Alicea W.'s Profile

Cupcake Cove is not a bad place to grab a $3 snack to satisfy your sweet tooth, but their selection of cupcakes is mediocre.  They have your vanilla, chocolate, peanut butter, and red velvet cupcakes -- standard flavors that I frequently make myself at home.  The only unique one that I tend to get a lot is their vanilla cupcake with guava and passion fruit icing.  I can just eat batches of that icing!  They publish their menu online, so you can check out their cupcakes availability before heading to the shop, so you can bet that on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, this girl will be passed out in front of their store in a guava-and-passion-fruit-icing hyperglycemic coma (this is why I am writing this review on a Friday).

1 star off: could use more unique cupcake flavors
1 star off: Their frequent buyer program machine is broken probably indefinitely, so you are out of luck on that buy-5-get-1-free deal.

I had been looking for a good Cajun/Creole brunch place since moving to San Francisco and completely miss the one I liked in Denver.  I am so glad I found Brenda's!  It is a small restaurant that serves big flavors.  I recommend:

* Flight of Beignets: If you are not sure which flavor you want, why not get all four?  They are quite large, so be sure to save room for everything else.  I never had a savory beignet before, and liked the crawfish and cheddar one a lot.
* Hangtown Fry: This scramble had huge, crispy oysters that went well with the crispy bacon and scallions.
* French Toast: My 6'0" omitting-the-weight-here husband could not finish the large 3 thick slices of brioche they served, even though it was so good with their butter pecan sauce.
* Cream Biscuit: Nicely toasted and crispy on the outside, but soft and fluffy on the inside.
* Grits: Very creamy without the greased-up over-buttered feel.

I completely over-ate.  And just like me, the the parking meters outside Brenda's tend to overeat coins too, FYI, so make sure you bring extras.

This is a great restaurant, and I am surprised that it is not more popular.  We called a few hours before dinner time on New Year's Eve and got a reservation.  Their menu changes daily, so it is hard to make specific recommendations, but it is safe to say that everything on the menu is delicious.  We got:

* Bone Marrow, Caviar, and Tarragon on Bruschetta (New Year's Eve special): This was one of the best appetizers I had all year.  Incanto, if you are reading this review, please make this a regular item!
* Handkerchief Pasta in Ragu Sauce: very fresh pasta
* Paccheri Pasta in Braised Cabbage, White beans, and Bacon Broth: The broth was amazing.
* Cabbage, Hedgehog Mushrooms, Mustard, and Pecorino: The delectable oily vinaigrette tied the salad very well together.
* Duck Breast with Radishes: The meat was seared well and the plate looked so pretty.

1 star off: I asked for a side of olive oil, and it was good, but they charged me $5 for it without any warning.  Incanto tends to sneak in miscellaneous charges without telling the customer, according to other Yelpers.
1 star off: Service got slow when kitchen got busy.  It took us ~45 minutes to get the entree.
1 star extra: Kudos for being child-friendly.  We brought our toddler, and saw many other families with babies, toddlers, and tweens.  Even though the place was full of kids, the ambiance was still fun and romantic.  We did not hear any crying babies due to the awesome acoustics i.e. no one else heard my toddler's farting noises either!

At first, I thought it was super-cool to attend a party here.  Well, it was super-cool, but in the temperature sense.  All the women were wearing dresses and freezing.  The men were wearing jackets and pants and were cold too.  Even in the bathroom, they did not have warm running water!  The venue is a barrel room, so they must keep the temperature cold for all the wines in storage.  Even with a warming fan, the staff pointed it toward one poor woman at the table next to ours, and her hair was flying everywhere throughout the night.

During dinner, the food was sparse and came out cold, likely due to the cold room.  The staff was inattentive -- it took then over an hour to refill our waters.  When we asked for more bread, the venue ran out of bread.  A woman at my table started eatting the butter because was no food left!  Later in the evening, the venue ran out of hard liqueur.   How can a winery run out of alcohol?!  It seems like this is a common recurrence (see review from Yelper Nina Y.)

Thankfully, the party itself was a lot of fun because of the great people, but I would not recommend using this venue for any party.

