The Mission, it's an eclectic not so little neighborhood that while it has a distinctly Hispanic vibe to a majority of the area, it still has off-beat and sometimes unexpected places tucked away of it's main drags. Occasionally I'll stroll through the hood and see what new things have popped up since my last visit. One recent place I came across was Mission Minis. A tiny blink and you'll miss it on a side street cupcake shop that primarily serves up--mini cupcakes.
I want to say I had vaguely remembered hearing about them somewhere before and after a little search on my phone realized I had seen them on Cupcake Wars, one of the many food competition shows that the Food Network seems to show these days. I'll leave it up to you folks to see the video and find out if they won or not. It was mid afternoon and I had a little grumble in the stomach so what a good time to get a snack here. It's a tiny place, pretty much a small counter and four seats in the window and that's it. Not so much a place to hang out, more a get and go. Though while I was there several folks came in to pick up pre-orders so they do that. They do 10 flavors but had only 7 left that day to choose from. Unlike other places, the minis here are only $1 each, so in the interest of gluttony I mean reviewing, I got 4 of them to try, though in all honesty I could have eaten each of the 7 flavors they had but I wanted to show some self control. First up was the red velvet and Meyer lemon.
For a mostly one to two bite cupcake it fit the flavor profile of red velvet with a slightly moist, spongy chocolate flavored cake with a sweet tangy dollop of cream cheese frosting on top. It said the cake was a buttermilk base but I couldn't distinguish it here and I was okay with that. The Meyer lemon was decent though the cake part fell on the moist to sticky sided and the lemon could have been kick up a notch considering it's a small bite I wanted a little more tang than I was getting here. Supposedly there was a lemon curd on here but it must have melted into the cake as I didn't really taste it. The frosting was the same cream cheese and they do a good job with that, not too sweet and very creamy. Then I moved on to cinnamon horchata and pumpkin spice.
The horchata was a Mexican rice milk cake with cream cheese frosting topped with ground cinnamon. Again the cake was a little on the sticky/moist side and to be honest I outside of the frosting I didn't get much flavor from either the milk or cinnamon. It was a very slight cupcake flavor wise and once I finished it didn't leave much of a taste memory. Next was the pumpkin spice with dulce de leche cream cheese frosting. The cake part hit the whole sticky/moist again so if nothing else they were consistent. I could taste the spice--like nutmeg and cinnamon here though not so much on the pumpkin. The frosting was a tad sweeter but not so much it was overpowering.
Overall I'd say the cupcakes were decent and except for the red velvet just a bit too much on the sticky side for me. Thus the red velvet was the best of the four to my tastes. The cream cheese frosting was also good and they make sure there is enough to go with every bite. I'd say if you are in the hood and happen by the shop you should go in and pop one in your mouth, for only $1 you'll get enough of a sugar fix to power you through your stroll around the rest of the neighborhood.
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