Sweetgreen Limited-Time Tiger Bowl

I was excited about the collaboration between Sweetgreen and Danny Bowien's Mission Chinese Food on the Tiger Bowl. It's available for a limited time from now until Jan. 3, 2018 only at NYC Sweetgreen locations, and the ingredients sounded pretty good.

The Tiger Bowl is a warm salad with organic spinach, organic wild rice, roasted sesame tofu, kimchi, shiso, carrots, cucumbers, pears, spicy sunflower seeds, nori furikake, tiger dressing. No details on the dressing ingredients but photos on Sweetgreen's site would suggest it has some red chili pepper. It costs $12.15, which is on the higher end of their prices.

Image: Sweetgreen

The Tiger Bowl version that I got could have been great. Unfortunately, all the ingredients were severely overpowered by the extremely sour vegetable pickle that Sweetgreen tries to pass off as kimchi. Instead of kimchi, I got a pink-hued mix of napa, radish, & sliced carrots heavily pickled in red wine vinegar that assaulted my taste buds. There was no spicy red chili that kimchi tends to have. I like pickles & sour things. But this was a very sour jardiniere. And it's wrong because someone who hasn't had kimchi will get a very wrong idea of what kimchi really is. I pushed the pickled veggies aside and tried to salvage the rest of the salad, but their acidic, sour juice was everywhere.

My Tiger Bowl order

Pink pickled vegetables as so-called "kimchi"

I also tasted a lot of black pepper. It seemed like that was the only spicy heat element in the bowl. No flavor or heat of red chili peppers. There was no shiso either.

I stopped by Sweetgreen on 75th & Amsterdam on Nov. 2, the first day the new bowl was available, and that may have been a mistake. I wonder if this location had all the right ingredients yet to make the Tiger Bowl. Maybe this is just wishful thinking. But I don't plan to give the salad another try to find out.

I usually like Sweetgreen salads & bowls, but this was a big disappointment. I can't believe what I got is what Danny Bowien imagined or that he approved the recipes.

My Rating (out of 5): 1

Sweetgreen
311 Amsterdam Ave
New York, NY 10023
www.sweetgreen.com

No. 12: Chocolate Pecan Pie

Crumbs offered two cupcakes to celebrate National Pecan Month this month.  I chose the Chocolate Pecan Pie because of all the pecans and caramel drizzle on top...two things I love.

The chocolate cake, chocolate ganache filling, and chocolate cream cheese frosting will make any choc-o-holic happy.  But I particularly like how the pecans and caramel add additional flavors and texture to complement all the chocolate.

Size: Signature

Picked Up At: Union Square

My Rating (out of 5): 4

No. 11: Nestlé Crunch

Crumbs is competing in a Nestlé® Crunch contest with this entry and they definitely loaded this cupcake up.  Layered with a Blondie bar at the bottom, Crunch pieces, & chocolate cake.  Then frosted with chocolate buttercream and topped with a mini Crunch candy bar AND a mini blondie chocolate chip cookie.  It's four different desserts in one.  This is the first time I've had a cupcake made with a dessert bar and the Blondie definitely was more dense in texture than cake.  I like the idea but prefer an all-cake cupcake.  Loved the Crunch candy topper!

This is a decadent dessert for sure and go ahead and try it while it's available.

(Bottom: Nestle Crunch mini has miraculously disappeared.)

Size: Signature

Picked Up At: Union Square

My Rating (out of 5): 4

No. 9: Girl Scouts Thin Mints®

Yes!  Crumbs has partnered with the Girl Scouts to offer a Thin Mints cupcake for a limited time.  A Devil's food cake filled with fudge and topped with mint cream cheese frosting edged in chocolate cake crumbs with a Girl Scout Thin Mints® cookie in the center.  The flavors mirror the beloved cookie perfectly and the fudge filling adds a little extra decadence.  Yum!!

Any kind of Girl Scouts cookie concoction always brings some nostalgia from your childhood and is hard for me to resist.  Get one while it lasts!!

Size: Signature

Picked Up At: The Village

My Rating (out of 5): 5