Nilus Delights is a welcoming little bakery and café in Hollywood run by a couple who care about their customers.

Niranjan and Lus Maria ''Lucy'' Perera's menu includes sugar-free and low-carb pastries, cookies and cakes for those with special needs (Lucy is diabetic, so she understands).

Much of the business is takeout, but customers linger to chat with the friendly owners. The bakery serves breakfast with cinnamon-spiked chai tea and coffee and sandwiches on fresh-baked baguettes along with a plethora of baked goods, from fresh fruit tarts to jumbo muffins.

Niranjan specialized in pastry at a hotel management school in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, where he grew up. Lucy grew up in Miami in a Puerto Rican family. The name Nilus is from the first two letters of their first names.

The two met when Lucy visited a North Miami Beach pizza shop where Niranjan was working with a friend he met from his years at sea as a cruise-line pastry chef. They married three months later and have been together 13 years.

They opened Nilus Delights two years ago, with Lucy working the front and Niranjan baking. There are two tables inside, where customers can admire models of the novelty cakes Niranjan bakes to order in the shape of boats, sharks, sea shell fantasies, dolls, mermaids and much more. There are also a few sidewalk tables with umbrellas.

Folks start arriving early for coffee and chocolate or almond croissants or an omelet with toast. At lunch they come for sandwiches including Cuban, roast beef and Philly cheese steak.

It's the rare customer who leaves without a cookie or an individual tart -- apricot and marzipan, pear and almond, apple crumb, caramel and almond, Key lime and fresh fruit and custard, all with sweet cookie-dough crusts.

The cookie decisions are just as difficult -- coconut macaroons dipped in chocolate, Mexican wedding cookies dusted in powdered sugar, butter cookies dipped in chocolate, Dutch boys (like little ginger men but made from vanilla or chocolate dough), star and moon sandwich cookies, rum balls, raspberry pockets and big peanut butter, chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies.

Everything is homemade with heart, and daily leftovers are donated to a church or given to the homeless.

Linda Bladholm's latest book is Latin and Caribbean Grocery Stores Demystified.

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