Pastry Olympics

Because yesterday was sort of a "holiday" in my family, last night my husband and I went out to dinner at the famed "Laduree" on the Champs Elysees.

If you have not heard of this place, then you might want to google it. But, to offer a brief sum: Laduree is an established "patisserie" turned tea room/restaurant that is known for having among the best macaroons and other pastries in Paris. In addition to the main restuarant that is on the Champs Elysees, there are a couple of other, smaller and slightly less venerable off-shoots in the city.

I hadvisited one of the other locales, the one in St Germain de Pres in the 6th arrondissement, and had tried their macaroons. Salted caramel and chocolate were the flavors I tried and they were, indeed, delicious.

Although, and as an aside, you might be interested to know that despite the hoopla surrounding this place, they did not receive the Maggie White #1 ranking for macaroons in Paris. Thus far, they are in the top three. However, the contest is not yet closed as I have many more months of tasting before awarding the official gold, silver, and bronze mythical macaroon medals.

Anyway, after hearing from a few Parisian sources that the "Laduree experience" was not to be missed--despite the intimidating lines of teeming tourists who may likely bite you in the arm due to the frenzy and frustration they feel as they wait for interminably long whiles to sample the goods. We figured we wanted to try it out anyway.

Well, I figured as much, anyway. What kind of low-level and self-appointed pastry police would I be, if I did not give one of the most well-known pastry houses in Paris a proper whirl? All in the name of duty, here.

Also, the thing is that we are tourists, so trying out very-touristy places is really not something to eternally scoff at. We actually avoided the lines because we made a reservation on-line, and I encourage you to do the same, as such a course of action seems to be a no-brainer. We also avoided the crowds because visiting on a Monday evening means there are significantly fewer prime-time pastry purveyors than there would be in attendance on, say, a Saturday apres-midi.
In terms of decor, the exterior of the Laduree establishments are lovely. They sort of remind me of the tea room in the Plaza accented with a few Willy Wonka touches. The inside of the resto was like being in an old-school library and also like sitting in the middle of a mint-green frosted cupcake. In short, it was a tad Alice-in-Wonderland esque.

So I obviously loved it. I feel compelled to mention that the bathrooms were unbelievable. Expansive, with a huge "sitting" area, many stalls, lots of mirrors, immaculate fictures. It is a rare find in Paris to have a WC in which you could turn around without bumping into the wall, let alone one in which you could perform a full ballet performance.

For food, we had "velvety" chestnut soup with parmesan, a gorgeous salad of asparagus (that was neither stringy nor bitter--decidedly tough to accomplish with asparagus), mozzarella, rocket, artichoke hearts, and oven-dried tomaties (amazing salad--and I am also something of an amateur salad connoiseur), and scallops on yellow beets with a shredded beet salad. The food, despite all the whiners on trip advisor who claimed it was "average" and "over-priced" was pretty darn delectable actually.

And those same Bitter Bettys on TA who were squaking about the "poor" and "absent" service might want to take note that our server was lovely. He was busy and thus not a helicopter-like hoverer, but that was fine by us. He did his job efficiently and kindly, so I give the service two thumbs up.

The problem for me, actually--and we may need a drum roll here--was the dessert. It was not that good, and this was borderline devastating to yours truly. We had a Mont Blanc, something for which the place is known, which consists of a semi-soft meringue, covered with a layer of cream, and then topped with whole-wheat-spaghetti-ressembling strands of what are actually "vermicelli" of chestnut cream. It might have been fine, except that it quite frankly reminded me very much of the soup in flavor. As such, it was a bit yucko. We also had some macaroon sandwich type caramel apple business, the precise name of which is eluding me but it was something descriptive like "Pomme Caramel". The macaroons were yummo, and the creamy caramel filling was dee-lish. The trouble was that the filling was hardly existent. Quite sadly, there was only a dollop in there. And then there were these huge chunks of apple that sort of overwhlemed the dessert. It was not utterly bad, mind you, but hardly proved to be a viable contender for participation in the Maggie White dessert olympic games.

So this week we leave for our "vacances d'hiver" and we will visit Vienna, Prague, Berlin, and Amsterdam. I am almost as excited about the pastries in Vienna as I am about the drugs in Amsterdam.

By the way, the not being sarcastic resolution has not stuck for me. At all.

But I am so excited about the pastries in Vienna! I have high expectations about returning with some olympic medal hopefuls. Will let you know...