Local LA Gifts For Your Foodie Friends!

Los Angeles has so many great finds that you really shouldn't look elsewhere for that special gift for your food loving friends. Yep, there are many lists like these, but here are my picks (you know, if you were buying something for me ... )

1. Truffles from Compartes Chocolatier
Compartes is one of the best local chocolatiers and they put cute artwork on top of their truffles too. Wouldn't a box of gingerbread truffles with penguins on them just be an adorable gift? Although everyone would love to receive the Macallan whisky truffles too.

2. Purple Forest Pie from I Heart Pies
Pumpkin pies? Boring ... Try I Heart Pies' black currant and speculoos pie. It doesn't just look striking with the purple color, with its creaminess and slight tart flavor, this is going to be someone's new favorite pie.

3. Caramels from Le Bon Garcon
Still my favorite caramels ever (it's just so smooth and never sticks to my teeth), Le Bon Garcon keeps coming up with new seasonal flavors that I always love. The newest one is persimmon with some guava and lime (though I'd love to see them make one with stronger persimmon flavor). Get them while you can!

4. Boozy chocolate bars from Ococoa

Your foodie friends probably like to drink, too. Appeal to both sides with these beautiful chocolate bars from Ococoa, filled with caramel flavored with things like Irish whiskey, Tawny Port, and honey liqueur. I've seen them sold at Farmshop.

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Treatsa: Hand Delivered Treats

It's that time of year again, when you're thinking of what gifts to give or send. As a food lover, I always want to send something food-related, but how do I send it to the people I won't see in person? Many bakeries/ chocolatieres offer some sort of expedited shipping, which tend to be pretty expensive and still take at least one or two days. And what if the products get ruined in transit? Treatsa tries to solve this problem by offering a service for hand delivering treats (currently only available in LA) from their partner bakery, one of the best and most well known in town.

Hand delivery costs $12 - comparable to usual shipping costs from bakeries, regardless of the order amount, so it's better if you go big. Treatsa picks up your order fresh from the bakery and delivers to your door the same day.
They offered to send me the "Premium Chef's Choice Package" ($50). They have smaller and bigger options as well. I scheduled my order for my last day in LA. The bell rang and there was the guy holding two boxes tied with red ribbons.

I think you can figure out which bakery they came from, yeah?

The Platinos

A huge box of cookies and more! And plenty of my fave, Brown Butter cookies with brown butter, chocolate chip, and sea salt.

Of course, the beauty of hand delivery is that you can get goodies that are typically not shippable, like these chocolate fleur de sel babycakes. I hope they will include the butterscotch pot de creme to at some point!

The total for this order is $62, which isn't a small amount to spend, and there were definitely A LOT of goodies. Send this to a big family, or an office. It's sure to please.

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