Culinary Experience in the Butter Country

The morning of L's wedding, F, hubby and I were in search of a decent lunch place in the vicinity of Bloomingburg. We stumbled upon Culinary Creations Confections and Cafe in Pine Bush. Pine Bush is a small town (but still bigger than Bloomingburg =) and the "butter capital of the world" as the sign by the Chamber of Commerce claims. Hmm, that explains why we were given a whole stick of butter with our bread the day before. We are in the butter country!

The Culinary Creations is a cake shop that doubles as a restaurant. As you step in, the counter are filled with slices of cheesecakes, bundt cakes and cupcakes. There is also a wedding cake on display for people who want to special order cakes. The lunch menu contained of sandwiches, paninis and salads was hanging on the wall for takeouts. We were shown to the adjacent room when we expressed the wish to dine in. It was a very whimsical room. The walls were painted in pastel colors of egg york yellow and moss green with white trim, decorated with photos, prints, and a mirror. It felt like a different world from the rest of Pine Bush and its neighboring towns.

F and I shared a bowl of tomato Florentine, the soup of the day. It had all the right components, spinach, tomato, pasta, crouton, etc. But it was rather bland. All of our sandwiches came with a green salad and pita chips. To call these pita chips crunchy would be an understatement, they were so thick and hard. We weren't exactly happy about the lack of an alternative. The sandwiches were HUGE. Each of us ended up eating only half. My chicken and hog panini contained a huge piece of chicken breast, layers of ham topped with mustard. The chicken was a little under seasoned, but it was OK. Hubby's Cosmo Turkey BLT was loaded with more than an inch thick of oven roasted turkey breast slices, topped with tomato bacon salsa and an avocado Gorgonzola dressing. F got an Asiago eggplant panini, the Asiago crusted eggplant pieces were sandwiched between roasted red peppers, provolone, and wilted greens. This one looked rather unappetizing. And the fact that the eggplant was fried didn't sit with F very well.

Instead of stuffing ourselves trying to finish the sandwiches, we decided to save some room for desserts. Even though there were a large number of cheesecakes and bundt cakes, the flavor varieties were rather limited with pumpkin dominating the choices. We ended up with a pumpkin cheesecake and a cherry mousse cheesecake. Both were decent, the cherry mousse looked like a mess though.

It felt like we were sitting in someone's cute little room since we were the only diner during lunch. I'd go here again if I ever ended up in this part of the country with nowhere else to go as the atmosphere was pleasant. But don't expect too much of the food.

Culinary Creations Confections and Cafe
52 Main St, Pine Bush, NY 12566
(845)744-5220