My pastry tasting in Paris was kicked off at La Grande Epicerie at Le Bon Marche, the utterly gorgeous food hall of the oldest department store in Paris. It just happened to be a short walk from our apartment. When I walked in, I felt like I was in a glorious French version the food hall in Harrods; it even had similar immaculate glistening seafood “pastries” on display… and of course, everything else… endless counters of fresh food of every sort, and then aisles of packaged food and confections from around the world. I finally made my way to the pastry counter…

First of all, credit must be given to my brother who immediately got into the spirit of pastry tastings by ordering three of each kind of macaron that they had. Credit also goes to the counterperson who sensed his excitement and proudly told him that she was able to fit two more macarons into the side of the box. The vanilla and lemon were especially good. The macarons had a slight chewiness where the cookies met the filling, but the flavors were well-pitched.

Chad gets credit for discovering chouquettes. Attracted by the vivid colors and creative shapes of their pastries, I passed over them until Chad suggested trying these brown little mottled balls. Once again he showed off his ordering prowess — they turned out to be one of my favorite new discoveries. They are simply choux pastry dotted with a certain kind of sugar, but I think that their economy belies more complex interplays of flavor and texture — the crispy-on-the-outside pastry matched by the crispy sugar… the dots of sugar deepened by the caramelization on the pastry… the crispy outside of the pastry giving way to the softer wall inside and finally the pocket of air inside until you reach the other layers at the end of the bite…

They’re simple, but not foolproof. The pastry must be very thin. I had a chouquette from another bakery that had a thicker layer of choux pastry so that there was barely an air pocket inside, and it was boring, bordering on the very bad — just chewy and sweet, like an anemic cream puff. I swear that I heard a chouquette from La Grande Epicerie exhale when I bit into it. That’s good.

They reminded me of the gougeres that started off my meal at French Laundry… These might be a nice way to start off dessert…

On the other hand, this navette was pretty boring. A sweet, flaky roll… slightly like a breadier croissant. Maybe it’d be good with a fruit or chocolate soup…?

I like how this Napoleon is crafted vertically, with that clip of puff pastry and chocolate on the bottom to support it all. This also made it mobile, for eating out of hand. It also tasted great.

The cannele was too eggy and moist, on the inside and outside.

For what must have been a very special reason, I passed up the stunning chocolate tarts and cream-based tarts for these modest fruit tarts. They were nice enough, but I didn’t like the pasty sort of apple puree that was mixed in with the apple bits in the apple tart and the cherry tart was a little too chock full of dried cherries and their skins, even if they weren’t all that chewy anymore. The chocolate eclair was quite nice.

This was a great tart, with a chocolate ganache base below the coffee.

A doughnut pretzel.

Red Currants were widely available in Paris. I miss them now.

Raspberry juice is good.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 20th, 2006 at 11:11 pm and is filed under Highly Recommended, Paris, Sampling, Stores. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.