Batch is an offshoot of P*ng, a dessert bar that serves regular food too--so, I suppose, you might call it a restaurant though it's mostly a bar. I had a bad experience there in the winter when I went there with Diana and our friend John just to have dessert and they weren't very gracious about it. (Well, the bartender wasn't very gracious; he wanted us to order drinks and lots of food. He scowled at us when we didn't.) But the food was fun and interesting and the chef, Pichet Ong appears to be a colorful character with eclectic taste. (I mean: check out the picture above; that's a VERY eclectic bakery.)

Lauren and I perused the glass case and chatted with the funny woman behind the counter who was eating pork scraps ("that's what they give you when you work in a restaurant.") We asked her advice on sweets and she suggested both the lemon cupcake with a yuzu filling and the strawberry cupcake with a rhubarb filling:

We made a pact to share each one; Lauren opted for the knife method while I opted for the teeth method. "Sorry," I said. "Hope you don't care about germs."

The cupcakes were surprisingly good. First, they were delicate and well-proportioned in terms of the ratio of icing to cupcake to filling. Second, the flavors really popped: the yuzu filling worked really well with the lemon icing; the rhubarb filling worked really well with the strawberry icing.

"These are so good," said Lauren.

"I agree, said me.

Before we knew it, we were back on the street, parting ways. But it was excellent reuniting with Lauren and even more excellent to do it with cupcakes. Next time you reunite with a friend, do it at Batch. I plan to reunite with their cupcakes sometime in the near future.