Every time I eat brunch at Cafe Campagne I feel compelled to go get pastries at Le Panier afterwards. Maybe it’s just the whole French thing…eating {great} French cuisine at Cafe Campagne gets me in the mood for eating {great} French food for the rest of the day. Maybe it’s just because it’s right there. Maybe it’s just because my pastry-chef brain is simply drawn to anywhere that sells pastries. Who knows why. It’s just the way it is. And I am SO not disappointed about that.
The first time I went to Le Panier I didn’t post afterwards because…well…because I ate the pastries before I had a chance to photograph them, and having no food shots just ain’t right. This time I was determined to get the goods home in one piece so that I could do a proper job. So my point is that this isn’t the first time I’ve been to Le Panier, it’s just the first time I’ve had enough self-control to photograph first, eat later.
I {finally} decided on a Chocolatine (a cross between an Almond Croissant & a Pain au Chocolat) & 4 macarons – orange-chocolate, lemon, raspberry & chocolate. Miss Connie & the lovely Linda had just as hard a time deciding, so that made me feel better. I have no clue what they got, but we all left with our own cute little bag of yummy stuff.
Chocolatine: Pain au Chocolat with Almond paste & almonds
Now if you’ve been following along for a while (THANK YOU!) you may remember how I blasted Bakery Nouveau over in West Seattle. And how much I love Honore Artisan Bakery up in Ballard. And how I was undecided on Cafe Besalu. Well now I can tell you that even after a couple of visits I am still undecided on Le Panier, which is a surprise to me since so many people just rave about this place & it’s a rare day when there isn’t a line snaking around the inside & out the door. I wanted to love their pastries. I still want to love them. I’ll go back and try more. I know, it’s a hard life :-)
The Chocolatine was decidedly better than the Almond Croissant that I had at Bakery Nouveau, but it wasn’t a patch on the Croissanterie that I’ve had at Honore. You know how I am about pastries…just incredibly picky. I make no apologies.
This particular Chocolatine may have benefited from a few seconds in the microwave, or simply from being eaten sooner. My little Saturday shopping expedition had me running around town a lot longer than I thought – it was that gorgeous bright {kiwi} green leather chair & footstool at Kasala that got me all discombobulated – so shooting & eating was unquestionably delayed. Having said that, it was still a {wonderful} treat for a dreary Saturday evening.
Next up: the macarons. (PS. They are not neon colors in real life. The little on-camera flash just makes for bad images. Sorry about that).
As with the Chocolatine I am also undecided about Le Panier’s macarons. I preferred Honore’s even though I ended up with flavors that I didn’t care for. IMHO I think Honore’s texture is better, but Le Panier’s flavors won out – I could tell what they were even with my eyes shut, which was not the case at Honore.
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