Most buzzed about bakeries in North America

Bread, COOKIES, muffins, scones…  I want it all.  It’s my inner Veruca Salt–she cannot be appeased.  Well, not without a hearty handful of carbohydrates, anyway.  For fun, I pulled together a list of the most talked about bakeries on Urbanspoon, based on votes and buzz, and did a little digging into their tastiest wares.  I’ve got quite the continental bakery wishlist now!

 

 Fervent Foodie is a contributing writer for the official Urbanspoon blog.

We’ve all heard the term “sweet tooth,” which makes us crave crazy things like Snickers bars slathered with Nutella and marshmallow fluff, but the less familiar “carb tooth” creates some equally intense cravings for yeasty, buttery breads and crumbly three cheese scones. To satisfy both a sweet tooth and a carb tooth, a trip to the bakery is in order.  There are over 10,000 bakeries listed on Urbanspoon, and their specialties span the gamut from meat-filled ciabatta to double-stuffed whoopie pies.

Continue reading about the best bakeries in the world.

Duchess Bake Shop Meringue — photo by Nikki Stoyko

Looking for more  of the world’s best bakeries?  Check out this list of Urbanspoon’s most talked about bakeries.

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Tastefully handling distaste

Fervent Foodie is a contributing writer for the official Urbanspoon blog.

I’m three bites into my shrimp fajitas at a new (to me) Mexican restaurant, when the waitress appears at the table inquiring how the meal tastes.  I pause, wiping my mouth as a stall mechanism, while I frantically try to piece together words and form a polite response.  A simple “it’s good” is all I can muster.  She smiles and walks away.  I frown.  The shrimp’s fishy odor, which arrived at the table well before the plate, lingers over me like a putrid fog.  The menu touted fajitas with onions and peppers, but…

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bad meal 2

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Crazy big news!

A month or so ago, I was piddling away evening hours on Facebook when something caught my eye in a big way—Urbanspoon, the leading online local restaurant guide (and a resource I use religiously), was seeking bloggers for the official Urbanspoon blog.  What!  A crazy excitement washed over me, and with blazing eyes and a butterfly filled belly I began furiously typing an application letter.  I introduced myself and my blog and my deep passion for carbohydrates.  I wrote about my love of Urbanspoon and how I am both a long-time user and contributor on the site.  I flaunted my Urbanspoon Prime status, and even though I couldn’t visually emphasize that elite status with sprightly jazz fingers, the page was sparkly enough to imply them.

That was the easy part.

Then the hysteria began to diminish and the self-doubt speak started flowing.  Was anyone even going to look at this thing?  There had to be thousands of applicants…  What am I doing?  My shoulders hunched, but I trudged onward and began to plead.  If selected, I promised not only homemade chocolate chip cookies but also a 5-course Italian dinner, complete with my famous tomato basil bruschetta and Amazeball’s meatballs (of course, famous here is used in relative terms).  I sat and stared at the blinking cursor on the screen.  It didn’t seem like enough–it wasn’t enough.  I had no choice but to level with them, so I wrote “If given the opportunity to be a blogger for Urbanspoon, I’d probably poop my pants (in a good way, if that’s possible).”

Then I emailed it off, poop reference and all.

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