vip in the city

Windswept way up the West Side

The arduous, detour-ridden trip up to Washington Heights almost derailed the entire evening, bringing our coterie through Herald Square, into the wine store inside Penn Station, onto the A, windblown along 168th Street, aboard an MTA shuttle bus and finally, finally to the Hudson View Gardens.

We lost one member of our party long the way, but the hardy four that made it to JD’s birthday celebration were rewarded with a spirited party among Kiwis and medical researchers, and slices of astoundingly decadent birthday cake.

David Glass‘s aptly named “Ultimate Chocolate Truffle Cake” truly is like a giant bourbon-infused truffle in cake form: richly dense, it manages to pack in more dark chocolate flavor per bite than just about anything I’ve ever tasted. Locally, the cake is available at Zabar’s — by the slice, too — but for non-locals, the Bloomfield, CT factory ships nationwide. Fine Living named it among the ten best desserts available by mail order.

There’s also an “Incredible Delicious All-Natural Reduced Fat Chocolate Truffle Cake” with 77% less fat than the original version… but tonight’s was not that cake. A slim, fat-packed wedge was all we could manage before the swift, but strange cab ride home.

Tags: birthdays, chocolate, UWS, Washington Heights