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Archive for Bakery

Georgian Bakery and Cafe

Jan07

Restaurant: Georgian Bakery and Cafe

Location: 11749 Bustleton Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19116. (215) 969-9900

Date: November 21, 2018

Cuisine: Georgian

Rating: Like bland Afghan

_

It’s tradition on the day before ThanksGavin, for us Gavins to go somewhere ethnic.

7U1A1876
For the last 2-3 years we’ve been going to an Uzbek place but this year it was slightly shifted to a nearby Georgian place — oddly located next to the home depot.
7U1A1875
Here’s the restaurant itself in what was clearly intended as a big box store space.
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Inside is oddly sterile too. But we have a huge table to ourselves. There was one other large party but otherwise empty.
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Some Prosecco to start.
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Salad. Like a Greek salad.
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Slightly different salad — with more garlic.
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Eggplant paste toast — excellent.
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Eggplant salad. Roasted.
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Bread.
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Boring “spicy” sauce. Wasn’t really spicy.
7U1A1833
From my cellar: 1995 Robert Ampeau & Fils Meursault 1er Cru Les Perrières. Great bottle, fully mature.
7U1A1834
Weird sweet pomegranate juice or something. Very sweet and bland.
7U1A1836
Fried chicken. Pressed flat.
7U1A1839
Egg bread. Fried egg inside what is pretty much a pizza bread. Pretty good, if very mild.
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Cheese bread. Sort of like a cheese pizza with no sauce. Bland but tasty.
7U1A1851
2014 Domaine Dujac Morey St. Denis 1er Cru Les Chaffots. 92 points. Bit of reduction. Pure, clean red fruit.

7U1A1848
Georgian dumplings. Giant with thick skins. The meat inside was pretty good and these are clearly related to Chinese boiled dumplings. So heavy though! And badly badly need soy sauce, vinegar, and chili paste.
7U1A1852
From my cellar: 1977 Badia a Coltibuono Chianti Classico Riserva. Mature, earthy, a touch sour.
7U1A1854
Kabobs of the pork, veal, beef, and chicken variety.
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Sturgeon. Ick. Reeked and tasted like seared heavy fish oil. I needed tongue therapy after this.
7U1A1873
Peanut crunchy cake. This was dry but pretty good.
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We had a fun night and service was diligent — although there was an odd very long (45 min?) gap between the dumplings and kabobs.

But the food, while well prepared, was quite bland. The Uzbek place we have gone to several times was tastier and a bit more varied — and Afghan food, which is very similar, has about 10X the flavor. Georgian seems to be like carbs, cheese, and fairly bland meat and mixed up with no seasonings.

For more Philly dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Westwood Chinese – Northern Cafe
  2. Eating San Francisco – Zuni Cafe
  3. Eating Hoi An – Brothers Cafe
  4. Quick Eats – Pho Cafe
  5. Little Sheep Hot Pot
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Bakery, Dessert, dumplings, Georgian, kebab, Philadelphia, ThanksGavin, ThanksGavin 2018, Wine

Baking Hot Dessert

Apr13

Restaurant: Erick Schat’s Bakery

Location: 763 N Main St, Bishop, CA 93514. :(760) 873-7156

Date: March 25, 2016

Cuisine: Dutch Bakery

Rating: Great sandwiches and dessert

_

Passing through Bishop countless times I’ve often observed the crowd forming around Schat’s Bakery and wondered what it’s all about, so I decided to see.

The place is ancient for California, founded in 1938 by Dutch immigrants. Imagine what Bishop was like in 1938? It’s hardly a metropolis now!

Schat’s has too sides, both packed, the sandwich/bread/savory side and the sweet side. We stopped off first to get some lunch and had to wait 20 or so minutes.

Besides all the classic sandwiches and house-baked bread they feature jams, beef jerky, and all sorts of accompaniments.

Pastrami sandwich on rie. How could I resist? I did sub in aged Gouda cheese for swiss. I hate swiss cheese. This was a great pastrami. Tender and juicy and the bread was nice.

