RICE PUDDING AS YOU'VE NEVER SEEN IT

[Wilfrid]

Reads like my idea for a tripe restaurant. Maybe I should sue.

[Joy]

would you give the tripe clever names?

tripe temptress

triple threat tripe

pretty please with tripe on top

[Fat Guy]

Is the name of the store Body Tripe?

[Peter B Wolf]

I have an excellent "Wild Rice" rice pudding recipe.

Should I post it here, that they might add it to their repertoire?

[Joy]

i was thinking more along the lines of

"do you have the stomach for tripe?"

[Schielke]

I have an excellent "Wild Rice" rice pudding recipe.

Should I post it here, that they might add it to their repertoire?

Post it to the recipe archive!

[Fat Guy]

The problem with wild rice is that it isn't rice. I think that would make it offensive to the integrity of the restaurant's founding principles. Perhaps the way to go, in terms of expansion, is brown rice. Also rice cakes. Like real cakes, but from rice -- not the crunchy health-food rice cakes. That would be good for PR: "Rice Cakes, for real!"

[foodie52]

One more reason to move to New York.....

[Fat Guy]

That would have been the title of the press release had I written it.

[Suzanne F]

This place has one hell of a good publicist! There's a mention of it in the May/June 2003 Australia Vogue Entertaining + Travel. Well, granted, the writer of the piece is based in NYC. But still, the editors thought it worth including.

[Holly Moore]

So, is this place still open. Have New Yorkers flocked to it? Have any eGulleters given it a try? If so, what's the story?

[Fat Guy]

Last time I inquired, I was told the restaurant is serving 1500 portions a day. When I wandered by, it was totally slammed.

[alacarte]

We were chatting about this on the NY eGullet board (here) a while back.

just read the last line of that release again --

"pudding their best food forward" -- ha ha ha!

[scamhi]

I've tried the mango, the pistachio, and the vanilla.

They take a basic diner dessert and bring it to a new art form.

I also love the shovel type spoons and bowls in coordinated colors to the rice pudding.

[Bond Girl]

Just went there today. it feels like a ice cream parlor for the Jetsons but with rice pudding. I agree with Jason about the six month life expectancy, or we'll be seeing franchises everywheres.

I love the ultra cool container they come in though and managed to fanagle a few out of the staff.

Edited June 29, 2003 by Bond Girl (log)

[Fat Guy]

Thanks for the update, BG. Did you eat anything?

The Rice to Riches Web site is now online, by the way:

http://ricetoriches.com/

[Wolfert]

It's hard to imagine this taking off in New York. Then maybe we're not getting the whole picture. For example, Istanbul is full of 'pudding' shops with dozens of different types of milk puddings including many based on rice. The names of them aren't half as seductive as the ones described above, but despite the lack of seductive names, these shops have been in business for decades and are very popular as hangouts for singles and lovers.

[Holly Moore]

It's hard to imagine this taking off in New York. Then maybe we're not getting the whole picture.

It's hard to imagine this taking off in any place other than New York.

[Bond Girl]

Ooops, totally forgot. hmmm, may be that's an indication of how memorable it is. I tried the apple rice pudding, the praline rice pudding, a taste of the mango flavor one and the plain old vanilla flavor rice pudding. It was all right. Like I said , it reminds me of being in a rice pudding equivalent of a Basket Robbins. May be I was jaded, but the food part just didn't blow me over.

[wannabake]

FG,

Thanks for the link to the website...now I have a migrane . I hope they do a better job with their pudding .

[bloviatrix]

I was there a couple of weeks ago. I tasted the lemon, but went for the coffee collapse and vanilla. The whole place is kind of wild. The front window of the shop is shaped to look like a grain of rice and they carry the shape throughout. I also thought the packaging was impressive.

As for the product -- I liked the texture. The coffee with ok, but I couldn't discern any cardammom. I really liked the vanilla. I found the lemon was intensely flavored. I would go back and try other flavors.

We were in the store for about 20 minutes and the traffic was steady. They seem to have found a market for the product.

[mjc]

Stopped in here on Sunday evening. This place is amazing. I think it’s the cleanest place in NYC. There is one person whose job it is, to just clean. I caught her cleaning the trim of the main counter. I’m not really a big rice pudding fan, but one of my friends got the strawberry and it was very good.

It was also pretty crowded.

[Suzanne F]

I forgot about this thread. But we tried it during the summer. Tasted lots of preciously-named flavors and finally ended up with half-and-half maple and coffee for HWOE, and a full portion of lemon for me. I have to say, they were all excellent, and I could eat the lemon anytime.

And I want to get a full set of the containers.

The place may be gimmicky to the nth degree, but they make a terrific product. That alone would keep me coming back.

[laurenmilan]

I finally went yesterday, and have to say the maple and the coconut flavors were just wonderful, and the texture is the best I've ever had, even more amazing than the Austrian-style molded rice puddings found in Eastern-European cafes (or in my case, very good home cooks).

And yes, the place was overrun, mostly by college students, tourists and the tragically hip. Me I'm just a rice-pudding junkie that had to at least try it once.

I knew it'd be expensive, I knew it would be a wacky place, but I wasn't expecting the product to be so great. I would have been surprised if it were even very good. But hey, they really make a very good product here (side note, the "solo" really is 2 human portions, esp. considering how rich the stuff is.)

I'm waiting for a cookbook... if I can get the recipe for the $6 brownies from the Hamptons, then I should have a right to try my hand at $5 puddin'

Edited November 9, 2003 by laurenmilan (log)

[Bux]

I knew it'd be expensive, I knew it would be a wacky place, but I wasn't expecting the product to be so great. I would have been surprised if it were even very good. But hey, they really make a very good product here (side note, the "solo" really is 2 human portions, esp. considering how rich the stuff is.)

I'm waiting for a cookbook... if I can get the recipe for the $6 brownies from the Hamptons, then I should have a right to try my hand at $5 puddin'

Part of my problem is that as a "fast food" shop, in the way that a fine ice cream cone shop is a fast food shop, I'd expect to be able to get a portion that was satisfying to the extent an ice cream cone is satisfying and about the same size. There should be a half size portion in a walkaway cup. I wonder how much those custom designed plastic bowls and spoons add to the cost of a portion. I don't find they add to the pleasure and I would buy the product more often if it was sold in a smaller size.