If you love starting your day with a healthy dose of sugar, check out my latest round-up of sweet breakfast desserts on Serious Eats: Sweets, featuring everything from (relatively) healthy options like my favorite acai bowl, to saturated with sugar indulgences like a bananas foster belgian waffle.
There are plenty of options for a tasty treat near the San Diego Convention Center. Here are a few of my top picks, just in time for Comic-Con.
How many sandwiches have not one, but TWO songs inspired by the ingredients? I’m going to guess there’s only one: the mighty peanut butter and jelly. Biting into a standard PB&J sandwich is a fine enough way to celebrate International Peanut Butter and Jelly Day (April 2nd, 2012), but there are a few tastier (and sweeter) alternatives in San Diego, namely the PB&J cookie at Zanzibar, or the peanut butter and jam-inspired dessert at the Grant Grill.
In my area of San Diego, chain coffee shops outnumber independent cafes, but one advantage that the Village at 631 has over the competition is a kick-ass pastry chef. The baked goods in the display case are so vastly superior to the mass-produced items at Starbucks that making the comparison between the two almost feels mean.
French toast is like pizza: even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. And while this breakfast and brunch staple is tough to really get wrong, there’s still a gulf between the eggs, imitation vanilla, and Wonder bread version I whipped up as a kid and legitimately well executed versions like the cinnamon french toast at The Mission ($7.95).
If you’ve ever walked by a Subway and been bowled over by the delicious scent of fresh-baked bread, you’ll understand why it was impossible to walk by Homies Cinnamon Rolls without going inside on the pretense of “just taking a peek”. Fresh rolls were baking in the oven and the aroma of warm pastry and cinnamon was wafting out the door.
The shop offers a few different flavors of cinnamon rolls, including apple, pecan, and raisin, but only the original flavor was available when I visited.
I have no problem admitting that I love a good cookie as much as I love a good deal, and that’s why one of my favorite cheap thrills (ie: treat under $2) is Albertsons cookies. Part of me feels like I should be keeping this my secret, because I’ve already found that by noon, the best flavor (double chocolate chip) is often sold out. But ultimately, these cookies are too delicious to keep to myself. Especially because you can get three of them for under $1.
Having a cupcake shop located near your apartment can be a blessing or a curse. When a craving for sugar hits, it’s great to be easy walking distance to the cure. On the flip-side, being too close to a shop that caters to your weakness can slowly chip away at your willpower. For me, this is a constant battle.
Heavenly Cupcake, a cupcakery located in downtown San Diego, sells cupcakes that are equally as beautiful to look at as they are worth indulging in.