Chelsea Market

The Chelsea Market is an awesome shopping center located it Chelsea, or the Meat Packing District, or on the border... not quite sure. It has shops that sell clothes, to seafood to wine. During my trip to the Chelsea Market with Carol-Ann we stopped at a couple of cupcake shops, Eleni's and  Ruthy's Bakery, we also stopped at the gelato shop, L'arte del Gelato. The market is a very cute indoor market, with a waterfall and brick walls; It is almost like walking outside, but it is all indoors. Food Network films Iron Chef America and Emeril Live upstairs!

Eleni's is a very fun cupcake/ cookie shop that sells great cupcakes and glamorous cookies, like wedding cookies, N.Y. cookies, etc. They are sugar cookies, that are decorated with royal icing in a very detailed and fun ways. They cater to different events and they also let you create your own cookie designs. They have very simple flavors like chocolate, vanilla, and some more fun flavors like red velvet, and Oreo madness. This place is more about the look of the cupcake rather than the flavors of the cupcakes. When you walk in you see the cupcakes on display,  with 2-3 inches of colorful icing.

Carol-Ann and I decided to take a red velvet cookie and an Oreo madness. They were both very good, and I believe they were homemade, if not it was a very good box mix. I was disappointed that the red velvet didn't have cream cheese icing, but the way the shop was ran, they didn't have any cupcakes refrigerated, so it made sense that they used buttercream instead. I think it was an Italian or Swiss buttercream, I was there a couple of weeks ago and I can't even remember which icing it was! But I liked it, so I don't think it was American buttercream. The Oreo cupcake was sweet, but satisfying. It had mini marshmallows around the top that were slightly toasted. The red velvet was so scrumptious I could have eaten another one. 7.5 out of 10, it was a nice place to visit, the food was good, but the service wasn't great, and it was sort of messy and confusing at the counter, almost rushed.

 The other bakery we visited was Ruthy's Bakery. They had a lot of cookies and cupcakes as well. I was really in the mood for a macaroon, but the ones they had at the time were all the same flavor and different 

 colors, which didn't make sense to me and made me mad. So we decided to get a pistachio canoli. It was good and it had a nice pistachio flavor to it. I don't thin I would go back there, but it was still cute. They also specialize in character cupcakes, like sponge-bob and Elmo! They were adorable, and definitely got children's attention.6 out of 10 the themed cupcakes were really cute, the shop was a little messy and cluttered.

My favorite place in the Chelsea  Market was the gelato store. The had classic gelato flavors like chocolate, mocha and almond. We tasted a couple of different flavors and went with the nutella and banana. It cost $4.25 for a small, with two flavors, super expensive, but delicious. The flavors were very intense, the banana tasted like an actual banana, it went really well with the nutella.  I would say that L'arte del Gelato gets a 8.5 out of 9 because it was delicious, and they had great traditional gelato flavors like almond, coffee, caramel, and fruity ones like passion fruit and apple. It was just very expensive for such a small amount of gelato, and the service wasn't great. I've come to find that New York service people hate they're lives...
After we finished the gelato we went back out, into the pouring rain... what a lovely day for Carol-Ann to visit.