Hate. Hate this trend. Irrelevant in most ways since I was not likely a potential customer of these folks but I prefer an anonymous cash-based payment system.
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You went on my kind of food trip!! Everything looks so good.
We easily found parking and walked into Patisserie Chanson.
I had been here before. On my previous visit, I had tried the carrot and earl gray cakes. Both were fine, but nothing about them left a lasting impression. Iâd rather have a regular carrot cake. However, this humble little scone from that visit stood out in my mind.
I went to get a couple of these scones to munch on while we looked at everything else. That was when it happened. They said there was a 2-for-1 special on all scones, breads, croissants, and kouign amanns! Pinch me, I must be dreaming. This was my deepest, darkest fantasy; that I am a supervillain whoâs special ability is to walk into a bakery and have them sell me kouign amanns for half price. I just stood around for a while making sure it was real. I thought, life canât get any better. It got better, they started giving us samples of everything, including the Everything Croissant which was beautifully layered.
They had 3 flavors of kouign amanns. I believe the seasonal jam was pear jam.
Iâll get into my rant soon, but everyone elseâs favorite pastry here was the black sesame KA hands down.
In fact, they loved it all. The everything croissant tasted like it had cheese in it, a nice touch. Once my nirvana died down, I wasnât as impressed as they were. They held their ground on the principle that yummy beats definitions and technicalities. I thought the kouign amanns were a bit bready inside, while the croissants were actually too airy inside like you were eating just the crust. I also thought the kouign amanns were too deeply caramelized and too flavorful (yes, I know that sounds wrong.) In contrast, some of the croissants were greasy inside, which would have been fine except that I couldnât taste much butter in any of the croissants. (Maybe it was an off day. I wonder if they use clarified butter.) Also, the fine powder on the everything croissant tasted burnt to me. The scones, including the cheese scone, were great.
I must say, however, that after all this time, I think about Chanson often. Some days I actually want a mostly crusty croissant. Other times, I want a couple bites of a âtoo flavorfulâ kouign amann. I guess I liked their offerings more than I thought I did. Regardless, the black sesame KA is permanently on the pastry priority list so weâll be back for sure.
Across the street was Eataly, a place Iâd been looking forward to visit for a long time. My initial impressions were very disappointing. I felt like I was at an upscale Wegmanâs food court. And the Nutella worship annoyed me after a while, too.
But then we saw this.
Their gelato had an ingredient I didnât recognize, otherwise I would not have been able to resist. Because it was so cold, the pastry stations were much busier than the gelato counters. As such, it was difficult to ask specific questions. I liked how they had marked the pastries with tags indicating ingredients like gelatin, alcohol, gluten, nuts, soy, etc. However, some items I know should have gelatin and alcohol were not marked, so I felt uneasy going by the tags.
The pastries didnât look appetizing in person, but looking at the pictures now, I think weâll have to visit again at a less crowded time. And before going to 15 other bakeries.
We wandered around a bit more. The bread looked good.
I wanted a brioche bun, but we ended up getting a classic focaccia for the kid. Also, we got a chocolate chip cookie because that was their most popular item. Both were fine. The cookie was solid, just not greater than the sum of itâs (very high quality) parts. The focaccia had too much olive oil. Still, I appreciated their generous spirit. The focaccia disappeared in no time.
We headed back to Flushing for the night, stopping by Yi Lan for the cumin lamb in that first post.
End of Day 1.
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Wait, that was all one day?? Wow, Iâm impressed!
We were underwhelmed there too. I probably had the worst tiramisu of my life there!
I love your reports and your love for sweets. but, pardon my ignorance but what are kouign amanns ?
This slayed me.
I am loving your reports even though I have no sweet tooth and will never go to these bakeries. I am gob-smacked that all of this was Day 1. Hats off!
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Kouign amanns (KAs) are cousins of croissants. Itâs a very similar dough, but with more sugar â I think of KA as a cross between a croissant and sticky bun. The extra sugar and shape combine to provide sweetness, crunchiness, and caramelization. At home, the most foolproof recipe I have found is in RLBâs The Baking Bible where itâs actually the cover photo. That version uses bread flour, however, and by the time youâre on your third one, you can tell. I.e., itâs still really good. Other recipes Iâve tried always leak butter. Honestly, for a reasonable approximation, you can just use croissant dough and sprinkle sugar on it before shaping like a KA and proofing.
