Sensational Bites on Southport

Has anyone else tried Sensational Bites at 3751 N. Southport? It's a bakery/cafe that replaced another bakery/cafe in the same location, and opened in the last few months. I seem to recall from Chicago mag's Dish newsletter that the proprieters/bakers have experience at Sweet Mandy B's and maybe a few other places.

After a friend raved about a cake he'd had from there, I finally made it there yesterday. I tried cupcakes (2 chocolate with vanilla buttercream icing), an apricot bar and an almond ball. The total came to about $5.50.

The cupcake was awesome...at least a 9 out of 10. It was the antithesis of Cupcakes Bakery's cupcakes, which I think we've all panned. It think it cost $1.35 each. Probably the moistest cupcake I've had recently, topped with a delicious (and generous) serving of icing. My only complaint: the "regular" cupcakes are all iced in a large flower pattern...the flower covers almost the entire cupcake, but there's a little hint of cake showing. So it has two consequences: 1) if you're an icing fantic, like I am, you think, "there's room for more icing on here" (even though there was a lot of icing on there) and 2) if you buy more than one cupcake and wait a day to eat the second one, you run the risk of it going stale faster because you have exposed cake. I suspect that may be why they make it overly moist...

I had chocolate with vanilla buttercream. They also had chocolate with chocolate buttercream; yellow cupcakes with vanilla buttercream and yellow cupcakes with chocolate buttercream; chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter icing; German chocolate cupcakes with the tradition coconut-whatever frosting (I'm not a fan of German chocolate); and a special touchdown cupcake that was chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream inside the cupcake, chocolate ganache on the top and a squiggle of vanilla buttercream as decoration.

The apricot bar was also fantastic...again, I'd give it a 9 out of 10, at least. I usually think of fruit bars as having a pastry crust, then fruit/jam, then a strussel/oat top, but this didn't seem to have a pastry crust (or maybe it was a very thin brown sugar crust). Regardless, I'm not a huge pastry fan, and love brown sugar/oat topping, and that's what this had. It was gooey and stickey and bendable and just delicious. I think it cost about $2.50 for a 3" x 3" square (it was thin...less than 1/2" deep, close to 1/4".)

The almond ball (or maybe it was described as amaretto ball) was the only thing that didn't wow me. I love almond/amaretto, so I was prepared to be happy with almost anything. But the almond flavor was very subtle, although the ball was quite non-amaretto flavorful...it just didn't do much for me. I wouldn't buy one again because so many other things were tempting me! It cost 50 cents. They also had a few types of rum balls and maybe a hazelnut ball. If any of those flavors are up your alley, it's probably worth the 50 cents to try them.

I definitely recommend trying this place...great prices and terrific sweets.

Walking past there after a trip to the Music Box for a Mary Poppins sing along, my 2.5 year old daughter spied the cupcakes in the window and begged to go in. When inside she decided on a blue snowflake cookie instead. The cookie cost 2x as much as the cupcake, which surprised me (likely because I live half a block from Cupcakes.) I don't think I actually tried anything, which is highly unusual for me, but the treats sure looked nice.

I went back again today and bought a chocolate-topped peanut-butter rice krispie treat, which was very tasty. (Also got another cupcake, which was just as good.) The rice krispie treat was probably $2 and change, which seems to be the going rate. (I think Sweet Mandy B's charges about the same price.)

But their cupcakes are relatively inexpensive. They cost $1.35, I think, compared to Cupcakes, where they cost about $3 the one time I went in there, and Sweet Mandy B's, where I think they're about $2. So I guess the inexpensive cupcakes at Sensational Bites just makes the other things they sell at going market price seem more expensive.

It reminds me...I was in Manhattan in November, and made a point to try some of the more popular bakeries that specialize in cupcakes. I was pleasantly surprised to find that some of the better (and more popular) ones were selling cupcakes priced at lower-than-average Chicago cupcake prices. (Can you tell that I'm a cupcake fanatic?) At Magnolia, for example (where the lines stretched out the door, and the cupcake was delicious), I think it cost about $1.50 for a normal (non-oversized, non-fancy flavored) cupcake. Until I stumbled across Sensational Bites, I don't think I'd found a decent cupcake in Chicago that cost <$2.

Ten years after opening at 3751 N. Southport Ave., Sensational Bites will close in August, its owner announced this past weekend. On Sunday, a sign was posted in the storefront window thanking customers for years of patronage.

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150706 ... -decadence