[Photo: Kathy YL Chan]

Lest the TKOs, Ho-Hos, and Cream Puffs steal the show at Bouchon Bakery, do keep in mind that they also make an excellent Coffee Cake ($4.50), perfect for breakfast or an afternoon snack. It's a rather refined coffee cake, the top crumb tiny and delicately sprinkled on with restraint over the surface, then finished with dustings of cinnamon and powdered sugar. Cut it in half, and you'll see that the interior, plenty moist and packed like a pound cake, is strewn with thin lines of dark chocolate. There's just enough chocolate that you could get away with calling this a breakfast or snack, and not dessert. (Though it could be that, too.)

Bouchon Bakery

1 Rockefeller Plaza, New York NY 10020 (map)
212-782-3890

Ten Columbus Circle, Third Floor, New York NY 10019 (map)
212-823-9363
bouchonbakery.com

About the author: Originally from Honolulu, Kathy YL Chan writes A Passion For Food, where she chronicles her eats and travels adventures between Hawai'i, New York and beyond. She firmly believes that there is always room for dessert.