Day 16: Las Delicias

Late last night at Elizabeth Billiards, Jimmy, a fellow twenty five year-old male, remarked that he loved being twenty five because you can do anything you want. He's exactly right. And it is indeed awesome. His statement is, of course, not true on a literal level--I have no delusions about my ability to defy gravity, kill someone and avoid culpability, or play professional basketball. Rather, what he meant was that I could conceivably do something get up late in the morning and decide that I want to eat a whole bunch of pastries instead of normal lunch food, while sitting on my couch and watching soccer on TV. Who is going to tell me I can't? Coincidentally, that's exactly what I did today.

Las Delicias is a cake shop and pastelería on Central Ave, located in the strip mall just before Landmark Diner. If you're there for pastries, grab a tray and a pair of plastic tongs from underneath the cases on your right and go to work. Then bring your tray up to the counter where your bill will be tallied and your sundries bagged. (It took me about ten minutes to figure this out.) With a little help from the tiny woman at the counter, I selected a trenza, a pineapple empanada, a churro, and a slice of cheesecake. Then, to make it a more balanced meal, I added a two more empanadas, one ham and cheese, the other chicken. All this cost only about eight bucks, and the woman even let me use a credit card in spite of the $10 minimum.

The winners of this group were the trenza and pineapple empanada. The former is a dark pastry with raisins, probably made in a pan and cut into large blocks. It's the sort of thing Entenmann's does, except with about three times less sugar. The latter is a sweet empanada with fruit filling. If you don't know what an empanada is, live a little or see Day 9. The churro (a long, thin piece of fried dough covered in sugar) was tasty enough and filled with something akin to dulce de leche, but churros were never my thing anyway. Thumbs down on the cheesecake: dry, light, and bready.

The "real food" empanadas were at least an improvement over Pollos Mario, but I have yet to taste one that ranks with those of Buenos Aires.

The Score: Like any sweets, these are good in moderation. (Yes, even if you're 25.)