There are different versions. The first one I had was at a French bakery in Baltimore that makes KAs far crunchier and a slightly different shape than any others Iâve seen. The ones at Chanson were much taller than any others Iâve seen.
At the risk of blasphemy, it dawned on me during our trip to NYC that although I love KAs, croissants reign supreme for me. I think adding flavors to croissant requires more artistry. And plain croissants are more versatile in the sense that you can easily add things to a croissant yourself in either a sweet or savory direction. Also you can do more with stale croissants.
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Iâve been planning this for years, ever since parenthood started and we couldnât run off to NYC anymore. Frankly, around that 2011 time frame I felt the bakeries in NYC were no longer consistent anyway, probably due to expansion by our old favorites like Amyâs Bread and Bouchon. I didnât feel inspired anymore. At the same time, new bakeries with great offerings were opening up in Baltimore. Then, Baltimore started trending downward and I just resolved myself to improving my home baking. But now, holy moly, New York is better than ever! Competition is so fierce, if youâre selling a substandard tart, your customers will just walk down the street and get a tart from someone else. And prices at many places are the same as Baltimore, too.
Iâd love to do savories, but itâs very hard because I only eat halal. At least it helps me focus, I guess.
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Wow, half price is awesome! I feel like a lot of customers are really looking for and now used to baked goods that have an in your face flavor, although I understand what you mean here. Scones are literally the last thing i would order anywhere from too many past experiences with ones the texture of sawdust, but your recommendation has me reconsidering that stance. Iâll be nearby chanson next weekend and stop in to try your favorites.
Were you in the eataly nutella cafe? I thought that was on 23rd st, seperate from eataly itselfâŚ
the fresh focaccia is my favorite from the breads they offer, some days itâs more oily than others. But you basically have to eat it that day, the following day itâs not nearly as good. I wasnât a fan of the other loave$ i have tried and gave up. They were all lacking salt and the crust seemed to be tough and chewy which isnât my thing.
Fantastic day of eats you had!!
I know what you mean about scones, it could be we just randomly happened to visit these places on days when they made good scones. Just fyi: The cheese scone at Chanson has jalapenos.
The nutella cafe had a separate entrance, too, but was also connected to the rest of eataly. They had nutella-flavored pastries, as well.
Where was your favorite kouign amman? (Please donât say dominique ansel! I canât dealâŚ!!) my good friend has a birthday friday and i she looooves those, and she would kill me if i bring her anything more than a one serving treat since she itâs January and of course sheâs doing some version of nothing delicious diet yet makes an exception for her actual bday day. Sheâs anti-chocolate but about anything else goesâŚ
Jalapenos in the scone would certainly be a surprise to any british scone eater!! Ha!
If your friend likes black sesame in any capacity, I wouldnât think twice: Get the black sesame KA from Chanson. Actually even if they are out of the black sesame, the plain KA from there is still nice and tall and caramelized. Even the hazelnut KA and jam KA were good. Iâd eat any of them right now, no questions asked.
My personal favorite was Daily Provisions, but everyone else liked Chanson. Also, Daily Provisions runs out early, especially on the weekends. (Was just in NYC again last weekend and Daily Provisions ran out before noon.)
Sorry to hear your experience at Eataly. I always enjoy it but I understand that it does have the Wegman feeling. I actually donât like Wegman.
I understand itâs just a one time experience. Itâs hard to truly give a positive or negative review to any place when youâve just visited once. Only a local or someone who visits often can give a proper review. Sometimes you can get a sense that a particular item or style might not be for you, even on a good day, but to comprehensively review a place of that size would take quite a few visits.
And, even the places we didnât like, we still enjoyed. The people running Eataly are trying hard to create a sort of food heaven and I appreciate their vision.
Have you been to Chelsea Market? It is a like high-end food court with amazing food. When I first visitd it, I loved it. However, after a few more visits, I still like it, but I donât like it as much as the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia. So I get why you may think Eataly a little too Wegman. I can see that. There is definitely a layer of superficial glamorous.
bmorecupcake. Where are you visiting from?
