April 18, 2014 | Short Order

New Bakery Imports Basque Eats to Soho 

by Maria Yagoda

 

          On a damp and chilly April evening, I enter Hogar Dulce Hogar, the new Soho offshoot of the famed San Sebastian bakery. I’m cold, wet, and hungry. The café’s name means Home Sweet Home and that seems to be the philosophy. Immediately on my left, I am greeted by a shelf of rolled red flannel blankets. Help yourself. I wrap myself in blanket and plop down on a couch in the bakery-restaurant’s cozy wood-cabin space. On the table in front of me, there’s a Where’s Waldo book, some chalk, a heavy tome on Basque art, and the menu.


The Muff’n Joe could mark a new era of hybrid sweets in liquid form.

          I ask about the Muff’N Joe, a very trendy gimmick: a latte, made with espresso beans imported from San Sebastian, blended with a house-made muffin. The waitress assures me the drink is smooth and not overly sweet. She’s right. The Muff’N Joe is frothy and creamy, mildly sweet, and smoothly muffined. Clearly this rich and filling invention is a terrible way to start my dinner, but I can imagine starting my day with one. It would by a one-handed breakfast. The Café Donut does the same trick with a cruller.


The Iberica burger’s multigrain bun is dense and chewy, but holds up well to the runny tumaca.

          I decide to postpone exploring the solid pastries until I’ve tried dinner: an Ibérica burger, topped with shredded Iberian Spanish ham, not-quite-melted Manchego, and tumaca, a pulpy and garlic-y raw tomato sauce that drenches the crusty multi-grain bun. The burger is so compelling I all but ignore the pale, unseasoned fries.


The Del Sur breakfast item may be too salty and garlic-y for the morning, but it’s nice for dinner.

          Salads (all iterations on the nuts-cheese-fruit salad trope) are fresh and crunchy but hardly original. I order the “breakfast” Del Sur -- grilled multigrain bread topped with pungent tumaca and Spanish Serrano ham -- as a side order. The savory breakfast items, eggless and exceptionally salty, would work best as an afternoon snacks or light dinner.

          After ten minutes of dessert deliberation, I settle on the Basque cake, a thick and dense round of shortbread-like cake filled with sweet and airy custard. I meant to just taste but I have no problem finishing it. I buy a croissant and very sweet almond tart for breakfast the next day. Somehow I manage to I devour them minutes later on the train home.


I consider unbuttoning my pants as I embark on the dense, custard-filled Basque cake.

          Despite the Soho prices and Basque-bakery-calorie-counts, I’ll surely return to Dulce Hogar Dulce. Got to taste the Café Donut – the latte mix -- and to finish playing Where’s Waldo.

341 W Broadway, between Grand and Broome Streets. (347) 705-2290. Open Monday to Sunday, 8:00 am to 11 pm.

Patina Restaurant Group



Providing a continuous lifeline to homebound elderly New Yorkers

ADVERTISE HERE