Random Post: Restaurant Review - Blush Desserts in San Diego, CA

Josh and I caught wind of this dessert restaurant called Blush Desserts from my favorite local food blogger, This Tasty Life. She mentioned that they make ice cream macaron sandwiches (!!!) and we pretty much went the next day, LOL.

Inside, it looked like a kindergarten classroom, in a good way, not a bad way! There were tons of hanging things from the ceiling and it was quite inviting. There were tables with regular chairs, some with higher chairs, and a mounted bench seat running across a back wall. Quite a fun looking place.

At the time we went, the side of the restaurant was covered in tissue paper flowers. EEEEEE. It's so pretty!

With ice cream maracon sandwiches? Yes, life is beautiful.

Here's my pick! ISN'T IT GLORIOUS?? I am drooling just thinking about it. I got a fruity pebbles flavored maracon, dipped in fruity pebbles cereal, with vanilla ice cream. It might not look big, but this sucker was huge, like, major hamburger sized huge, can't-fit-it-in-your-mouth-in-one-bite huge (that's what she said). Yum! The fruity pebbles flavor meshed well with the almondy macaron, which was perfectly cooked and slightly gooey. What a pick!!! We have since been back and tried something else, but I fear nothing will top this beauty and how amazing it was. This thing should be in a museum.

Josh got a cookie butter macaron with cookies and cream ice cream. This was also delicious! He reeeeally liked this one, but agreed that he wanted to get the fruity pebbles one again. The spoon is a normal sized spoon, by the way, so you can sort of get a sense of how big and tall these suckers are.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Overall, we loved the experience we had here, but as I mentioned above, we went back again a week or so later and the items we picked then weren't as good as these two macaron ice cream sandwiches. That's not to say they were bad, but these were just waaaaaaaay better. We will absolutely be back here,, though. Have you ever had macarons? Do you like them? Do you have any hybrid desserts like this in your neck of the woods?

Random Post: Restaurant Review - Cafe Hielo in San Diego, CA

Cafe Hielo (located at 8072 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, San Diego, CA 92111) is a brand new Korean dessert restaurant in San Diego. They were having an Instagram contest a few weeks ago and on a whim, I decided to enter. Well, guess what? I won! There were 3 prizes, and for some reason, I just assumed I would be able to pick one. NOPE. I got all. three. prizes. It was an insane bunch of winnings! After emailing in response to their Instagram post, the day I was supposed to come in to collect everything didn't work for us, so managing director Calvin and I decided on a day for me to come in and check the place out. Here's my review!

The signage outside.

Very cool cupboards in the back! The lights flashed through a series of colors and you all know I am a sucker for flashing anything.

All along the walls of the store are these quotes and informational lines of text. I really enjoyed seeing these versus blank walls. Red beans and condensed milk have me wondering how they taste. Apparently, it's a really popular topper combination in Korea, but the manager was telling us it's not so popular in the states.

More text about their business. Points for using the word "Satiny"!

There was also a really cool piece of artwork on the wall. I loved this thing.

More photos!

Another neat wall decoration!

There is also a huge TV right in the middle of the wall of the sitting portion of the restaurant. It was playing music videos the entire time we were there. Some of them were really fun!

Prize #1, a tumbler! Yes!!! This can be used for cold AND hot drinks and is BPA free. I have used this a lot at home. Gotta love drink tumblers.

Prize #2: honey bread with ice cream. This is a gigantic and thick piece of toast slathered in butter, fresh and toasted to perfection, topped with whipped cream, caramel drizzle and cinnamon. We had the option to have chocolate drizzle, but they put it on the plate, which was better. THIS STUFF IS AMAZING. And I CRAVE it. With vanilla ice cream on the side, this is really the perfect dessert. It's not too heavy, either. Nice and crispy, very, very tasty. I want more NOW PLEASE.

Prize #3: This is THE TOWER.Can you believe this thing? It serves 3-4 people. We were supposed to bring friends to come and enjoy this with us but everyone we asked was busy. Josh and I didn't even come close to finishing it. Sitting inside a hollowed out honeydew melon, its based is their shaved iced, topped with melon balls of honeydew and cantaloupe, cheese(cake) bits, chocolate sauce, condensed milk, mango pieces, and vanilla ice cream. What a melange!! The ice really was finely shaved, but I think it might have needed a bit more flavor. At first, they forgot to give us the condensed milk on the side, but when they did, it made it was better. The pieces of cheesecake bites were a fabulous addition. I am not a huge fan of mango, unfortunately, but these pieces were very fresh. Josh liked the honeydew parts, it was just waaaay too much for us.

Sitting inside the melon rind. I didn't even notice at first.

A closer look...

Melon for DAYS, yo.