Thanks! Iâm thinking to go early morning to pick them up and then iâll drop off to her office at lunch. Iâll stop and see if daily provisions has the plain and then iâll get the black sesame (she will certainly bring it home and her husband has a serious sweet tooth so this way he gets one or half and half!) i lay just endure the dairy enduced misery and get one for myselfâŚ
Yes, Iâve been to Chelsea Market twice. It was overwhelming both times. I think now I would have more confidence and enjoy it more.
Funny, our first visit to Reading Terminal, we didnât like it at all (except Bassetts). On subsequent visits, we were impressed more and more. Itâs been 2 years since our last visit to RTM. I hope that cheese shop is still there where you could watch them make curds. I loved that place.
I am from Baltimore.
Same here. The first time I was dragged there⌠I didnât get whatâs the big deal. Yes, I believe the cheese shop is still there and the place is still very popular with their grilled cheese sandwich.
We had a lazy start to Day 2, taking some time to recover from walking in blistering cold weather the day before. Our phones claimed we walked more than 4 miles, but I never know if I can trust those figures.
We finally headed out and arrived at Robertaâs in Bushwick before noon. The entrance was semi-unmarked.
We stared at it for a while, not sure if that was a real entrance. And if it was, were we cool enough to walk through an entrance like that? Then a huge lunch party exited and asked me to take their picture. I walked in. Wood burning ovens fascinate me, inducing a trance-like state, so I didnât make eye contact. Where were the breakfast pastries? âOne door downâ, I was told. One door down looked wrong, but I walked in anyway. Someone in there told me it was yet another door down. And it was.
In Baltimore, you always ask before snapping pictures. We were doing the same in NYC out of habit. Everyone had given us looks like, âWho asks permission to take pictures in 2017?â Robertaâs was the first and only time someone appreciated that we asked first. Anyway, they were out of garlic knots already. The breads looked good and the croissants looked great. We got the sticky bun and chocolate chip cookie.
The sticky bun was advertised as salty and it was, almost inedibly so. The salt was mostly on top, though, and the interior was actually good. I wonder if they use their croissant dough for the sticky bun. At first, I did not like the cookie at all. It felt crispy in an overbaked way. As I kept nibbling, the crispness gave way to a soft center. However, the cookieâs crumb did not change from the edges to the center. I donât understand how they did this. When I imagine a cookie with crisp edges and a chewy center, this is exactly what I think of. The chocolate was layered very well, too. Both the sticky bun and cookie had a savory quality I couldnât quite place. Maybe they bake them in wood-fired ovens.
Next, we quickly dropped by Dough Doughnuts in Bed-Stuy. I wimped out and got a cinnamon sugar doughnut. I wish I had tried one of the other flavors to see what type of ingredients they used, and to see if the toppings were well-balanced.
For something savory, we stopped by A&A Bake and Doubles Shop. I had saved this place since reading about it in the Cheap Eats thread. It took a couple minutes to find the shop. And I didnât realize what I was after is actually called a âdoubleâ â I had never heard that term before. But for $1.50, the double here was a steal. It reminded me a lot of a Punjabi breakfast item called âbhaturaâ.
Nearby we saw a halal eatery named Abir. Curious, we walked in. The menu was eclectic. Their offerings included pizza, burgers, and steam table items. A lady was vigorously stirring a pot of grits in the back. We finally settled on a beef roti.
To me, roti is a simple flatbread I eat with many weekly meals. I know in Malaysia it means something different. In this case, ârotiâ meant a filled paratha-like flatbread. But not filled like how I am used to. Rather, they took the paratha over to a steam table, topped it with various beef and vegetable items, and folded it like a package. It felt (and tasted) like a shortcut method, but I havenât looked into it. We saw a dedicated roti shop driving out toward Clinton Hill, and next time will probably check that out.
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Iâve been to that doubles shop!! I had a friend who lived nearby and on the rare occasion i was in her neighborhood (easily an hour by subway from where i live) i would get one of those crazy sandwich/wraps , without the extra hot sauce though. And my friend ate there easily twice a week. I havenât been in at least a year (she moved) but that place is a great find.
The roti looks like a funny burrito!
