Battle of the Croissants

If you like croissants, then Paris could be your wonderland. I have had what I considered good croissants before, but in Paris, great croisssants are abound. They are just everywhere. Pretty much every corner bakery does an awesome croissant. This battle of the croissant focusses specifically on the butter croissants, and my goodness, you really do taste all that delicious butter... mmmmm.... butter....

I have taken the liberty of trying many a croissant so that you, my dear readers, will be able to skip the average croissant and go straight to the good stuff, should you have the pleasure of visiting Paris.

First, I'm going to give out the Crap-soint Award. Let's get that one out of the way first, shall we? The following croissant happened to be, well... kind of ugly. As far as the texture was concerned, it was absolutely flaccid. There were no little crispy bits whatsoever. It was like it was dead or something. That award goes to the Eric Kayser butter croissant. This was a bit shocking to me. I was really looking forward to trying stuff from Eric Kayser. I tried two things (this croissant and a financier), both were really disappointing. I've had much better from my local supermarket. If you compare this one to all the others, you will see, it just looks wrong.

Next, we have a croissant from the very popular Paul chain. This was served to Mr P and I with some tea and orange juice for breakfast one morning. What I liked about it is that it came to our table nice and warm. It was flaky and pleasant, but it was pretty unremarkable. Actually, if you look at it, you might think it could have been warming in the oven a little too long.

This Dalloyau croissant was absolutely gorgeous, but in this case, looks were deceiving. It tasted fine, but it was missing the flakey factor. Absolutely no golden flakes of deliciounsess cascaded from this beauty. Shame. You can't have a croissant without the flakes. I don't know, maybe this was sitting on the counter for too long.

The following is a croissant I ate at a little bakery just meters away from my hotel, Mama Shelter on the Rue de Bagnolet, called Au Pain Dorie. I chose to eat this croissant for no other reason than it was right on my doorstep. It was definitely awesome. It was very fresh, flaky and buttery. Note the Coke Light in this picture. Ha! Who am I kidding?? The tag line of my trip should have been, "I'll have 100 croissants and 1 Diet Coke please, I'm watching my figure you know."

And here is another butter croissant on that same street, the the Rue de Bagnolet, called Boulangerie Diabi. This was super buttery and very nice. If I was going to be picky though, which I will be, I would just say it could have been a touch more flaky. That one disappeared down my cake hole very quickly too.

Just wanted to show you the cute little sign on top of the bakery. Isn't it sweet? Look at the detail work on top!

The croissant at Angelia was simply lovely. As you can see it was quite a beauty. I must take off points though because it had obviously been refrigerated (as it was kind of on the cool side), and that made it less flaky than it would have been if it was really fresh.

For the runner up I give the award to the croissant from Le Deux Magots. It tasted very fresh, and it was pretty much anything you could wish for in a croissant. It just wasn't as pretty as some of the others (although looking at it now, I feel like drooling).

Of course, there can only be one winner. I didn't have to ponder over it. It was clear from the moment Hubby and I tore into the fluffy golden masterpiece. The hands down Queen of the Croissants is: Laduree's butter croissant. A beauty among beauties, and a feast for the senses. This was by far the flakiest and butteriest (is that a word?) of them all.

Apparently, other Parisians concur...

So here are some things I learned.

• Try the little bakeries that line every street of Paris. They tend to be cheaper and fresher than at the big chains, for the most part.
• You can often judge a croissant by looks (the Dalloyau was the exception to this rule though). If it looks good, it probably is. If it looks deflated, stay away.
• Croissants taste much better in France than they do in England or America. MUCH BETTER!

Well, as you can guess, my belly is now stretched to the limits. There were a couple of other croissants I would have liked to have tried, but didn't get the chance. I tried to eat all of Paris in five days, but even Moi couldn't handle it. So, next time I go, I'm going to do a Battle of the Croissants, Part Deux!

p.s. Yes, I really did eat all of those croissants. It was fun! ... don't hate!