The Perfect Croissant

  After reading an article in Le Figaro about where to find the best croissants in France, we decided to test these claims and go for a tasting. I mean, this is France, where they have the best croissants in the world, so this claim to number one will hold the title of "best croissants in the universe". Now, croissants are a big deal here. They're in every single boulangerie, although, I don't know how many parisians actually get one every day. It seems to be sort of a treat for the weekends maybe. 

So number one-Pierre Herme'. (he has an accent, but my american keyboard doesn't do those). Anyway, he's French, but got his start in Japan of all places. Luckily, he has two shops here in Paris and we found one near the St. Germain des Pres area. Very fancy. It's a tiny shop full of friendly people and lots of yummy goodness. At first all I saw were macaroons and chocolates. But in the back corner were the simpler fare. We took one of three different kinds to share and rank. 

First, the croissant. Just a basic classic, but here, a good 80cents more than normal at 1.80euros. Just by looks, it has the nice golden brown, almost burnt looking color. That's good, you should think it's too dark to eat. But then, when you bite into it, you discover the nice buttery flakiness and see the layers. Now the layers are the sign of a high quality croissant. It's a time consuming process to fold them over and let them rise, so less quality ones will not look so nice inside. And this one did taste divine.

The second one, a croissant Ispahan. Now this is a specialty of Monsieur Herme', which would explain why I've never seen it anywhere else. It looks like a croissant, but with subtle amazing differences. It's a basic croissant, but with a nice glaze on top, along with raspberry sprinkles. Inside, it has a rose flavored almond pate filling, with a little raspberry and litchis flavoring too. It's such a nice, subtle, not too sweet combo that quickly became my favorite. 

 Which is surprising, since my usual favorite is the pain au chocolat. Pierre makes it with special chocolate, so it's a pain au chocolat gianduja. Which is chocolate made up of 30% hazelnut, as opposed to nutella spread, which is 50-50. And it was really really good chocolate. I could tell it was better stuff than a regular pan au chocolat, much thicker and darker. But that's where the excitement ended. While it was very good, it was not that amazingly better than any regular pain au chocolat from the neighborhood boulangerie. 

We enjoyed the viennoiseries across the street in the Place St. Sulpice, facing the church with the same name.

Here we are all satiated and happy, full of yummy goodness.