Celebrity Cupakes review.

We've tried just about every cupcake bakery we've ever come across in Houston, Austin, and London, including Houston's Sugarbaby's and Crave (and cupcakes from places like Whole Foods, as well). No cupcake we'd had here was worth buying again (or even finishing), and so we had low expectations for the new Celebrity Cupcakes. Although its name was already one strike against it, we bought three cupcakes and crossed our fingers that we wouldn't regret it.

Let's start with the bad. The customer service there wasn't great. We asked for the fleur de sel cupcake, and even though we could see that the cupcakes were almost ready, the woman at the counter didn't offer to frost one for us or tell us how long we would have to wait for one. Instead, she indicated that we should just pick something else. And no one seemed too thrilled to be working there, so we felt just slightly uncomfortable as we debated what flavors we wanted to take home with us.

Since we couldn't have the fleur de sel, we bought a carrot cupcake with cream cheese frosting, a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter filling and chocolate frosting, and a vanilla bean cupcake with chocolate frosting.

After tasting these, I would never consider buying a cupcake anywhere else in Houston. At the other bakeries, the frosting is too sugary or the cake is too dry, but everything we tried from Celebrity Cupcakes was perfect. The chocolate frosting on the vanilla cake tasted just like a bar of chocolate and was one of the few vanilla cupcakes I've had that wasn't bland. The chocolate cupcake was moist with delicious frosting, but I think I would have preferred it without the peanut butter filling. It tasted too much like the inside of a Jif jar. Not awful, but it was a pretty aggressive taste, so I can't remember too much about other aspects of the cupcake. We all agreed that the carrot cake was the best one (although we would eat any of them again). Even the worst bakeries usually don't mess up cream cheese frosting, but the carrot cake was particularly flavorful. I do wish that the bakery would have some more unusual flavors (like blackbottom or lemon blueberry/lemon raspberry), but, still, the ones they do have are good.

$3.25 does seem like a lot for a cupcake, even though that's almost a standard price now, but since we probably shouldn't be eating whole ones or eating cupcakes too frequently, it isn't a prohibitive cost.

Also: I'm always tempted by red velvet cake, but I've never had any that was worth finishing (which doesn't mean, sadly, that I didn't finish it anyway). I can't shake the feeling that it's watered-down chocolate cake -- and not light in a pleasant way, but light in the way that makes you wonder who left out an ingredient. I understand that a lot of people love it, but I wonder how much of that is because of the color or nostalgia or other personal associations. Or just the frosting.

In search of treats.

Back and forth across town to track down various Asian grocery items. We didn't buy anything that we had on our list, but we discovered new treats.  Small moon cakes with lotus...

and a taro pastry, because I can't resist buying anything with taro in it.

Also on our 4-hour drive, we pulled over to photograph some bright colors.

Finally, our daily visitor. He comes by every day, and each time I make a mad dash for my camera (usually nowhere to be found right when I need it most) but can't quite make it in time. Today, however, he wandered by at twilight and paused on the fence as if asking to be photographed. Maybe he wanted to point out his resemblance to the lion, or perhaps he just took pity on me after days of watching me scramble. Either way, how kind!

But I wish he would let me pet him.