Showing posts with label cupcake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cupcake. Show all posts

Monday, August 6, 2012

Fun with Americana Nostalgia at Towne (Downtown LA)

It isn't often I walk into a new restaurant with no expectation and come out wowed. That happened recently to me at the new Towne in downtown LA. I didn't know much about it coming into the media tasting other than that they make their own twinkies, but left pretty impressed. Towne is a large elegant restaurant in the WaterMarke Tower in the South Park district of downtown LA. The bar to the left and the pastry case near the entrance is Bottega Louie-esque, without the high ceilings and the loudness (at least so far).

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The warm pretzel bread, complimentary for the table, served with mustard butter made a great first impression.
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We started with some appetizers including the Kanpachi Tacos, avocado, hijiki, aji amarillo, creme fraiche ($12)
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While you can't see if at first glance, the crispy shells were filled with chunks of fresh kanpachi.

The head barman here is Jason Bran, who has designed a cocktail menu ranging from little twists of some classics to some fun, completely out-there cocktails. More on that later, as we first started on the tamer side with Eastern Mule: Russian Standard Vodka, lime, house 5-spice ginger beer ($13).
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The hint of the spices were subtle but unmistakable.

Another nice refreshing classic: Genesis Collins with Beefeater 24 gin, grapefruit, honey, soda, "invisible touch" ($13) - not sure what the invisible touch was..
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Chicken Liver Popcorn, yogurt, zatar ($11)
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If you like chicken liver and pates, you would certainly love these deep fried goodness (one of the other bloggers at the table just could not stop eating them)!
On the other hand, if you don't like the taste of liver, avoid this. Just because they're deep fried doesn't mean they've lost that liver taste!


Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Have your (Skinny) Cupcake and Eat It Too

Cupcakes. We all love them. But I was told that a Sprinkles cupcake contains 400 calories (after google-ing, supposedly the Sprinkles red velvet has 497 calories, but the strawberry only has 131 calories).

The "skinny" cupcakes at Santa Monica's 17th Street Cafe & Bakery only have 100 calories each and are fat free. Instead of oil, they use apple and apricot concentrate.

Their flavor selection is standard but has enough for everyone: red velvet, chocolate, lemon, carrot cake, vanilla. the red velvet comes either with fondant or (fat free) cream cheese frosting.

As with all fat free desserts, we worried about whether the cupcakes would be too bland or dry. Fortunately this wasn't really the case. Our favorites were easily the red velvet and the carrot cake since they were the most moist. It was also because we all liked the cream cheese frosting better than the fondant.
Granted, it isn't a Sprinkles red velvet but for me it is more than enough to satisfy my sweet tooth and for the same calorie intake, you can eat five of these! You shouldn't, of course, that would sorta defeat the purpose.

If you want to try out the cupcakes, DealPop is currently running a deal for this place: $7 for $15 worth of baked goods, which will end midnight tomorrow so you have about 32 hours.

PS. This cafe also serves chrysanthemum tea with whole flowers. That was a first for me at a non-Asian restaurant.


17th Street Cafe & Bakery
1610 Montana Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90403
(310) 453-2771
www.seventeenthstreetcafe.com
17th Street Cafe & Bakery on Urbanspoon

Disclosure: I came for a free cupcake tasting as a guest of 17th Street Cafe & Bakery.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Food Porn 3: Auntie Em's Cupcakes

These are mini cupcakes that I got from Auntie Em's Kitchen in Eagle Rock :) I may have a real review of this place later.
In the meantime, here's Red Velvet, Chocolate, and Carrot Cake cupcakes!
Mini sugary glazy goodness! I like the carrot cake the best because it's not quite as sweet as normal cupcakes.

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