Is there ever a ballsy way of bragging than using the adjective "extraordinary"?
Apparently so.
You know only the naysayers and the pessimists would do the extra leg work of trying to debunk any hype. Ever seen restaurants maintaining a five stars rating on Yelp? Never. Because it will abruptly fail whenever people wanting to knock down a few peg.
I guess this was about to be the case at Extraordinary Desserts in Little Italy area of San Diego.
To be straightforward honest, I didn't have high hopes for cake or pastries at this place. A little birdie suggested to me to go for their underrated panini or their BLT. Their cafe supposedly has the perquisite to be a fantastic brunching experience on a warm weekend.
The Tea Set
Arriving hours later than planned was bound to get people riled up. Especially unhappy guests I was with. My colleagues and I were stuck in the 5 freeway for better part of 3 hours where the trip supposedly would be promised 96 minutes according to Google Map. Not their fault, but accidents do happened...... as in like 8 times.
Press "Play" to see the look of the crowd outside
Getting inside, we were looking at different cakes and pastries. For whatever reasons, maybe the cakes get changed quite often or selections are made on the fly, there was a sign posted said there's no printed menu for cakes or pastries. So they suggested you looked around and jotted down in the notes on a clipboard provided by the hostess stand.
Looking at the display for ideas on what to order
Of course, people wandered off like a mad men looking at cakes on the glass display. As we are looking at the name tags in front of each cake or pastries, people are just standing there blocking. No traffic control and no real organization as it was sh!tshow in the worst possible way. Yup, no happy campers in our group by the time we sat down.
Did we ever get calmed down? Fortunately yes. Once we gotten cooler and away from the heat, things started to simmer down a bit. Once we get over the silly things about looking for the cake we wanted, some of us started to enjoy the festive creation.
The famous Strawberry Shortcake
Some of those cakes were nicely presented with an eye for the roses. Thing of the movie "American Beauty" when these things come out. You can take a look at my Strawberry Shortcake to marvel at how it came out.
Oh, I had a running debate with some others when I posted the BLT on Instagram, I still think that was what separate this place from a few dessert places nearby was their cafe offerings. Especially the BLT. It didn't failed and was probably the saving grace for me on this visit.
BLT
In retrospect, looking over things after we got out, I think this place deserved some credit on what they were serving. Beautiful, creative, imaginative desserts. Do they tasted great as it looks? We had a split decision on that, but we did love the coffee, tea, and other sandwich servings.
Yes, the place should have been called "Extraordinary Cafe", just to be on the safe side. As we walked out the door, the chaos still persist on the glass displays and people lounges to block the view.
This place needs to militarized this line. Quick! Someone get the soup nazi from Seinfeld. He can solve this dilemma.
Extraordinary Desserts
1430 Union Street
San Diego, CA 92101
