Sunday News: Labubus with hearts of Dubai chocolate turn heads at Belly Boy

She Gathers platforms women in food in North Tonawanda, Buffalo places visitors should hit

Belly Boy’s Dubai-chocolate-filled labubu, with cake-batter-filled chocolate jewels.

When you want to give the gift of chocolate, you probably know where to buy sponge candy.

But where can you find a chocolate labubu with a heart of Dubai chocolate? Recently popular in the United States, Dubai chocolate is a filling of crispy shredded phyllo toasted in brown butter, and pistachio cream with a touch of tahini.

At least that’s the way Belly Boy makes Dubai chocolate. A year ago, Joe’s Deli general manager Don Keating, and his sister Dana Weber launched Belly Boy Buffalo, a chocolatier specializing in bonbons and bars.

Left to right: Belly Boy owners Dana Weber and her brother Don Keating, Keating’s daughter Piper , and wife Stephanie.

Banoffee pie bonbons of banana cream, dulce de leche, and shortbread. Cheerios cereal milk ganache, fluff-a-nutter, strawberry champagne with Pop Rocks, passionfruit caramel cheesecake, and dozens more make up Belly Boy’s kaleidoscope of flavor.

Belly Boy Banoffee bonbon, with banana cream, duce de leche, and gluten-free shortbread.

Now Belly Boy’s creative sweets are available at the source. From 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturdays, you can meet the candymakers and make your choices at 875 Elmwood Ave., the Lafayette Lofts.

During the pandemic, Keating took Jack Ralph’s online classes in tempering chocolate and bon bon making, via nowyouknow.io. He was fascinated with its scientific precision. “Tempering not only the chocolate but the cocoa butters I paint with, down to the fillings, sugar and water content, and shelf life.”

Belly Boy brownie bar, with brownie pieces, pretzels, peanuts in dark chocolate.

Belly Boy’s menu reflects its owners’ tastes. “Right now I’m really into crystalized and dehydrated fruits, and pairing them with other inclusions,” said Keating. Recent Belly Boy bars ($8) included candied ginger and toasted sesame dark chocolate, pineapple, peanut and dark chocolate, and mango sesame. Local apricots dehydrated at Belly Boy went into an almond apricot shortbread bar, made with gluten-free shortbread.

Drawing from Turkish sweets, a pişmaniye bar ($11) posits lacy cotton-candy-like confection inside milk chocolate.

He’s playing around with Mexican candied pumpkin and squash lately, preparing for Belly Boy’s fall menu.

Not every flight of fancy soars. A mango boba bar with guava caramel was delicious the day it was invented. The next day, “the mango boba just liquefied inside the bar,” Keating said. Live and learn.

Bon bons (3/$10, 6/$17, 12/$30) are where the Belly Boy flavor menu goes full kaleidoscope.

Coquito, loganberry and vanilla cream, Cheerios cereal milk ganache, fluff-a-nutter, strawberry champagne with Pop Rocks, passionfruit caramel cheesecake, cake batter, banoffee pie,

Fruity Pebbles cereal milk ganache, key lime pie, and whipped brown butter ganache.

You can also find Belly Boy on Sundays at the South Buffalo Farmers Market in Cazenovia Park. Or Elmwood Village’s Farm Shop, where you can also browse the work of other local food artisans, like Quokka Sweets and Savage Wheat Project.

Belly Boy will ship its chocolates, Keating said, but not during the summer. After all the work that goes into each piece, “it’s just too risky.”

Sunday News is free – but 14 cents a day gets you all of Four Bites

House special banh mi at Pham’s Kitchen is $7.75 for house-baked bread holding pate, mayonnaise, three kinds of cold cuts, and pickled vegetables, all made in-house.

REVIEW: Nearly two years have passed since Pham’s Kitchen brought Buffalo its first peak banh mi sandwiches, made on fresh bread baked in-house. For reasons known only to themselves, alleged Vietnamese cuisine freaks are still being alerted to its presence in Buffalo’s collective menu. A friend drove by on Union Road several times, but it never registered that the heart of Pham’s Kitchen’s logo is a crusty loaf of bread. (Wednesday, for patrons.)

Quokka Sweets mahleb, cherry, and cocoa nib ice cream.

She Gathers, a building full of women-owned shops right on the main drag in North Tonawanda, held its grand opening this weekend at 38 Webster St.

Kaliope’s Catering offers Greek-influenced grab-and-go meals, plus catering.

Sourdough by Amanda offers bread, bagels, cinnamon rolls, focaccia, and more.

Quokka Sweets offers ice cream pints in creative flavors.

Tierney Town Treats offers intricately decorated royal icing cookies.

Cup of Communitea offers loose-leaf teas.

Read It & Eat Bookshop opens its second location at She Gathers, in addition to its first store inside 2929 Main St.

Hours: 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday.

Waxlight Bar a Vin’s drinks and food have won top-5-in-the-nation James Beard honors two years running.

ASK THE CRITIC

Q: I’m visiting a friend for a few days next month and could use some recommendations for places to eat while I’m there. I’m looking for craft cocktail bars, breakfast/brunch spots, and dinner spots. Many places mentioned before in this sub are permanently closed according to Google, so I was hoping to get a fresh list. – u/laeynthehalfelf, Reddit

A: Only one Buffalo place has been a James Beard finalist two years running for its beverage + food program: Waxlight Bar a Vin.

I’d start there. Then visit the Marble + Rye happy hour with vegan snacks, the insane value happy hour and whiskey library at Lucky Day, gin specialists at Graylynn and tiki masters at Hydraulic Hearth.

Breakfast and brunch: Sunday brunch at Buffalo’s other James Beard finalist the last two years: Southern Junction, the only Texas-barbecue-by-way-of-India restaurant in the world. Sophia’s for classic Greek diner, Swan Street Diner for waffles in cute rehabbed 1937 diner.

Downtown at 617 Main St, International House offers Burmese, Filipino, Ethiopian, Filipino, South Sundanese, and tacos, with a full bar.

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