Breadboard Bakery [Arlington MA]

Man, I am so far behind on reporting back here that I’m just taking a DEEP breath and moving onward. I finally reported back on our recent trip to the Canaries, but it’s time to turn back to Boston!

My beloved Commune Kitchen was replaced by Breadboard Bakery. We checked it out the last 2 weekends. First visit, I was a little taken aback by the physical changes to the space. What used to be a cozy spot (it was formerly Zocalo before Commune) is now a bit more colder in feel. But I get it, it’s a serious bakery and perhaps decor is not foremost in their minds. Still, I miss the old place. We got a loaf of sourdough, both cream cheese and raspberry kolaches, and a ginger muffin. The ginger muffin was surprisingly bland. It needed something…salt? More spices? It just wasn’t ginger-forward enough for me. The kolaches went very well with coffee, not too sweet, a nice pastry. But I’m just not a pastry/sweets kind of gal, so I’m probably not qualified to judge the sweet stuff. But the bread, man, that was a tangy, chewy, delicious sourdough. Spring onion loves his sourdough and he was really into this rendition.

On our second visit, we went bread all-the-way. One plain sourdough boule and an awesome seeded sourdough loaf. Both were delicious. In particular, the seeded loaf, when toasted, gave off an almost sesame seed oil scent (my mom’s comment). But at $26 for the 2, not inexpensive, although I appreciate the work and love going into the bread. This will be a biweekly or so habit. I still have to get my Bread Obsession sunflower seed loaf at Berman’s and a sourdough from Mamadou’s. Unless, of course, I get my butt back in gear and start baking bread again.

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Oh yum, seeded sourdough, I am so going there next weekend! Thanks for the intel!!

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Thanks! I’ll check it out as well. The price tag though… I just blew about that on a baker’s dozen Bagelsaurus bagels though, so I guess it’s splitting hairs as to which is the better carb value.

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Are they made out of gold - these are ridiculous prices when you can get pretty good bread at places like Iggy’s or even at some WholeFoods which have an in-house bakery, like Newtonville

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checked this place out yesterday after going to La Victoria for lunch. (My torta here mostly inspired more why-is-Mexican-food-in-Boston-so-blah refrains from me). Not really knowing the old space, I kind of liked the raw bakery feel of it and it sure looks like they care about their product. The bread certainly isn’t cheap (and I side with honkman in feeling like when you can get a respectable Iggy’s loaf for 3-4$ I look somewhat askance at the 8 or 9 dollar loaves I see a lot lately) but they have a cool selection so I bought one that I put in the freezer to try later. We also bought a cream cheese kolache and a ginger cookie, and both were excellent. The kolache especially had a great texture and a low level of sweetness.

I heard the owner talking to a customer about the kolaches and how her friends in Houston were all about savory kolaches and not the sweet, which made me hope someday she’ll try that route because even though their sweet one was great, I’d love it more if it was cheddar/sausage or boudin or something.

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@digga the sourdough is $8.50, and seeded sourdough is $9.50. We haven’t changed prices since we opened. We use 100% Maine Grains flour (regional and freshly milled) in those two breads.

Daisy

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@Daisy Thanks for the clarification. Makes me wonder what happened on the day I went in for bread. I definitely purchased only the 2 loaves that day and I didn’t want to seem rude by questioning the nice cashier. :thinking:

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Y’all it sounds like an honest mistake happened when I checked out and dang it, I don’t like questioning nice hard-working folks. @Daisy has offered a solution which is really awesome but to paraphrase the Beatles, I’ll let it be…just as I did back when it happened. Hell, I’m ok with my money going to the small joints.

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