walls! The first signs on the door say “Kiss my Fat …. “ and “No skinny …. Allowed!” As you walk in there is more signage that makes dessert feel okay and basically bans anyone who is weight conscious! Which who doesn’t love that? The portions are hefty and it’s a little more pricey at $7.5 for a single, but the container is reusable and fun! They also offer “Jesus toppings” which will cost $1.50 more per topping, but are supposed to be “to die for” toppings. Overall, this place is fun and has a lot of spunk with a variety of flavors. The fun décor and the unique rice pudding flavors make it a must try, but it won’t particularly blow you out of the water!
It’s different and we can appreciate its bizarre sense of atmosphere and uncanny decorations.
Feeder’s Recommendations: 1) Waltz of the Wild Berries 2) Mango and Peach
Overall FEEDER Feelings:
Best Sweet Treat Feederie (including atmosphere, dessert tastes, & price): Sugar Sweet Sunshine
Why – It’s unpretentious, cupcakes are $2 and amazing, and the chocolate chip pudding is out of this world.
Best Sweet Treat (taste only): Bourbon Vanilla Ice Cream from Morgenstern’s Ice Cream Parlor
Why – The highest quality ingredients and best tasting ice-cream by far!
Overall Feeder loved Melt Bakery! The ice cream sandwiches were awesome!! Cool, no frills place serving up some of the best summertime treats!
Hope you enjoyed the best sweet treats of the Lower East Side…. we sure did. Now go get you some sweets!!!
