Babychan

Babychan sits on the ground floor of Germantown's Neuhoff Residences, a Japanese bakery and cafe from the crew behind Kisser. The pastry case is the real reason to keep coming back — a sesame swiss roll and a rotating lineup of Japanese baked goods built with a light hand, sweet enough to want more of but never cloying enough to stop at one. Pair that with a Hokkaido latte and you've got a legitimate morning habit, not a novelty stop.

The sit-down side doubles as a satellite of Kisser's menu, running familiar hits like the chicken katsu sando alongside items built specifically for this space. That's the smart part: it reads less like a spinoff cashing in on a name and more like a second, distinct idea sharing a kitchen with the first. Nothing else in the city is doing Japanese pastry at this level, and that alone earns the trip.

It made a national recognition list, which tracks with how the bakery case performs. What it doesn't have is the same tightness and intensity that defines its parent restaurant — this is the looser, sweeter sibling, good enough to visit on its own terms, just not quite the knockout Kisser is.