The condensed milk came in a little dish on the side and was definitely needed. Since this was my first experience with Korean shaved ice, I would say this is good, but there was room for flavor improvement on top of the ice alone.

Here's some information about their Hielo Event. At the time, they were planning on launching the tower the week, we went, and as far as I was told, it should be available NOW! Look at the mango shaved ice on the tray liner! Everything visually looks so amazing from this place, it's going to be hard to stay away. They also have a strawberry shaved ice I am dying to try, since I prefer strawberries to mangoes.

2 weeks ago, we went back to try the honey bread again to see if anything had changed. I got the works, basically: honey bread, green tea ice cream this time, chocolate and caramel sauce, and cinnamon. I feel like the toast this time around could have been a little more crispy. There was a big chunk of unmelted butter right in the middle of the toast, which I thought was ice cream, but nay. Next time, I won't get this with chocolate sauce because it's too overpowering.

Josh got the exact same thing we received the first (winning) visit and loved it again. This is tried and true and I will stick with this next time as well.

Cafe Hielo's menu.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Overall, we had a good experience at Cafe Hielo and would definitely come back! Of course, since I won an Instagram contest, we received everything you see here for free (except for the 2 honey breads at the end of my post which we paid for upon a second visit), but all words, phrases and opinions are my own and I was not paid for my review. In fact, it was not even a requirement to write this review, but I wanted to help get the word out about this place so those in town may try it for themselves!

Random Post: Restaurant Review - 85° Bakery Cafe in San Diego, CA

Since Josh and I like to go out on occasion and I have a penchant for photographing my food, I figured I would review some restaurants and places around town! You know, in case any of you come to visit. ;)

For my birthday a few weeks ago, Josh and I decided to get a few snacks at the relatively new 85° Bakery Cafe, a Taiwanese chain that sells coffee and desserts. This place is always really crowded, and since it's less than a year old and the next closest store is in Irvine, about 90 miles away, well, you can be sure we had to get there early!

The storefront in all its glory. Basically, what you do is you go inside, you get a tray and a set of tongs and you load your tray up with whatever pastries, sweet and savory, you want to try! When there is fresh bread, someone will come out from the back and scream "FRESH BREAD!!!" and there will generally be massive amounts of trampling and almost murder and such, but since we went at 11am on a Tuesday, well, there was no fun, but still a relatively large amount of people for that time of day. Here's what we got!

As a huge coffee fan (read: addict), a billion and one friends told me to try their sea salt iced coffee, a specialty they are known for all over the map. And so I did. I love the salty/sweet combination in desserts, but in coffee, I felt like I was drinking caffeinated ocean water, and even though I didn't hate it, it definitely was not for me. The creaminess was good, but it needed a bit more sweetness to counteract all the salt. Yikes. This must be an acquired taste.

Josh's first pick was an apple tart. Though it looks nice and sweet on the outside, don't let its looks be deceiving. Though the crust was fine and the ring of cinnamon apples on top was a welcomed site, the inside apple filling had a weird taste to it. It was mushy, like puree, which I like, but the taste was sort of bitter and salty. Pass for both of us on this one.

My first pick was the classic egg tart. I have had this before when a few friends of mine brought one back for us to try from the Irvine store. WOW. Just as good as I remembered it. Flaky crust, almost like a croissant, and an eggy, slightly sweet inside singing my name. I should have gotten 3 of these and called it a day. VERY buttery, so don't be on a diet when you eat this. A must try!!

Josh's second pick. He is an anything, everything kind of chocolate lover, so when he saw this chocolate sponge roll cake, he thought he had died and gone to heaven. Wrong. The cake was very dry and tasted kind of like the inside of a Ho-Ho, but without the chocolate and sweetness and fun. And bigger. And spongier. And nastier. The filling was like a buttercream without the powdered sugar. Another pass from both of us on this item.

My second choice. This tasty delicacy is called Milk Pudding bread and OMG. I AM ADDICTED. We haven't been back here yet, but I have had dreams about this baby every night since. Oh man. So good. The bread was sticky and gooey, reflective of its insides. A creamy, satisfyingly sweet custard after 2 sweet-duds was welcomed on my palate and oh. so. tender. YUM. I need another few hundred of these, please.

Our mutual pick: the sun tart? The sun cookie? The sun pastry? (OH! I am a genius! I took a photo of the receipt!) Either way, it was gross and definitely not for us. It tasted very chalky, even though it looks super fresh and flaky, we were sorely disappointed with this as it came highly recommended by friends. Maybe it's just a little too weird for us weirdos.

$13.20 ain't bad for all this stuff. We mostly split everything, except he let me have the entire milk pudding because he didn't like the stickiness. MY GAIN!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's our first trip to 85° Bakery Cafe! Have you ever been? Anything looking good to you? Any recommendations?