About reflection, reconnection and resilience.
Our experience
Having been based in New Year for over four years now, we have witnessed several waves of different dessert trends. 2017 was the year of rainbow-coloured desserts and ice cream egg waffles, 2018 the year of peak soft serve ice cream creativity, 2019 the year of trompe l’oeil desserts and mochi doughnuts, and 2020 started being the year of bubble tea desserts and ended with the growing popularity of cream puffs as a symbol of our pandemic-induced physical transformation. We have seen many dessert stores in NYC open to great fanfare, only to close within a year or two, after the particular dessert trend of the moment had receded. One of the few stores that have remained exceedingly popular, and resilient, throughout all these years is the constantly innovating Bibble & Sip — home to some of cutest trompe l’oeil desserts and cream puffs in the city. In the spirit of supporting Asian-owned businesses in this month of Chinese New Year, we visited Bibble & Sip to see what treats we could indulge in.
Somewhat pricey at USD $55, Bibble & Sip’s new year macaron box caught our eyes. There were six different macaron shapes, two of each to make twelve in total. The flavours included: matcha white chocolate, passionfruit, strawberry, rose white chocolate, lotus, and cookies and cream. Taste-wise, they weren’t the most memorable macarons that we have sampled across the years, erring on the saccharine end of the spectrum for our particular tastes. But, there’s little question that they were the most creatively shaped that we have come across in a long time, and they certainly, brought a smile to the face, and isn’t that joy what desserts are about?
If macarons aren’t your thing, we would also recommend from Bibble & Sip’s daily menu, the (giant) cream puffs (get the Earl Grey one) and the bubble tea egg tart. They also have a range of very photogenic cakes, but as we prefer flavour explosions in our desserts, these are generally too subtle for our tastebuds. For more detailed past reviews of these treats, see here, here and here.
Our verdict
Chinese New Year 2020 saw us back in Melbourne, nursing the various heartbreaks of 2019 with our family, and celebrating the arrival of a new year, new hopes, new dreams. It also saw us smirking a little at certain fellow passengers resembling something out of a Hollywood movie or crime scene, with masks, gloves, full body suits when they boarded the plane from LAX to Melbourne, and back again. Little did we know how 2020 would be very different from what we envisaged. 2020 turned out to be a year of being and feeling trapped at home, the line between work and life becoming as porous as international borders, the internet becoming a lifeline for errands and self-distraction, with restaurant-hopping and theatre-going no longer viable weekend activities. But to some degree, it was also a year for reflection and reconnection, and of learning how to be resilient. Through its desserts, Bibble & Sip relinked us with the yesteryear, to tradition, and yet also, its constant dessert innovation reminded us that adaptability is the key to self-development and self-improvement for the future.
Dessert adventure checklist
- ☑ Dessert destination: Bibble & Sip, 253 West 51st Street, Midtown Manhattan. There is also a Chinatown location that we prefer, due to there usually being less crowds: 174 Hester Street, Chinatown.
- ☑ Budget: $$.
- ☑ Sweet irresistibles: Cakes and macarons
- ☑ Must-eat: The cakes.
- ☑ The short and sweet story: About reflection, reconnection and resilience.
Dessert Correspondents 