LA Tour Part Two!

Onto our next stop!  You may be surprised to know how many cupcakeries are in the Beverly Hills area - we visited 3 within a few block radius on Saturday.  From Famous we headed to the renowned Sprinkles bakery on Santa Monica Blvd (the flagship store!).  Before I go on, I must tell you a little something I've learned while living in Southern California.  People are obsessed with Sprinkles cupcakes.  Everyone has heard of them, and there is always a lineup to get into this tiny shop.  Naturally, Sprinkles was one of my first touristy destinations last year when I moved to California.  I won't go into too much detail before revealing our 'official' scores, but I was pretty disappointed my first time there.  Not too long after hearing of Sprinkles cupcakes, I found Crumbs, and I have been devoted ever since.  In fact, I have come to the conclusion that you are either a Sprinkles person or a Crumbs person.  You can't be both.  And that is exactly how Polly and I first bonded.  We're both Crumbs girls, through and through.  


Anyways.  I'm digressing, big time.


Back to our Sprinkles stop.  The bakery is really tiny and super warm inside, so you can count on waiting in line outside for a bit as the store always seems to be hoppin'.  Once Polly and I made it indoors, we were greeted by this display:

Their cupcakes are super cute, and presented really well.  They have a ton of flavours, but rotate them so that there are only about twelve offered each day.  After some deliberation, Polly opted for a Dark Chocolate and I went for a straight Vanilla ( I can't eat chocolate aside from a few bites so my choices were somewhat limited).  Here are our cupcakes and how they rated:

Sprinkles scored highest on its frosting, which is Y-U-M-M-Y!  We gave it a 9/10.  Its presentation was cute too, but the cake was just alright.  It scored lowest on atmosphere (we were literally dripping sweat by the time we walked out), and customer service (it was very rushed).  We do have to admit though that their boxes and forks are super cute:

Overall score: 41 out of a possible 70 points, a 59% satisfaction rate.  I'm almost afraid to post this, as I fear it may cause a revolt.  My apologies to all of you Sprinkles devotees, but I respectfully disagree.

Polly and I could hardly wait for our final Beverly Hills stopoff.  Just down the street from Sprinkles is the aforementioned Crumbs Bake Shop.  I'm not kidding, just walking into this bakery makes my heart skip a beat.  Their cupcakes are ginormous and so, so, sooooo good.  For the same price as most other cupcake shops, Crumbs cupcakes are 2-3 times the size.  Hopefully these pictures will help you understand (I'm really sorry about the glare!):

It always pains me to have to choose just one, but on this trip we decided on the (somewhat daring) Cosmo, which is the pink and green beauty pictured above.  The Cosmo is a strawberry cupcake with buttercream filling, topped with a lime buttercream frosting.  It may sound (and look) a bit strange, but I'll just let the scores speak for themselves:

Cake:  10 / 10

Frosting: 10 / 10

Presentation: 10 / 10

Creativity: 10 / 10

Variety: 10 / 10

We literally couldn't stop eating it!

The only things Crumbs lacked were atmosphere (no place to sit, although other locations do offer this), and its customer service which was just ok.  

Overall score: 60 out of a possible 70 points.  That's 86% on the satisfaction scale.

You might say were were biased.  You might be right.  But I might just urge you not to say a word until you try one of their cupcakes.

(photo cred: Crumbs website)