Friedman's is a relatively well known small chain of American comfort food restaurants in New York. They are notable in that 98% of their menu is gluten-free, and includes things like pancakes, banana bread, and fried chicken that folks rave about, gluten-free or not. The brand is relatively new, the first location opened only in 2009, and happens to be located right near my office, in Chelsea Market. They have 7 locations in New York, but I actually only experienced them via catering, when a group at work had some of their desserts, and had extra to share.
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| Fresh Fruit Board. Large (Serves 12). $105. |
"With assorted melon and seasonal berries."
The fruit was relatively generic, and I avoided the melons due to allergy, but tried the berries (my allergy to cantaloupe and honeydew isn't so severe that adjacent things will cause me great harm). The blackberries were large and fresh, but a bit sour, and not particularly good. The blueberries were good, none mushy. The strawberries were definitely the best, although they didn't look particularly ripe, they were quite flavorful. Overall, 3/5.
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| Mixed Mini Sweets Board. $80. (Serves 10). |
"Chefs assortment of Mini Sweets."
I was of course most interested in the platter of mini desserts. I tried nearly all of them, skipping only the one that looked like a lemon meringue tart. I'll admit though, none of these looked particularly good. Note: some of these do contain gluten.
From left to right:
Fruit crumble tart
Pretty standard generic tart shell, sweet style, a bit soft. I don't think this is gluten-free. The filling I think was just strawberry, soft and stewed, with some goo. It is possible there was rhubarb or some other berry in there as well. Not too sweet. A tiny bits of toasted oat crumble on top. It was "fine" but certainly nothing special nor interesting. 3/5.
Yellow cupcake
I really liked the buttercream on this. Sweet but not cloying, and I think some lemon notes to it. Nicely fluffy. The cake though was boring, simple plain style, not particularly moist, not particularly flavorful, tighter crumb structure than I prefer. 3.5/5 buttercream, 2.5/5 cake, 3/5 overall.
Chocolate cupcake
I didn't have this, but I did try the fudge frosting that was left behind. It was thick, rich, good chocolate flavor. 3.5/5 frosting.
Pecan carrot cake with cream cheese frosting
The cake was ... fine. Lots of shredded carrot, good crunch from the nuts, light spicing. Not particularly good nor bad. The frosting had a good tang to it, tasted indeed like cream cheese, sweet but not too sweet. I didn't like that they garnished with a raisin. Basically, fine, but not notable in any way. 3/5.
This is the one item that is also on their regular dessert menu at some locations (as a larger format, four-layer cake).
Chocolate tart
Fairly generic chocolate tart shell, much like the fruit one I found it a bit soft. Filling was just a choc fudge-ish, not as tasty as the cupcake frosting. Very low 3/5.
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| Mini Cheesecake Bites. (GF). $75. |
"36 mini pieces of GF Cheesecake Bites."
The other item on their actual dessert menu is cheesecake, always gluten-free. This was a perfectly acceptable cheesecake. It was creamy, smooth, tasted of cream cheese, was lightly sweet. Pretty classic, and pretty good. The base I'd never know was gluten-free, it was crispy and sweet and not too much like sawdust, better than most cheesecake crusts really. Strawberry on top was fine.
So, nothing remarkable about this, but it was above average, and by far the best of the desserts. Low 4/5 perhaps even.
