Daily Provisions: A Place to Nosh and Kibbitz Now on UWS
Cheese Puffery Part V
As soon as The West Side Rag announced Danny Meyer’s casual all-day café Daily Provisions was landing at 78th and Amsterdam, I had it in my sights. I’ve been twice, now, and I can tell you that this is a perfect fit for the gemütlich neighborhood. The moment you approach this corner café, you notice people deep in conversation on two benches outside, perhaps a stroller parked nearby. Inside, there is ALWAYS a line for the one cashier, and the high top marble tables are full of Upper West Siders gabbing, chewing, snacking and sipping.
The first time I came was a late afternoon. The autumnal chill made me crave soup, which rotates daily, so I had a small portion of the squash soup with coconut and keffir lime leaves. For $7.00 this soup packed a surprising punch. Within the thin broth redolent of a Thai tom yum soup, there were red peppers and generous chunks of orange squash. I asked for a piece of bread and the cashier was about to charge me extra, which would have been a strike against Daily Provisions. Yet, after some checking, she said I could have a slice gratis. I chose a focaccia that was disappointingly thin and insubstantial. It made me long for the days of Grand Daisy Bakery’s UWS outpost. Still, the excellent soup gave me high hopes for the rest of the menu, of which it is clear breakfast is the THING, especially their gougeres, BECs and the vaunted DP cruller!
Danny Meyer’s Egg Delivery Vehicles
In my passion over cheese puffs, I have become a fan of the gougere, a French concoction made from a base of choux pastry—butter, water and eggs (though I use milk)—mixed with cheese. I make my own from this wonderful recipe from Food52, both with and without the anchovies. It’s incredibly easy, and the results will wow any gathering to which you bring them.
The brilliance of Daily Provisions is that Danny Meyer has fashioned the gougere, with its airy hollows, as a delivery system for mushrooms or, what I had, “green eggs”—spinach and eggs ($5.50). Admittedly the price is a bit hefty for something you can eat in three bites, but oh, what bites. The soft egg and spinach seemed just scrambled, the kind of just-right scrambled eggs my friend Gaynor makes me at her country house in Saugerties, and which I cannot replicate. If anything, the savoriness of the egg, spinach and cheese filling made the gougere itself pale by comparison, and all were only lukewarm if that. When you get one, ask for it to come to you HOT.
As finished off my gougere in about a minute, I couldn’t help noticing the plates of tidy egg sandwiches that the waitstaff kept handing out on round white trays. There are four different varieties of this bodega/deli/morning cart NYC staple: the BEC , bacon egg and cheese($8.00/all), with thick, fatty Berkshire bacon and American cheese, one with breakfast sausage, gouda and a squirt of “wake-up sauce” (sriracha sauce?), and for the more health conscious diner, there are veggie and egg white versions, all enclosed in a puffy brioche bun. That’s next up on my DP must-tries.
And Oh the Cruller!!
Finally, the cruller, which I think is becoming our UWS version of Dominique Ansel’s cronut, which is in danger of selling out before breakfast is over at 11. This spiralled donut with crispy ribs, sprinkled oh-so-generously with cinnamon sugar is also made out of pate de choux, and what diners, myself included, thrill to most is the combination of the crisp, granular exterior and the moist buttery interior. I can’t do better than this description I saw in Eater:
It’s as if the pastry is perpetually confit-ing itself, and as a result you can have it roughly 10 hours later and it won’t have gone stale. Is it the most moist cruller in town? Without a doubt.