A Nice Welcome, Crème Caramel LA

Recently my family of food moved to a new place and lucky for me, I ours is not the only new family in the neighborhood.  As of the day I walked into Crème Caramel LA they had only been open 102 days.  This boutique bakeshop specializes in a creamy flan-like crème caramel custards.  The friendly face in the picture is Mike, who upon my entering the shop, evangelized these desserts and converted me from a casual passerby, to a true believer.  It was the tasting that did it.  He let me try flavor after flavor until I couldn't find any one I liked better than the ube pie.  The purple yam vegetable pie was something I had never tried before, but had I let my preconceptions stop me, I would have missed the best dish of all.

Before I checked out, I met the effervescent owner, Kristine, who told me a bit more about her cooking and the Filipino influenced sweets she serves.  I was impressed with her vision and am excited to have this innovative entrepreneur in this part of the San Fernando Valley.  I walked in expecting to pick up a small cookie, and left with an ube upside down pie, a baguette, and a box of "Unicorn Poop", a dolloped meringue rolled in multi-colored sugar, for the kids. 

Crème Caramel LA

Custard Dessert Bakery [coffee] [eats] [sweets] 

Hours: Tues.-Sun. 8a.m. – 4p.m. | Closed Mon. 

14849 Burbank Blvd, Sherman Oaks, CA 91411 

(818) 949-8352

Philly in Vegas

We're visiting Mother of Food in Vegas for The Holidays. We are going to be driving a lot this holiday and we wanted to replace our weak battery before we headed to more remote parts, Since we are away from home and any socket wrenches, we decided to pay to have the battery professionally installed. We ended up at a Pep Boys. It was in an unfamiliar area and we were looking for a good sandwich place for lunch. After installing the new battery, the guys at Pep Boys pointed us in the direction of Geri's Olde Philidelphia.

What we found was a sparse no nonsense kind of place with pictures of Rocky on the wall and all kinds of authentic Philly treats. I split the chicken cheese steak pizza style with Mother of Food and Husband of Food got a steak and mushroom cheese steak. I was very happy with my pizza chicken steak sandwich, it was like chicken parm in the form of cheesesteak. We all shared sides of fries and onion rings, but after ordering, I noticed that we could have had corn nuggets, tater tots, or sweet potato fries. Mom cherrily ordered an egg cream in a wave of nostolgia.   The staff were all regular folks, happy to have egg cream drinking types in the joint.

Mom shared her egg cream with the uninitiated.

Later that night, we went out to try and see the Christmas lights at the Ethel M Chocolate factory, but the car didn't start. Turns out that the Guys at Pep Boys didn't tighten down the terminals. With a bit of work, Husband of food got the car started and had to take it back to Pep Boys to finish the job. They admitted to doing a sloppy job, not doing it right the first time. We would have been really mad, but they did recommend Geri's. So, my advice is do not go to Pep Boys for work on your car, but do take their recommendations on sandwich places.

Geri's Olde Philadelphia    

3430 East Tropicana Avenue, Las Vegas, NV

Tropicana Plaza

(702) 456-0864