Azucar!

Hello now, what's this???

It's probably really thin...

The TP for "cheap a-holes" and this groovy orange shell lamp were just a few items we spied in windows while on our way to Azucar, San Diego's only Cuban bakery.

Bert's parents used to have one of these, but it was the white capiz shell. This would look great next to a wooden tiki bar...

A few steps more right on the corner of Newport and Sunset Cliffs Blvd...

is Azucar, which means "sugar" in Spanish; it was also the catch phrase ("Azucar!") of the late Cuban American born salsa singer, Celia Cruz...

Yay! No crowds!

So many choices...such as this beautiful "Divina" dessert:

Or this gorgeous Mango Cheesecake with coconut crust and passion/mango glaze.

This coconut dessert also looked promising. There was another dessert (not pictured) that was a chocolate mousse mini cake topped with metallic blue dusted blackberries. I loved the look of those rock 'n roll-like berries. It was very Joan Jett.

Since it was MFH's birthday, dessert was her choice...

I tried this Cuban soda, Materva, which is made from the Yerba Mate plant. It had a sweet almost herbal taste to it.  MFH had coffee to go with our dessert.

Our two desserts:

This was the massive Pistachio Passionfruit macaron:

The filling was SUPER INTENSE. LIKE WAAAAAY INTENSE!  The crust was nice and crackly and you could see the ground up pistachios. The filling was too goopy. I think this would have been much better had the macaron been smaller, then it wouldn't be like overkill. I can't imagine one person eating this portion in one sitting unless he/she had a massive sweet tooth. Don't get me wrong, I liked this but just two bites was all I could handle.

MFH vacillated between the Divina and the Cielo de Limon. The gal working the counter said this was her favorite because it was light and refreshing. The dessert consisted of pistachio cake with lemon vanilla custar and topped with macaron pieces.

I loved the pistachio layer and the crumbly topping was also a nice textural contrast.

Across the street was the now defunct restaurant Portugalia; the signage is still there but there are "For Lease" signs on all the windows.

We had a cool time browsing some of the shops, especially the Newport Antique Center.

It's like sensory overload in there.  I could literally spend hours in here just looking at all the vintage kitchen ware, the jewelry and the knick knacks.

Previous visit to Azucar
2008 with TORC where we also went to Latin Chef...

I know I've gone here more than twice but I can't find those other posts, dagnabbit.