1 star off: no heat
1 star off: no warm running water
1 star off: no bread
1 star off: no alcohol

...kinda like the North Pole.  Except the North Pole probably has more alcohol. Show owner comment »

I have been looking for a good eye cream for a long time.  I really like their Creamy Eye Treatment With Avocado - it moisturizes my eyelids and undereye areas well.  The avocado oil does create a subtle green hue around the eyes right after application, but it is only temporary.  With the winter dry weather, I was also looking for a good facial cream.  Their Ultra Facial Cream is very light and non-greasy - it feels great on my face.  At the end of the day, I almost do not want to wash it off!  Lastly, I bought their Creme de Corps Soy Milk & Honey Whipped Body Butter.  The texture is cool and different -- never used whipped body butter before.  Things are on the pricier side (shampoos are $48?!), but overall, I like Kiehl's because their products work great and are not too fragrant.  No itchy/scratchy/runny nose Yelpers here.

We took my mother-in-law's Rolex here to repair the watch's main spring and gasket, and was pretty happy with their service.  When I picked up her watch, they polished the watch and bracelet too, so it looked brand new!  Too bad I can't say that I had more expensive watches to do more business with them. =)

I think Golden Gate Regional Center is good idea in theory (helping people with developmental delays), but there are a lot of kinks they still need to work out.  My son has a slight gross motor and speech delay, which prompted his pediatrician to make a referral for "early intervention"  -- the thinking is that the earlier one intervenes, the more likelihood that a child can benefit from early therapy to develop normally later.  Well, it took 3 weeks for an intake nurse to call us back after our pediatrician made the referral.  When the nurse finally called me, she was a little condescending and assuming without having even evaluated my family.  She said things like when both parents work and the child is in daycare during the week, the child is probably not getting any teaching or encouragement from daycare.  Instead, she suggested that we take him out for more learning opportunities like going to story time at the library DAILY.  Well, excuse us for having 2 full-time working parents...

It turns out that Golden Gate Regional Center only accepts children who are more than 30% delayed under 2 years old and more than 50% delayed over 2 years old (read: very developmentally delayed).  So for my son, because he only has minor delays, the referral was a waste of time.  I'm okay with this though, since I know kids all develop differently.  As long as he is healthy, that's all a mom can ask for.

A friend of mine took her child to the Golden Gate Regional Center in Mountain View, and said that location is a tad faster and had a little better experience.

1 star off: condescending intake nurse
1 star off: the "early" intervention program really doesn't happen very early

This is such a little restaurant tucked away in a little section of Grant Ave. that I did not expect the flavors to be so big and bold.  We had a shittake mushroom soup with truffle oil, seared toro tuna salad, Chilean sea bass, and a braised pork shoulder.  I loved most of the dishes, especially the two appetizers.  The Chilean sea bass is seared really well, locking in all the flavors of this fish.  The side of green beans and noodles it came with were mediocre though -- kind of like dressed up Chinese food a la P.F. Chang's.  The braised pork shoulder had a piece of crispy skin fried separately and placed on top of the pork meat, which I loved chewing on.  The soy broth it came with was so flavorful that I drank it all up.

The House has their food presentation down.  Every dish was plated in an artful way.  Lots of people take photos of their food here...so bring your camera if you are one of those people who post instant photos to Facebook everywhere they go.

1 star off: Desserts need more work and creativity.  The chocolate truffle cake just tasted like any frozen chocolate cake -- or a la P.F. Chang's as well.

We hired Edward Comerford to file amended tax returns for Federal and State.  The entire process took *4 months* to complete, while other CPA's only take 1-2 weeks for such a simple task.  This was during off-season too.  While meeting with Ed, he was always cracking jokes and trying to be funny; we really just wanted him to do his work.  His office is kind of messy, with other clients' receipts everywhere; this concerns me as he does not take into clients' privacy into consideration.  Because of his ridiculously long delay, we ended up missing an IRS deadline.  I called IRS to plead for an extension, and to my surprise, they were much more pleasant than Edward and accepted my request.  We finally gave him an ultimate deadline to finish everything.  He did meet our deadline...however, he only did the State amended return, but still charged us for doing BOTH State and Federal!  I confronted him about it, and his response was "Well, you are the one who hired me."  Wow.

Needless to say, we took our business elsewhere -- even TurboTax is more professional.  Working with Ed was one of the most stressful interactions we've ever had with a tax accountant...I didn't even know that CPA's could create more stress than the IRS.

1 star off: awful professionalism
1 star off: awful turnaround time
1 star off: awful charges
1 star off: awful jokes

There are not many places where you can get a huge, tasty, drippy, and completely satisfying sandwich for $7.  I love their special garlic mayo sauce.  Come to think of it, that's probably what makes their sandwiches drippy -- but I love it.  Little Lucca sandwiches are definitely a 2-hands, full-contact deal.  Weenies not apply.