Orderinny

Of the neighborhoods I frequent in the city, the upper west side ranks highest in terms of baked goods. While the rest of the city sleeps in on weekends, the upper westsiders and eastsiders, typically a more mature bunch with children in tow are up and about by 9-10 am, hitting Fairway and the other supermarkets for cooking ingredients and on the lookout for breakfast and strong coffee. There are fewer generic bagel chains and more independent bakeries, and Arte around the Corner is one such shop, simultaneously a specialty store for Italian foodstuffs and purveyor of very gooey and addictive pastries and cakes. This morning, a honey and blueberry loaf looked extremely attractive on the cake stand, with pristine blueberries lined uniformly in the crack of the loaf cake like a row of edible buttons. I picked another honey-flavored item, a honey and fig muffin. Unlike regular muffins, it was a lot moister, the crumbs were less compact and suffused with the heady scent of honey. The muffin is not perfectly dome shaped, as the more liquid batter ran over the baking tin, rendering crispier bits that linked one muffin from the other. I picked up chunks of fresh figs in each bite, the caramelized fruit contributing to the overall stickiness of the muffin, sticky enough to have to lick my fingers afterwards. The muffin is paired with a potent cup of coffee. Not a bad start to Sunday at all.