Today, my friends and I went to Vaccaro’s Italian Pastry Shop (http://www.vaccarospastry.com/) in Little Italy, Baltimore. Vaccaro’s is well known in the Baltimore/DC area for its highly delectable pastries and treats, having seven locations in Maryland as well a couple of smaller cafe counters in the area.
While Vaccaro’s fame for delectable cannolis (you can order boxes of them) and Italian cappuccinos may be widespread, for Hopkins students, Vaccaro’s is most renown for it’s Monday night special: all you can eat dessert from 6-9pm.
But there’s a catch – it’s not a buffet-style freefest for all you can eat. Rather, once you’re seated in the chique cafe, you will be waited upon as in a fine restaurant. You are allowed to order one dessert and one drink at a time, and can only order the next round once you have finished at least half of your current dessert. The waiting time between desserts is typically a few minutes, which gives your stomach a chance to realize its full and can’t take any more sweet. Furthermore, the portions of these desserts is huge (an 8-inch eclair….really necessary?) so that you will find it hard to difficult to order many.
It’s a challenge of grand proportions, to see if you can eat more than you paid for the privilege of all-you-can-eat. At $15.50 for this, we did the calculations: you need to eat through roughly 2 desserts and 1 high end drink (cappuccino or milkshake) to break even.
It seems almost like an annual tradition now to go to Vaccaro’s; my friends Max, Carrie, and Timothe dined their on July 27, 2009. And here on July 26, 2010, exactly 52 weeks later, my friends Jack, Isaac, Anne, and Anne’s friend Bianca went again on this epic excursion.
Because parties are limited to 4, we split up – boys and girls. Jack, Isaac, and I (all three of us brothers in the same fraternity, by the way) realized that our bond and sheer will power alone would not make the battle any easier. Thus we came up with a strategy – order dishes which come in multiple pieces (the 5 cream puff platter, for example), so that we can share. Though we may still get not get our money’s worth overall, we will get to try many more desserts this way. A great strategy no? That is what we thought when we were seated and had made our first order. The waitress came carrying a platter full of delicious looking pastries and foaming drinks….
…..and then the battle for mind-over-stomach began.
We also ordered a Chocolate Hazelnut cake, a bowl of Tiramisu gelato, a bowl of chocolate gelato, and another round of cappuccinos. Unfortunately, I did not get snapshots of these desserts.
As the two hour mark passed, I will admit, we were getting quite full. The two girls had each gone through 2 desserts and a drink each, and were slowly attempting their 3rd dessert. We had each gone through 2 desserts and 2 drinks (except I only had 1 drink, the cappuccino was enough), and we had just barely gotten our money’s worth. Yet, we needed one more. One final hurrah to show that we would win this war. And here it was, the big one….
A little over 2 hours, and we had been done for by the sugary goodness of Italian pastries. This may be a painful night due to stomach issues, but let’s be honest.
It was totally worth it.