Food Review: Killer Brownies from GoldBelly

Killer Brownies - received April 2, 2019

Do you know those purchases you make because your eyes get greedy when they see something drool-worthy on your computer screen? And you just feel that primitive "me-want" emotion? Then read on, MacDuff.

I first heard of Killer Brownie when I was looking for a gift to send to my old college roommate. I stumbled across them on goldbelly.com . The brownie pictures! My eyes! My greed!

[Before I get into a review of the brownies themselves, props for the packaging. It comes in a cute tin, enveloped in gold tissue paper and individually wrapped to snugly fit into the tin.]

But, as is often the case, they were a little pricey for me to buy for myself. I could justify buying them as a gift (good thing that was why I was on the site) but couldn't bring myself to spend that much on four brownies for me, me, and me.

So I bought them for my old roommate and had them shipped directly to her. I can't remember which flavors I sent her but she told me later which ones were good and which ones were okay. Lest anyone thinks she should've just raved about them because they were a gift from me, I prefer she tell me honestly what she thinks of them. I want to know. Besides, it's not like I baked them myself and that she was critiquing me. I could've taken that too but that's besides the point. I like knowing because if they're really good, I'd order from them again and keep supporting them.

Her review was a little lukewarm which was a trifle disappointing, not just because I had hoped to send her a delicious gift that she would enjoy, but the pictures were so mouthwatering on the Gold Belly site. Like my eyes wouldn't let my brain process that they were less than stupendous.

The Original Killer Brownie

So, flash forward a couple of years later, I see Killer Brownies on the Gold Belly site again and this time they're on sale. In a weak, self-indulgent, retail therapy moment, I decided to make the splurge for myself. I ordered the Original Killer Brownie, the German Chocolate, the Brookie and the Blonde Ambition.

The Original is (per the website description): Layers of scrumptious chocolate brownies chock full of pecans sandwich a blanket of velvet caramel. Really, how could you go wrong? Hmm, well, unfortunately, you can go wrong a couple of ways. First,  I don't like nuts in my brownies. They have a nutless version but I wanted to try "the original" brownie as is so I got that, despite my aversion to nuts in baked goods. So that one's my deliberate fault. But second, this sounds weird but it wasn't so much chocolaty as sweet. I like my brownies richly chocolate rather than sweet and this fell in the sweet category.

German Chocolate Brownie

The German Chocolate Brownie was a little better, partly because I expected it to be sweet, I expected nuts in the frosting as per a typical German Chocolate topping and I love coconut. This is the only brownie Killer Brownie offers without caramel and it didn't need it because of the topping. Still not that chocolaty but most German Chocolate Brownies aren't.

The Brookie

Then you have the Brookie. As described on their website: A tasty combination of Not-A-Nutter (the Original but without nuts) and the classic, chocolate chip cookie. It has multiple layers of chocolate brownie with rich, gooey caramel and chocolate chips, topped off with a thick layer of chocolate chip cookie.

I liked the Brookie probably the best of the four, partly because it didn't have nuts and partly because the brownie base tasted more like a dark chocolate brownie than just a sweet one.

The Blonde Ambition

The Blonde Ambition is what it sounds like: a blondie made with macadamia nuts, "Heath mix" (presumably toffee bits) and white chocolate chips with a layer of caramel in the middle. As you can imagine, this was also sweet but that's also normal for a blondie. I also don't mind macadamia nuts in baked goods as much as other nuts.

I wish I could rave a bit more about Killer Brownies as I normally love brownies and, like I said, their food photography is amazing. But I'm also a bit of a brownie snob and I'm looking for a bit more rich chocolate flavor, not just sweetness in a brownie. I understand why they have to charge the prices they do but for almost $9 a brownie (that includes shipping and packaging), I prefer more of a robust dark chocolate flavor (not counting the Blonde Ambition, of course).

Bakery Review: Victoria Pastry Company

Victoria Pastry Company - visited March 16, 2019

Last year, I bought season tickets to San Francisco’s musical theater season. I’ve never bought season tickets before as usually, if there’s a particular show I wanted to see, I’d just buy tickets to that individual show and skip the others. But this particular season had several shows I was interested in: Miss Saigon, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory and Anastasia. Buying season tickets also offered first access for a return performance of Hamilton which I’d already seen but wouldn’t have minded seeing again. So it seemed worth it to splurge on a season ticket.

