Sometimes we go to Porto's and get a little carried away...

As the title of this blog post suggests, sometimes we go to Porto's and get a little carried away.  This is easy to do when the value at Porto's is so incredible, and the pastries are so fresh.  

Go at closing time and you might just snag a closing time loaf of bread like the one featured above!  And better yet, make some delicious french toast out of your good fortune.

A wildly successful hunt at LA's Milk

If you take a look at the pictures above, you can see I went on a bakery hunting rampage at LA's Milk today. Milk is a bakery & cafe where things are made fresh every day, and it certainly comes through in taste. Now, before even going to Milk, they had already won me over with their name-- it's important to be able to order milk at a bakery (although people in France may tell you otherwise). I have to appreciate their nod to the wonders of dairy.

From what I observed and sampled today, there was a lot of consistency and quality in the freshness and overall quality of Milk's offerings. The blueberry turnover pictured above tasted so fresh, it tasted like what an actual turnover should taste like! (You may have seen impostor turnovers at other shops: the ones with the hard outer crust, with edges that seem practically welded together?) Not at Milk though! The turnovers here are light and airy on the outside, with the real substance limited to where it should be-- located in the fruity middle.

Everything I tasted was more than satisfying-- the cookies tasted homemade, with their perfectly soft center and slightly crispy edges. I sampled both the chocolate chip walnut cookies as well as the molasses cookies. Both were mouth watering creations, and I especially appreciated the thin lines of icing drizzled over the island of molasses dough.

I also tried a slice of the corn and raspberry loaf-- a hearty selection that should be enjoyed with a cup of tea or a glass of milk to balance things out-- but one that satisfies the corn lovers out there. The grasshopper ice cream sandwich was also quite delicious and with a refreshing minty flavor.

All in all, this Saturday hunt through Los Angeles was wildly successful. Milk's selections come highly recommended from various constituents of The Great American Bakery Hunt, and I was pleased to find such a wide variety of lovely bakery creations to choose from. And friendly service to boot! I'll be back Milk, I'll be back very soon.

*Hours: Sun-Thurs: 9 am to 10 pm
Fri & Sat: 9 am to 11 pm

Please note that their late hours make them even more rad than originally anticipated by TGABH.

MILK
7290 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Brownito ceases to habla English...

Have you heard of Brownito? He's a friendly, dancing brownie that serves as the "mascot and figure head" of a Dominoe's pizza Brownie Squares promotion.

Standing proud, Brownito is three feet tall with Mickey Mouse-like hands, wholehearted greetings like "Hola, soy Brownito!," and wicked break dancing moves he busts out at the click of your mouse. For a while, Brownito was bilingual, and performed his moves under the pseudonym "Fudgem" on the English speaking sister site. But every time I try to use the "visita a brownito en ingles para ver a fudgems" button, I get a blank page and a "HTTP 404 Not Found" message.

What gives Dominoes? I know the press release dates way back to August, but some of us English speakers were just getting to know Brownito in our native language. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful the legend still lives on en espanol. But this HTTP 404 business is a mystery indeed.

I suppose we should count our blessings. After all, the whole brownie promotion did bring us this humorous story.

Even so, I can't help but feel that these large corporations are just toying with our emotions, bringing friendly brownies into our lives and then changing their minds. I haven't actually tasted the brownies, but I sure liked the idea of a brownie hypnotically beatboxing and dancing to techno music. You just don't see that every day. It's breakthrough marketing if I've ever seen it.

Fudgem was soon replaced by another promotion to make way for Dominoe's Brooklyn Style Pizza, where anyone with the name "Brook Lynn", or "Brooklyn" was the recipient of a free pizza in honor of their name. Maybe if I name my future children "Bake Ree" or "Paste Tree" I can use them to get all sorts of free pastries from a willing corporate sponsor! I'd say it's definitely worth chancing it. (But along those lines, what was Gwyneth Paltrow thinking with the whole "Apple" debacle? I'll never understand it.)

In any case, Bake Ree it is! I have to keep my eye on the prize. That's right: I will become the most powerful American bakery hunting mastermind, whether my children like it or not. One day they'll thank me.