Craving Porto’s Bakery

What do we call a seriously packed restaurant filled with people lined up to order food, drinks, cakes, and pastries at every single moment from open to close? That restaurant would be Porto’s Bakery & Cafe, where people are lined up everywhere we turn just to place an order from this Cuban restaurant in Glendale. After waiting in two different lines, I was able to sneak my way to the “cake line,” which was much shorter than the other lines to the counters to order. I needed desserts for a small get together at our house with friends, and Porto’s is always a hit! There are so many options that it’s almost impossible to decide what to chose, everything looks so incredibly mouthwatering. With some restraint, I ordered a Strawberry Shortcake and a dozen individual sweets including the Tiramisu, Carrot Cake, Triple Chocolate Mouse, Fruit Tart, something called the Banana Mille Fuille, and the most amazing dessert of all the Josephine (Senorita). I was helped by Stanley, who actually allowed me to order the cold sweets from a different counter in addition to my cake. I asked him what the most amazing thing was that I couldn’t leave without, and he suggested the Josephine describing it as a cake with layers of crispy puff pastry lined with custard and real whipped cream, finished with powdered sugar. I am so glad I asked him, it was ridiculously good! Everyone loved the strawberry shortcake as well. Like all cakes from Porto’s, the order was completely devoured. It’s no wonder Porto’s is always full of customers.

Craving Raffi’s Place Restaurant

Have you heard of Raffi’s Place Restaurant in Glendale? If you have, then you already know how great the food is there. If you haven’t heard of it or have never eaten Raffi’s food, then you are missing out. Raffi’s is an Persian/Iranian restaurant and the food is soooooo good. It’s always a hit to serve Raffi’s when we host parties, so that’s what we did for our party over the weekend. Depending on the amount of people, we vary the quantity of our order, but we usually get the chicken and beef, mahi mahi, swordfish and salmon, with sides of vegetables: green peppers, tomatoes, and chopped cucumber salad. All catered orders come with rice, pita bread, yogurt, onions, lemons, mint leaves, radishes seasoning salt, and butter, which they tend to be very generous with. So if you don’t like waste, then ask for less of these things. Even when we do ask for less, we still have left overs.
We got our new dining table delivered the day of the party, so it was fun to dress it up for our visitors with chargers, place settings, glassware, and cute details like personalized napkin rings (with guests’ initials), candles, and a smiling Santa.
One last note, if you can’t handle things that are too spicy, don’t eat the seeds of the peppers from Raffi’s. If you’re anything like me, you’ll end up crying at the table (involuntarily) with your mouth on fire.