Unurban Cafe, Buon Giorno Caffe, Bay Cities Italian Deli, Caprice Pastries

Un-urban Cafe is on Urban St, so a cool name, which seems to fit this kitschy place. I had a good latte with a head of coffee flavored foam, but passed on the not-so-nice-looking baked goods. The odd items on sale (e.g., voodoo dolls), and the feeling that the place was dead and only comes alive at night was different than most cafes.

Caprice Pastries is just down the street, and you can walk in to buy things, but there's no windows or chairs or anything. Just a kitchen and a freezer. Got a blueberry tart that was forgettable and a chocolate mousse that was very tasty. I wasn't very excited by their selection. Nothing stood out at me. The cakes looked good, but I didn't want that much dessert.

Buon Giorno Caffe seems more like a restaurant, but they make good coffee. Latte again, no foam on this one, with a strong flavor but a mellow aftertaste. Great. The poppyseed muffin (yellow cake batter?) wasn't bad, with nice flavor.

Bay Cities again. Meatball and Godmother. These were great fresh, but it relies so much on the bread that once the bread gets cold and soft/soggy they're really not very special. Also picked up some Cock & Bull ginger soda that was ok and various other things that I haven't tried including Buffalo mozarella & some Burrata.

Whole Foods

The Whole Foods (in Santa Monica) all-butter croissant has a good butter flavor, and wasn't stale. The multi-grain mini-croissant was pretty good too.

Mitsuwa, Mariscos Chente, Angel Maid, Tudor House

Mitsuwa Marketplace: A Japanese market plus foodcourt. We ate a bento box at Misasa. It was chicken teriyaki and tempura with miso soup, rice, potato salad, cold tea, and a couple of pickled veggies. Pretty good food, though the chicken wasn't the highest quality. Oh, and the tea was bad. (How does that happen? Or is it my fault somehow?)

Mariscos Chente: Great fish and shrimp. Very flavorful. Get the whole fish. Served with cucumber, and green (lime) salsa. The peppered shrimp sauce wasn't as good as the wine-based "barrascus" (?) sauce...but it let the flavor of the shrimp come through much better.

Angel Maid Bakery: Bead pudding, chocolate mousse (wonderful), puff pastry with custard & strawberries & kiwi. Highly recommended. We got ours just before closing, and then ate dinner next door at Mariscos Chente.

Tudor House: Cream of carrot soup (hint of ginger) with carrot chunks (good texture). Cornish pastie tasted like Christmas. Welsh Rarebit as good as homemade. The sausage roll was surprising because the sausage was smooth, almost like a cream, so it went well with the crispy pastry dough. The house tea, Red Rose, was a pleasant discovery and I took home a box of loose leaf from the attached shop. The entrees came with simple salads that were excellent. We also got scones with rasberry jam and clotted cream. Mmmm, clotted cream. One scone was light and fluffy and the other was denser with raisins. Both were tasty. For today they had a special of free Mimosas with the entrees, and the Mimosas were quite welcome. For dessert we had an almost perfect strawberries & whipped cream, and a rather lackluster sticky toffee pudding (not quite as bad as "storebought", but dry, flavorless, and a poor mix of textures...couldn't it at least by sticky or have toffee?). All together a wonderful experience that I hope to repeat again in the future. Perhaps next time as an afternoon tea (we so wanted tea sandwiches).

Angelato Cafe: Bleh bleh. Tastes artificial. Walk the extra block to Pinkberry at the East end of the promenade.

Tandoor India and Schmerty's Cookies

Tandoor India: Had Indian food delivered. Yelp and Chowhound claim there's no good Indian food in LA, but this wasn't bad. Assorted hors d'oeuvres (pakoras were good), Chicken Tikka Masala (creamy, simple, mild), Saag Paneer (not enough paneer, a bit salty, nice spinach flavor), Roti, Paratha, Paneer Naan (shrug...salty and not a good texture mix), Raita (fine, I wish I had a gyro to go with it), rice, and hot indian tea (stay away, not worth drinking...it was watery and the spices were weak). We'll probably order from here again, though I wish there was a better option.

Schmerty's Gourmet Cookies: Not bad, they definitely taste fresh and "home made", not artificial. The chocolate chip in a chocolate cookie was lacking nuts...the nut (pecan?) cookie was lacking oomph. Anyway, they're fine and I wouldn't turn one down, but oh do I miss cookies of yore.

Red Oak BBQ (Sunday Farmer's Market), Portos Bakery, Infuzion Cafe, Vanilla Bake Shop

Red Oak BBQ: We stumbled upon a Farmer's Market last Sunday, on our way to a disappointing used book store. I don't remember the location, but it was in west LA. Red Oak BBQ looked to have some good meat, so I got a plate of sliced beef (tri-tips). The meat was high quality, but it didn't have the flavor or the smoke ring that I've gotten used to in Texas. It didn't have a rub either, so it wasn't too flavorful. The BBQ sauce was pretty good, though. The baked beans were still chewy and not flavorful, though the sauce itself was flavorful...so in all, they just didn't slow cook anything enough.

At the same farmer's market we bought two straw hats, a wonderful all-juice apple/cherry drink (quite refreshing, lots of apple flavor with accents of cherry), and two mini bundt cakes that were extremely moist and surely weren't from a storebought mix. None of those had signs up with their names.

Portos: We ended up going to Brand bookstore in Glendale (which was great), and just stumbled upon the only other Portos bakery. It was super packed (200 people?) at 2:30 on a Sunday, so I didn't get a pastry. I did get a blended mocha coffee that was excellent, and a strawberry/banana smoothie (not bad, though a bit light on flavor). Again it had multiple ordering locations and the people in front of me in the beverages line were ordering non-beverages so I'm not sure what the deal is. Also, the pick-up (take-out?) area was empty, so maybe one could order there if you knew what you wanted? I'll have to go back sometime...like a weekday morning when I can actually sample the food. Or maybe I'll just call in an order.

Vanilla Bake Shop: Wandering around the 3rd St Promenade, we stopped to pick up a cupcake. I was leery because previous experiences buying cupcakes from cupcake shops have turned out poorly (too much icing of dubious quality on top of a dry flavorless cake). This spicy carrot cupcake was delicious, with a generous (perhaps too generous) topping of smooth cream cheese frosting and a deep infusion of cinnamon. I would go again, though I generally prefer pastries to cupcakes.

Infuzion Cafe: Continuing the wandering, we passed by a very busy Starbucks and found this little cafe that was doing steady, but less harried, business. I was excited about the variety on the menu, envisioning a Thai Iced Tea with strong tea and a separate layer of sweetened condensed milk...with bobas! Ah, a heavenly dream, but what I got wasn't worth describing except to say that bobas must be fresh with that variation in texture as you bite into one...or they really don't belong in my drink. I also got a chocolate croissant that wasn't bad, but I'd recommend getting pastries from the Le Pain Quotidien in the Promenade instead. I'll probably go back here...I expect to be in the Promenade relatively often and this place has several "best of coffee" type awards and editorials posted on their walls. Next time I'll go with something more standard for a cafe...like coffee.