So Long, Farewell

Alright guys, its time for this blog to move on to bigger and better things! It's been a good 3 years here on Blogger and I'm looking forward to many more. I hope you guys will come and check out my new blog at iheartdessert.com.

Cupcake Tour 2009

A few weeks ago I went on a trip to the east coast and visited New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia. The trip was a lot of fun and one of the highlights of my trip was definitely visiting some of the cupcake bakeries that New York had to offer.

My first cupcake stop was Billy's Bakery. This bakery reminded me a lot of Susie Cakes, has the same retro feel and home baked goods vibe. Everything from their cakes, cookies, and pies looked delicious, but I opted to try their cupcakes. I ordered a red velvet cupcake which was good, but a lot denser than I normally like. One thing that surprised me was that the frosting was vanilla rather than cream cheese, but overall I still enjoyed my cupcake.

The next stop on my cupcake tour was the famous Magnolia's Bakery. This bakery was packed with customers lined up to buy cupcakes and just as I was about to order a red velvet cupcake they informed me that they didn't have any available at that moment. Sad day. I decided to get a regular chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting and I also couldn't resist trying the mini red velvet cheesecake I saw in the display case. The cupcake was good, not the best I've had...maybe my opinion would be different if I was able to get a red velvet cupcake. I think the most memorable part of the cupcake was the frosting, chocolaty goodness. Despite their lack of red velvet cupcakes, Magnolia's totally redeemed themselves with their red velvet cheesecake. It was AMAZING! I could have eaten the whole thing myself and I don't even like cheesecake. Til this day, I still dream about it.

The last cupcake stop was Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery. I loved the hippyness of this place and it really intrigued me that the guy boxing up my cupcakes was a muscular guy with tatoos all over. I had to really control myself while I was in this bakery...cupcakes are $1.50 and they had so many different flavors! I really wanted to try everything and get a dozen, but that would probably result in a tummy ache and I don't want to ever have a bad experience with cupcakes. So, I just decided to get 5 cupcakes...2 for my friends and 3 for me haha. I opted for the Sexy Red Velvet Cupcake (satin buttercream frosting), Sassy Red Velvet Cupcake (chocolate almond buttercream), and Pistashio. All three cupcakes were good, but I would have to say that the Pistachio was my favorite, the flavor was great and it was something that I've never tried before.

So, which bakery won the Cupcake Tour 2009? I think it would have to go Sugar Sweet Sunshine...they had great prices and good cupcakes, what more could you ask for! Overall, I had a great time trying different cupcake places. However, I'm really surprised that I didn't have one Red Velvet Cupcake with cream cheese frosting...maybe it's not an east coast thing?


Billy's Bakery - Red Velvet Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting




Magnolia's Chocolate Cupcake with Chocolate Frosting


Magnolia's Mini Red Velvet Cheesecake - BEST CHEESECAKE EVER!


Sugar Sweet Sunshine - Top row: Sassy Red Velvet, Middle: Pistachio, Bottom row: Sexy Red Velvet

The Latte Zoo

I wish this guy worked at my local coffee shop! Check out these very awesome latte art designs:

Rack of Lamb

I made my first rack of lamb! Rack of lamb always seemed a little too intimidating to make at home, but I finally forced myself to try making it and it was so much easier than I imagined. It was as simple as making chicken, just marinade and bake. I bought my rack of lamb from Costco (about $15 for 1.5lbs), french trimmed and ready to marinade. I decided to marinade my lamb with olive oil, rosemary, and thyme. I really don't think you can go wrong with this flavor combination. The next part was to grill the lamb on both sides to get a nice brown color on each side. Problem is I don't own a grill or a grill pan, but I managed to improvise and used my panini press (worked perfectly!). I didn't actually press the lamb in the panini press (although it could've work and cut my grilling time in half), but I just figured I'd grill each side seperately. The end result was so much better than I could hope for. The lamb was not over cooked (a nice medium-rare) and the flavor was delicious. Who knew that it was easy to make great rack of lamb for more than half the restaurant price. I'm beyond happy.

Rack of Lamb

Ingredients:

• 4 large garlic cloves
  
• 1.5 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves
• 1.5 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground pepper
  
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 rack of lamb, french trimmed

Directions:
1. In a food proccesor, add garlic, rosemary, thyme, and olive oil. Pulse until everything is combined.
2. Season each side of the rack with a generous amount of salt and pepper.
3. Rub the olive oil mixture on both sides of the rack. Let the lamb marinate in the refridgerator for at least an hour (you can even marinate it overnight).
4. Grill lamb on each side for about 3 min or until brown.
5. Place lamb in a preheated 400 degree F oven for about 20 min for medium-rare.
6. Let rack sit for about 10 min on a cutting board, then slice, serve, and enjoy!

