No longer will it be necessary to check twitter in order to try to find the moving target that is the massive empire of mobile Belgian waffles... err, excuse me, wafels. Wafels & Dinges officially has a permanent home! The surprisingly spacious real estate on the corner of Avenue B and 2nd Street in the East Village has a modern, clean, and inviting look. And it smells delicious.
Here are some first look photos of the new place...
My standard Wafels & Dinges order is de Throwdown Wafel, titled as such following its victory over Iron Chef Bobby Flay in his Food Network show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay. A liege wafel, topped with speculoos and whipped cream.
Although they do technically serve two types of wafels, they really only serve one: the liege. It's soft and chewy, with lots of caramelized sugar goodness.
The secret is in the special Belgian pearl sugar. It's the same sugar that Asheley and I totally stockpiled during our day trip to Brussels last year on our honeymoon. We literally walked into a grocery store and cleaned out their supply of pearl sugar and speculoos. The cashier was beyond confused by our seemingly erratic purchase.
As the dough hits the hot cast iron waffle iron, the pear sugar dissolves, caramelizes, and gives the dough a rich, sugary flavor that will put all other waffles to shame.
Speculoos. Or spekuloos, as they spell it. It's basically legalized culinary crack in a jar. It's got the look and consistency of peanut butter, but the flavor of slightly caramelized and finely crushed up almost-but-not-quite gingerbreadish shortbread cookies.
It's a necessity on wafels, and if you're Asheley, you also dip animal crackers in them for sport.
Head on down to Wafels & Dinges. Word has it they have a new speculoos shake, which you can only get here. That sounds glorious. I need one.
Wafels & Dinges 15 Avenue B New York, NY 10009 (East Village) 646-257-2592
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Sandra says
I can't even believe I am going to admit this...but I have never tried Speculoos. I would like some crack...where the heck do you get this stuff. Come on man...who's the guy...help a girl out!
Chris says
The fact that you've never tried speculoos saddens me greatly, almost to the point of tears. You NEED to try it immediately. The next time you are in NYC, you need to come to Wafels and Dinges. You can find speculoos on Amazon (it is also called Biscoff spread, I believe). Or the easiest way would probably be to go to Trader Joe's a get a jar of Cookie Butter... it's pretty much the same thing. That's your homework Sandra. Do it now.