Hit or Miss

There's the best little cafe/coffee shop (Caffé Aroma) in my neighborhood that has an array of food, baked goods and even beer and wine. Since I'm no coffee connoisseur, I can't speak about how great the coffee is but the ambience and teas get a thumbs up. I don't go as often as I'd like but they usually don't disappoint.

located at: 957 Elmwood Ave, Elmwood Village, Buffalo, New York

Rewind to last summer: I was on a not so thrilling date and we happened to go to Caffé Aroma for a post-dinner whatever. I saw cupcakes in the dessert case and decided to split one with the date (and also got a glass of wine too. Wine + cupcakes...not the best combo but interesting...). The red velvet cupcake was moist and delicious but for some reason I decided I would come back to Aroma for another and more thorough tasting of their cupcakes. Maybe I didn't want to associate the cupcake experience with the date but look what I'm doing now, just that! (This isn't the first time I've avoided writing about a cupcake experience because of a less than stellar date. I probably shouldn't have cupcakes on dates from now on...).

Anyway, a few days ago, I decided to grab a birthday cupcake for my friend Loren and one for myself. There were only Easter-themed cupcakes that day so I ordered one chocolate and one vanilla. Loren let me have a little tasting of her chocolate cupcake, which was topped with just a little frosting, green-dyed shredded coconut and jelly beans. The texture was a little thick, fudgy and not quite moist but the flavor was pretty good. And somehow the jelly beans worked with the cupcake. I was skeptical but since there wasn't a tower of frosting on the cupcake, I think the added sugaryness from the jelly beans was ok.

But then I got home and tried my vanilla cupcake (also topped with the Easter toppings), it was just BAD. Dry, dry, dry! Oh my god, by far one of the worst cupcakes I've had in a long time. I took one bite and in the trash it went. So now I regret not writing about the great red velvet I had over the summer. But the conclusion I've come to is that Caffé Aroma cupcakes are a hit or miss. They're baked daily at their sister restaurant: the schnazzy Trattoria Aroma, which has quite tasty food. They are $2.95 each.

For my ratings below, I decided to be nice and rate the chocolate cupcake, which wasn't nearly as bad as my vanilla. I'll try to keep the memory of the delicious red velvet in my mind and maybe the next time I take a trip to Caffé Aroma, I'll see some promising looking cupcakes.