Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Pastry Heaven - Paris

When in France.....you need to stuff yourself with pastries!!! hehehe We certainly did that as much as we could inbetween meals. But being so hot, we didn't get to try as much as we would've liked since we weren't that hungry. (Might have something to do with non-stop 3 course meals!)

This is a local patisserie near our hotel. It was awesome to grab a few things to keep us fuelled during the day.




God I love the look of so much berries!


One morning after stuffing our face with a buffet breakfast, we went "What the hell, we're in Paris!"

Chocolate Eclairs for a post breakfast.....

Ho ho ho! SOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD!

Across the road, about 50m from our local Patisserie, is another Patisserie! Although this one is more dessert oriented and offered less sandwiches.


I'm pretty sure I drooled onto the display case when I saw that Raspberry slice!



Giant and normal Macaroons


We couldn't decide what to get so we bought an assorted box and lasted us a few days! It took a few days because we only ate it when we were in the hotel room. When we weren't in the hotel room, we were buying other pastries! lol

One thing I love about holidays, is the planning. And for our trip to Paris, boy did I plan. I printed out a list of the Top patisseries in Paris. Then I printed out a Google map of each of them, and the route from the closest metro!

Everyone who went to Paris kept saying Laduree, Laduree. So of course, it was the first one to check off the list! I wish I could've taken more photos, but they had a mean security guard standing by the door saying we're not allowed to take photos of the interior, the food, the decorations or anything else besides our faces. I guess it wasn't too much of an issue since once we got in, I got completely distracted by the food!

Shop front window




Our box of goodies!

Wild strawberry tart

Half of a giant macaroon

Half of a chocolate eclair

We also purchased some crossiants etc to snack on later. Surprisingly, Laduree was probably my least favourite out of all the shops we went to. Don't get me wrong, their pastries were divine! Except my mission was to find the best Macaroon, and Laduree's version was the least impressive out of all of them. Plus they only had 4 flavours to chose from, which included the basic Vanilla, Chocolate, Coffee and some other one.

Luckily, Pierre Hermes was just around the corner and they were crammed full of Macaroons!




Pierre Hermes had the biggest variety of Macaroon out of all the ones we visited. Well, they should, they specalise in it! hehe I think PH's Macaroons are probably the best I had. They had that moreish sticky fudgy consistency. And the combination of flavours.....heaven!

A few blocks from our hotel was Lenotre. For some reason, we never realised how close it was to the hotel until we stumbled across it when we went for a wander.





Oh yeahhhhhhhhh baby!


Another chocolate éclair

The lady working at Lenotre was super nice. We had just finished eating a huge meal and couldn't fit anything else in. But I still insisted on getting a few macroons to snack on later. I only bought 3, but hearing I came all the way from Australia, she threw in another 2 for me! Woohoo!

Violet Chocolate

Intense Raspberry

Double Citrus - Lemon Lime

Salted Caramel

I would rate Lenotre's Macaroons on par with Pierre Hermes. Mind you, I did eat the PH Macaroons after eating Laduree in 35 degree heat. I don't think I gave PH a fair go. Taking that into consideration, I would think PH's macaroons might be just a bit better under different conditions. Only way to find out? Go back to Paris and try it again! MuAHauaha

Oh, and since this a food blog, random pastry porn for your pleasure.....




7 comments:

Simon Leong said...

France is the best for cakes! especially their berry tarts. mmmmmmmm :-)

SoRMuiJAi said...

Oh yeah!!! I loved seeing huge punnets of berries everywhere I went! So much flavour compared to the stuff you get in Australia.

I can't wait to go back, maybe in Spring and Autumn when its not so hot. That way I'll have more of an appetite to pig out! MAUahAUah :D

Bean Sprout's Cafe said...

OMG, they all are super beautiful !!! Thanks for sharing.. One day I will go to Paris and try all those pretty things.. (okey..not all but some..haha). Really wanna try PH macarons.

SoRMuiJAi said...

You have to be careful when in Paris not to get distracted by other stuff! We were constantly greedy and having 3 course meals, which of course comes with wine. Lets just say, by the end of the meal, you'll have problems finding your hotel let alone a pastry shop! hahaha Made it hard to try everything when you're constantly full!!

Two fit and fun gals said...

thank you for sharing these gorgeous photo's

true food porn!!

look at all those carbs omg i feel fat just looking at them haha

what a fantastic trip filled with eating i would for sure come back sooo chubby :P

im sad to say that i never got onto the whole macaron phase - i don't particularly love them

grace said...

Paris sounds like WONDERLAND.
and haha I love how you planned out your patisserie hit list... I totally do that too

SoRMuiJAi said...

Betty: I personally don't have a sweet tooth. I'd rather a big bowl of hot chips over dessert any day. But in Paris, you kinda get all caught up with the sugary pastry thing. My thing was Macaroons and my friends was Eclairs! I'm sure you'll find something to obsess over when in Paris! hehe

Grace: my friend thought I was nuts for doing that. But he must've seen my deranged look when he suggested we should miss out on a few so tagged along ;)