Above is street art on the side of a wall somewhere in Hillcrest...
Since we'd already tried Chocolat Cremerie in the past, we wanted to try a place we hadn't been to before, Babycakes. It seems to me that the cupcake trend seems to be going strong. This place has been around for about three years now. Babycakes is on 5th Avenue and just a few steps away from the Brass Rail (a gay bar). For those of you that might remember, this was the location of the old David's Place (a coffee house). I have a story about that at the end of this post...
Cute sign! The workers were supernice and friendly!
We each ordered a dessert along with a double mocha for Bert.
There they are on the counter...let's go outside now shall we?
There's a nice seating area in the front. One half of Babycakes is a bar and the other half has the bakery. There are comfy covered banquettes along with chairs at the tables...
I forgot to mention that it was a lovely day in San Diego. Nice and sunny and feeling almost like summer!
My Pear Frangipane Tart...
I scraped off most of the whipped cream and deconstructed my tart, eating the edge crust and the frangipane filling first, followed by the fruit. It was delicious but not as good as the version I had at Frog Hollow Farms at San Francisco's Ferry Building at the Embarcadero. San Diego Desserts in the College area sometimes makes a pear tart but every time I've gone, it's never there. Sad panda.
TC's "Babycake" Cupcake - marble cake with a rich cream cheese frosting and multicolored sprinkles.
This proved to be a little too much for her but we helped her along with this, heh heh. The cupcake was very moist and the frosting was very creamy. A little too thick in my opinion but still good if you are into cream cheese.
After reading Mary's post on Babycakes last year (linked at the end of this post), I knew that Bert had to try their Pistachio cupcake. Instead of sprinkles or jellybeans or whatever topping they had in the previous bloggers' posts/visits, they actually had pistachios as the topper, which is appropriate.
The frosting was a little too "mint green" looking for me, but had a faint pistachio taste. The cupcake itself was dryer that Bert wanted it to be. There were also no pistachio bits in the cupcake itself.
That was A LOT of coffee!
A painted greenbox on one of the corners of Robinson (I forgot the cross street) but it was a near a 7-11.
The atmosphere inside is lively. The music is also a cool mix. They have a lot of selection in their cupcakes and other baked goods (muffins I believe). Their cupcakes are pricy but at about $3.75 or is it $3.95 per cupcake, it's the going rate similar at other cupcake places. I don't think I'll ever get used to paying that much for cupcakes. All in the name of "research"....
Who else went to Babycakes?
Angelle from (the now defunct blog) Chicks Who Chomp went here in April 2009 and again in June
followed by Kirbie who went twice in July - Visit 1 and Visit 2, along with Mary who went last summer.
Official Website of Babycakes
So, here's my story about David's Place, which used to be a nonprofit coffee shop that now houses this newfangled cupcake place.
Back in the early 90's, I was still buying LP's, most of them I bought used at Off the Record in the College Area and later, in Hillcrest, along with the now defunct Blue Meannie in El Cajon. With the growing popularity of CD's and the slow, sad, and painful death of vinyl, I reluctantly gave in and started slowly buying cd's and replacing my collection with these soulless data discs. I already had the vintage gatefold LP of The Rutles (a parody band of The Beatles, featuring ex Monty Python alum Eric Idle) and really wanted to get the CD because it had extra songs not featured on the LP. The CD had to special ordered from Off the Record on 5th Ave in Hillcrest.
Once I got the call that my order was in, I remember driving in the pouring rain and having to fork out coins for the metered street parking. It was right in front of David's Place, an LGBT friendly establishment known for it's support of community activism and helping those suffering from HIV/AIDS. I practically sprinted to the record store to get my purchase, thinking it wouldn't take that much time. Well, wouldn't you know it, they couldn't find it and had to search for it, plus there was a long line and blah blah blah. I kept looking at my watch and thinking I could still make it back to my car in time.
Bottom line, I ran back to my car just in time to see a parking meter cop place a parking ticket on my car. All the while, feeling embarassed at being the "entertainment" for the men sitting on the porch at David's Place, watching me while I pleaded with the cop to not give me a ticket. He cold heartedly ticketed me not even a minute after my meter expired! He said I could go to traffic court to fight the ticket but I didn't both. I ended up having to pay a lot of cash for that $%&# parking ticket so I'll never forget parking in front of that coffeehouse back in 1993...
For more info about the coffeehouse's history, here's a story about the old David's Place when it went on sale in '06 and some old yelp reviews...
I don't know about you, but I've been enjoying this President's Day Weekend so far! Just watched "The Secret Life of Arietty" (the Studio Ghibli/Miyazaki version of "The Borrowers" with TC and her friend. More on that as well as mall eats later!
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