Restaurant Review #238: Bread Basket, Camarillo

Bread Basket is a well-known Ventura County bakery that creates sandwiches, breads, pastries, and cakes, including wedding cakes. It was the search for the perfect wedding cake that sent us there after everyone we mentioned wedding cakes to asked us if we had been to Bread Basket.

Bread Basket is known in particular for its fresh fruit cakes that use blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, and

Restaurant Review #204: Sprinkles Cupcakes, Beverly Hills

I have to admit, I'm not a fan of the cupcake craze. I can't believe it's not over yet. I just think it's all rather ridiculous. I can make an entire batch of twelve cupcakes for about $5, no special skills required except the ability to follow a Duncan Hines recipe, so why would I go to a place that charges me $3 or more for a single cupcake, even if it is dense, moist, and abundantly frosted?

Restaurant Review #125: India's Sweets and Spices, Culver City

India's Sweets and Spices doesn't look like much--in fact, it looks like a place you'd want to avoid. If you just get out of your car and step inside though, the lines, the clientele, and the pungent, savory aroma of Indian curries will convince you that you're in exactly the right place.

Though there is a large menu on the wall behind the counter, it seems to make more sense to order what's

Restaurant Review #19: Shan Halal, Artesia, Orange County

After my meal at Udupi Palace, I wanted to go to the spice shop and to another grocery store but I decided to do my wallet a favor and settle for a sweet shop. Or maybe I was just chickening out from the further self-imposed mental discomfort of being an outsider in Little India. At any rate, I found a sweets and meats shop (a very odd combination, if you ask me, but I must be missing something)

Restaurant Review #13: Bhan Kanom Thai, Thai Town, Hollywood

Pancakes with coconut custard

Bhan Kanom Thai is a bakery and snack shop serving a variety of fresh, authentic Thai sweets, including preserved fruits like orange, pineapple, mango, and plum; taro pancakes, various puddings, and plenty of other amazing treats that I unfortunately do not know the names of or know much about, except that they taste incredible and often contain some form of

Restaurant Review #12: Jin Patisserie, Venice

Tucked away behind a fence on the most well-traveled portion of Abbot Kinney, you may walk by this pastry shop ten times before you notice it.

A lovely unpretentious courtyard with a fountain and designer stools greets you as you enter the shop. The pastries are beautifully and unusually displayed in display cases built into the walls, as if the pastries were museum pieces or jewelry. The