San Francisco’s delightful little bakery, Miette, is getting a whole lot bigger.
The bakery, which sells all manner of lovely cupcakes, homemade candies, princess cakes, banana cream tarts, and yes, fabulous little melt-in-your-mouth macarons, has opened a third location, 2109 Chestnut St. in San Francisco.
As with politics, when you have two opposing viewpoints, you listen intently, weighing both sides to form your own opinion.
Call this then the politics of cupcakes.
When my sis-in-law Jennifer urged me to try the cupcakes at Teacake Bake Shop, I was eager to do so, especially when she heard my teeth were practically disintegrating from all those achingly sweet frosting bombs at so many other bakeries.
But when Single Guy Chef got wind of that recommendation, he cautioned me that he had found Teacake’s cupcakes just so-so.
Hmmmm, hmmm, I thought.
So what was a Food Gal to do except try some for herself, right? So recently, my hubby and I made our way to the Emeryville location (Teacake also has branches in Corte Madera and Lafayette). Each day, about nine or so different cupcakes are available.
We toted home a Pink Velvet with cream cheese frosting, a Chocolate Sour Cream with dulce de leche buttercream, and a Peanut Butter with peanut butter buttercream.
The cupcakes ($3 each) are pretty, decorated simply with a clean, modern sensibility. I took a bite of the Pink Velvet. My sis-in-law was correct that the frosting was not overly sweet, and actually had a nice tang from the cream cheese. The cake itself was not super strong in cocoa-flavor, and the texture a little dry.
The chocolate cupcake was fudgy tasting, and the frosting was thick, creamy, and tasted dreamily of caramel. But again, the cake was a little on the dry side.
When restaurateur Tim Stannard was just a kid and his father a professor at Stanford University in Palo Alto, he remembers riding his bike through the campus and across El Camino Real to buy candy bars at the drugstore that once stood on this spot.
Now, Stannard and his Bacchus Management Group have transformed that icon of his childhood into his newest restaurant venture, Mayfield Bakery & Cafe.
It opens for dinner on Monday, Feb. 9, and will add lunch, breakfast, and brunch service in the weeks to come. I got a sneak peek on Saturday night of the newest restaurant to open in the Palo Alto Town & Country Village, which will serve up wood-fired American cuisine.
On the opening menu, find burrata bruschetta ($12); griddled artic char with cracked wheat, herbs, olive oil and dates ($22.50); braised lamb cheeks with gremolata and parsley paparadelle ($19.75); and spit-roasted Fulton Ranch chicken with rosemary polenta and green olive-melted tomato sauce ($19).
Diners also will get a choice of sparkling or still filtered water served in carafes gratis — a nice, and environmentally-sound touch. All the coffee served will be organic, fair-trade, and roasted by Bacchus’ ROAST coffee company in Oakland. The beans will be ground and brewed to order.
The bakery, overseen by Pastry Chef Nancy Pitta, formerly of San Francisco’s Boulevard restaurant, will supply fresh-baked bread twice a day to all Bacchus Management restaurants, including the Village Pub in Woodside, and Spruce in San Francisco.
OK, admit it: You’ve been going through withdrawal, haven’t you?
After all, it’s been two whole months — yes, more than 60 days! — since I last wrote about cupcakes, and last hit you smack dab with frosting photos.
Consider this my after-Christmas gift to you. Heck, I know I can sure use some cupcakes right about now.
I’m not the only one. I recently dragged — though, believe me, it didn’t take much effort — 5 Second Rule with me to Icing on the Cake in Los Gatos. She’d eaten the cakes before, but had never been to the bakery. Me? I’d been to the bakery, but not for almost a year.
It’s a full-service bakery with a wide array of treats, including about a dozen different kinds of cupcakes offered each day, ranging in price from $2.75 to $3.75.
5 Second Rule, who has a household of four, bought two cupcakes. Me? Despite having a household of only two, I toted home five — yes, count ’em, five — cupcakes. What can I say except that it’s in the name of research, of course!
All of the cupcakes were moist. Always a good start. And all were pretty darn sweet. Not always the ideal thing to be.
Who am I to disagree
Travel the world and seven seas
Everybody’s looking for something…
as cute and precious as these.
With apologies to the Eurythmics, I just couldn’t get that song out of my head when I visited this unusual Japanese bakery in San Mateo, Sweet Breams. It specializes in taiyaki — tiny, filled waffles shaped like fish that are made to order.
When I taught a class recently at nearby Draeger’s, Cooking School Editor Cynthia Liu told me I had to stop by Sweet Breams. Good thing I listened.
Owner Tara Wong, who lived in Tokyo for a spell, got hooked on these adorable snacks as a child when she’d visit May’s Coffee Shop in San Francisco’s Japantown, where they also are made.
Traditional taiyaki are about 5-inches long. Wong thought there would be an even greater appetite for smaller ones. Hers are about 2 inches long, and made with waffle irons imported from Japan. There are four waffle irons. Each is named after one of the Beatles. And yes, she laughs, “Paul” is the most consistent one.
She opened her shop about six months ago, and word is already spreading about it. Folks have come from as far as Sacramento to get their fix of the dainty, crispy, warm treats made from a smooth batter of both all-purpose and cake flours.