That is, until I moved out of state after watching only two shows. Oops. Fortunately, I was still working and commuting back to the Bay Area often enough that I could time my return trips to coincide with a couple of the shows I had tickets for. This particular weekend was for Hello, Dolly.

Victoria Pastry was on my list, not only because it was highly rated on “must try” bakery lists published about SF, but because it was walkable from the Powell St BART station. On paper, aka google maps, it’s a 1.2 mile walk. Which isn’t bad; I’ve walked farther in quest of baked goods. There’s just a slight wrinkle that 1.2 miles in San Francisco more than likely means hills. Which it did in this case. But still doable.

It did turn out to be a nice walk with the added bonus of a quad burn going up and down the hills. The bakery itself was small but nicely laid out with its display cases providing a nice selection of individual servings of various cakes, cupcakes, cookies and pastries. 

My standard SOP in trying out a new bakery is to get 2-3 items. It may not be enough to give a fair rating to a bakery but past experience says I can’t load up like I’d like because I’d never finish them in enough time while they were fresh and I don’t want to rate day old stuff, much less consume them. That wouldn’t be fair either.

So for this trip, I went with a red velvet cupcake and a multi-layer slice of chocolate fudge cake. There were several choices for chocolate cake but I went for the straight chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Best to keep things simple.

Both were simple, straightforward desserts which is what I prefer. As usual, I scraped off most of the frosting on the cupcake. If only more bakeries were like Sibby’s and just did a thin covering of frosting but alas, the norm seems to be the puffy frosting tower. No matter, it’s not a big deal to scrape aside. I feel bad for wasting it but I genuinely don’t like (or eat) that much frosting. The cupcake itself was good. Not super red velvet-chocolaty flavor but the texture is better than most of the cupcakes I bake from scratch. 

The chocolate cake slice was rich, moist and definitely very chocolaty. The mousse filling and chocolate ganache topping did me in. The flavors were good but I think I would’ve preferred more cake, less mousse and less topping. It makes for a really rich dessert and moderation is key for maximum enjoyment so I recommend sharing with a friend or three or spacing it out over several sittings.

Restaurant Review: Manila Bakery & Cafe

Manila Bakery & Cafe - lunch on February 23, 2019

My parents also newly moved to Reno and I was driving them around to get the lay of their new land, so to speak. Back in their old stomping grounds, we were all familiar with the restaurants they liked to go to and where everything is. To try something new, trusty Yelp pointed us to the Manila Bakery & Café for Filipino food.

I’ve blogged before that, as a rule, we don’t eat out at Filipino restaurants very often. They’re not as prevalent as Chinese or Thai places, they tend to be a little more expensive than most Asian restaurants (except for Japanese cuisine) and, honestly, my mom is such a good cook that we almost never find anything as good at Filipino restaurants as what my mom makes in her own kitchen. 

However, we do try them when we find them and we found Manila Bakery & Café. Thanks to yelp, I discovered they have a lunch buffet on Saturdays so that’s when we went. When you think “buffet”, you probably imagine the long stretches of food like the buffet at a casino with its wide variety of dishes. This buffet was a lot smaller and only contained several dishes: chicken adobo, fried chicken, sinigang (tamarind soup), beef stew, a vegetable dish called pinakbet, pancit bihon (a noodle dish) and, of course, really good rice.

The dining space was really small. You lined up at the counter to pay for the buffet lunch ($12.99 per person) then waited for a table to clear. The counter had display cases offering a variety of baked goods, including Filipino baked goods like ube crinkle cookies, ensaimada, leche flan (Filipino version of a crème caramel) and siopao (Filipino steamed pork buns) and not-so-Filipino offerings like bear claws and cupcakes.

I didn’t get pictures of the buffet stand as, once we got a table and lined up for food, I didn’t want to hold up the line trying to take pictures of the dishes. The place was crowded, partly because it was so small, but also because it seemed like there were people wanting buffet. The waitstaff was kept busy replenishing the buffet dishes and clearing tables.

I’m quite fond of sinigang and the only thing about it is to really appreciate the broth, it’s best with rice. When you’re trying to cut back on rice, that’s not such a good thing. But the sinigang broth was delicious. The chicken adobo was also good. I wasn’t as much of a fan of the fried chicken as the breading was a bit tough and some parts had more breading than chicken. It was also a little greasy (deep fried, so, yeah). The rice was perfect though. I don’t like dry rice; this was moist and perfect.

This is a good place to go if you want quick Filipino food but I don’t recommend coming as a large party since the seating space is so limited.