Diddy Riese

The other week I went to Diddy Riese which is located in Brentwood and a local favorite among UCLA students. Diddy Riese sells freshly baked cookies, brownies, and ice cream, but they are most famous for their build your own ice cream sandwiches. The line is always out the door, but I'm always willing to wait for ice cream sandwiches and especially since their prices are very recession friendly ($1.50 for an ice sandwich). They have a variety of cookies and ice cream to choose from and you can even mix and match cookies if you want. I got myself a chocolate chip cookie sandwich with cookie dough ice cream. I was surprised to see that they started selling Hawaiian Shaved Ice with ice cream (very rare to find outside of Hawaii), so we had to try it. I was happy to see that they had gone the extra step to make it more authentic with flavors like passion fruit. Overall, my ice cream sandwich was great and the shaved ice was good, but it will never beat shaved ice from Hawaii...the ice was just too hard.




Chocolate chip cookies with cookie dough ice cream


Hawaiian Shaved Ice with Vanilla Ice Cream in the middle

Kogi Tacos

For those of you who don't live in LA, there's this new craze involving a truck that sells Korean Tacos (yes, Korean Tacos!). This Korean/Mexican fusion is the brainchild of Kogi BBQ. The interesting thing about it is that they use Twitter to alert their future customers about their whereabouts for the day. Its just like a treasure hunt and your map is your twitter and for all your hard work searching, you get delicious tacos! Sounds like fun, huh? Unfortunately, because of its popularity even if you find the truck, you'll still have to wait 1 to 2 hours in line to get these tasty tacos. But, there is a way to get around this and cheat. People can head to the Alibi Room which is a Restaurant/Lounge Bar and order the infamous Korean tacos in addition to a variety of other items, but the catch is that the items are $1 to $2 more than the truck. So, last night we decided to skip the truck and head straight to the Alibi Room (I know we don't get the experience of the treasure hunt, but its all worth it for me if I don't have to stand in line in the cold for hours).

The Alibi Room was a very small, but modern looking lounge. Most of the restaurant revolves around the bar and there's only a couple couches with coffee tables. The place was packed, but we were lucky enough to find seats at the bar. Their menu was filled with a variety of Korean/Mexican treats such as Korean Tacos, Korean Breakfast Burritos, Korean Sliders, Korean Hot Dog, Korean Torta, and more! I ordered the Kogi Korean Tacos, which were DELICIOUS! These tacos are filled with Korean Short Rib (a twist to Carne Asada), topped with:

• sesame-chili salsa roja
• julienne romaine lettuce and cabbage tossed in Korean chili-soy vinaigrette
• cilantro-green onion-lime relish
• crushed sesame seeds
• sea salt
• garnished with lime wedge, orange wedge and red radish wedge

My friends ordered the Kogi Breakfast Burrito, Kogi Hot Dog, Pressed Torta with Taro Chips, and Korean Spiced Fries (these were the best fries!). Overall, everyone loved what they ordered and agreed that these were the best tacos they've tasted. I only wish that I lived closer, so I could eat them more often.


Picture of the Alibi Room sign outside the restaurant


The Menu


They give you a large playing card as your order number.


My Korean Short Rib Tacos, top left are the Korean Spiced Fries which came with 3 different sauces to dip: ketchup, sriracha, and sesame mayo

Dots

Good news! I was finally able to try out a new cupcakery called Dots. A friend of mine highly recommended this place and claimed it was the best cupcake store. I'll be the judge of that...

Interior: Cute, modern design. Reminds me of sprinkles.

Cupcakes: I picked out 4 different flavors:

Apple Pie cupcake was good and had bits of apple in it, but it didn't really taste like apple pie to me, just tasted like a good spiced muffin.

Mint Chocolate was my absolute favorite. The cake was nice and moist, and the frosting had the right amount of mint, but the best part were the chocolate crunchy pearls...they were like tiny thin mint balls covered in chocolate. The texture of the crunchy balls plus the minty frosting and moist cake made this one awesome cupcake.

Strawberry Shortcake was a complete fail. I felt like I was eating a vanilla cupcake with vanilla frosting. Where 's the strawberry? Well, I think it was the sad little shriveled up piece of nothing hidden inside my cupcake. Maybe they wanted us to find it like a prize, but all I got was a tiny piece of strawberry like it was there by mistake.

Red Velvet was good, but the frosting lacked the cream cheese flavor. So, Sprinkles you get the win for this one.

Overall, I liked Dots (mostly because of their mint chocolate cupcake), but I definitely see some potential and I'm eager to go back to try their other flavors.


Thumbs up on the packaging!


Starting from top left (clockwise): Apple Pie, Mint Chocolate, Strawberry Shortcake, and Red Velvet