When in search of a cream puff, but also in need of a break from Beard Papas, I turn to Choux Factory, with locations in Midtown East and on the Upper East Side. Cream puffs are $2 apiece, in vanilla, chocolate, blueberry, green tea, and strawberry, with special seasonal flavors every now and then.

My favorite of the bunch is strawberry, in which strawberry-yogurt custard is nested within the crisp shell, topped with a bit of strawberry jam and finished with strawberry whipped cream. The custard is more creamy than eggy, delicately sweet, and goes down quite easily. More complex, and noticeably more "homemade" than their machine-injected counterparts at Beard Papas, these are two completely different breeds of puffs, each delicious in their own way.

Choux Factory

1685 1st Avenue, New York, NY 10079 (map)
212-289-2023