Grace Street Coffee and Desserts (Koreatown NYC) review ❤️❤️❤️

My partner and I agree: West 32nd between Broadway and 5th Avenue in Koreatown should be no-car. In the evenings, college students and post-9-to-5-ers spill into the street while they wait for tables at KBBQ joins like Jongro BBQ (hella pricey, but fantastic); pushing their way though cereal-encrusted churro and Mama’s taiyakis revelers directly inside Food Gallery 32 to get to the crazy-crunchy Korean fried chicken at Pelicana Chicken upstairs; OR huddling for warmth in the winter outside of BCD Tofu House eager to warm up with some soondubu-jjigae.

My partner and I threaded through needle-eye-sized gaps between people up and down the street at least twice, trying to find Grace Street Coffee and Desserts, a Korean coffeehouse in Koreatown NYC I chose for our date. He was the one who spotted it, but I’m always the one to bound into places, unable to contain myself, especially any dessert joints like Grace Street.

They have a seamless system going on at Grace Street: order (X.O.X.O because did I mention I love pink food?), pay (just over $20 after tip), and get your buzzer at the vestibule counter; funnel into the larger-than-it-looks-on-the-outside main room and pick a seat; and pick up your order at the back counter when your buzzer goes off. Don’t forget to grab long metal spoons, the appropriate deterrent to getting sticky sweet milk snow, strawberry puree, lychee jelly, and homemade organic rose syrup all over your hands. (I hate being sticky.)

Don't worry about sticky tables and leftover trash at Grace Street Coffee and Desserts - the staff takes care of it right away.

As soon as our shaved snow hit the table, my partner passed his phone over its precipice. “Mini lesson starts now.”

“Mini lesson” refers to my food photography lessons. My partner takes many of the photos that appear on this blog. He’s good with a camera. He sees light, color, and framing in ways that I can’t. I asked him a couple weeks ago to teach me his ways.

Tongue out in concentration for show and laughing at myself, I positioned the shallow dish impatiently. I stuck both long spoons into it mostly because I thought it was silly (another reason my food photos aren’t great). The shaved ice was melting, so of course they didn’t hold. My kind partner tried but it was not meant, to be and he set them aside.

“What’s the most important thing to capture?” He’s very good at patient nudging.

“Texture! Strawberries! And lychee jelly!” I twisted the shallow bowl so that the topping duo had the spotlight. Point, focus, and shoot.

Grace Street didn’t disappoint. A Babylonian tower of sweet, finely shaved milk melted in our mouths. We loved that you could choose to up the sweetness with the lychee jelly and the pooled strawberry and rose syrup at the base. We’re on the border of deep winter, so out-of-season, predictably sour, firm strawberries bathed in the snowmelt.

Shaved ice like Grace Street’s had never occurred to my partner and I had wanted to try it for the last two years. And it was just as good as two years of build up dictates.