Classic tuna. As American as it gets, and they do it well.

There is a LOT of bread at Schats, many types too.

And more bread.

And even hot cross buns!

Over on the sweet side are all sorts of Northern European influenced goodies — plus some clogs, Delft, and other Dutch kitsch.

Bearclaw danish ring with almond paste. Woah! That looks good. I had a mini version and it was pretty old school and delicious.

Sweet buns.

Old fashioned cookies.

Crazy shaped cookies.

Chocolates.

Candies and more.
 And even things like this marzipan and buttercream mouse on cheese!

Schat’s is certainly a fun (and popular) stop over. It was mobbed on both sides, which the pictures don’t totally represent because I was trying to keep the people out of the frame. We left both satisfied and with a sugar high!

For more Mammoth dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Fully Baked – Euro Pane
  2. ThanksGavin 2011 – The Italian Market
  3. We Toss’em They’re Awesome
  4. ThanksGavin 2015 – Salty Saturday
  5. Quick Eats: Panini at Home
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Bakery, Bishop California, Dessert, Erick Schat's Bakery, Pastrami, Sandwiches

Little Sheep Hot Pot

Oct21

Restaurant: Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot

Location: 140 W Valley Blvd #213, San Gabriel, CA 91776. (626) 307-1901

Date: October 18, 2015

Cuisine: Mongolian Hot Pot

Rating: Middling quality hot pot

_

Hot Pot is an ever popular style of Northern Chinese / Mongolian food. Basically a pot of boiling broth is used tableside to cook various foods.

Little Sheep is a small chain, the name refers to the prevalence of lamb in Mongolian cooking. Fortunately it’s not, “Little Marmot,” as the squirrel-like rodent is common on the Mongolian steppes and has been known to end up on the cook fire.

The interior is fairly modern.

The menu, somewhere in the middle of our markup process. You have to understand that you basically order plates of stuff, which you add to your hot pot.

Little Sheep does have a sauce bar. It’s not nearly as extensive as the one at Hai di Lao, particularly as the left and right halves are the same, but it’s still more than sufficient to make a great sauce.


These are my sauces. On the left is a richer sesame paste one, on the right a lighter ponzu style.

There are two broth types here, “plain” and “spicy.” This is spicy, which isn’t actually that spicy unless you eat the chilies — but good luck avoiding them all!

2009 Sea Smoke Pinot Noir Ten. VM 89. One of the Sea Smoke flagships, the 2009 Pinot Noir Ten impresses for its depth and sheer power. Layers of flavor flow through to the huge, dramatic finish in a full-bodied, intense Pinot. Once the intensity of the fruit fades, there is not much development in the glass, which results in an overall impression of one dimensionality. The Ten is one of Sea Smoke’s flagships. It is made from all ten Pinot clones planted on the property. While a solid effort, I expected more from this offering, which also happens to be the wine through which I discovered Sea Smoke years ago.


Supreme lamb shoulder.


Premium Lamb leg.


Supreme angus beef.

USDA Choice rib eye.


Beef of an indeterminate nature.

Pork belly. Look at all that fat.

Free range chicken. Surprisingly good, for chicken.

2009 Aubert Pinot Noir UV Vineyard. VM 93. The 2009 Pinot Noir UV Vineyard once again shows the richness and heft of the clay-rich soils in this site. This is an especially dense Pinot, even by Aubert’s standards, that needs another year or so in bottle to start shedding some of its baby fat. Despite the wine’s richness, there is more than enough underlying minerality to give the wine a sense of proportion and harmony.

Lamb meat balls.

Beef meat balls.

Pork meat balls.

Luncheon meat. A.k.a. spam. Delicious.

Pork sausages. Little wieners.

From my cellar: 2004 Joh. Jos. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese. 92 points. #1; COLOR-nice golden; NOSE-burnt BMX tires meets peaches, apricots & pears; spritzy; TASTE-beautiful bluestone; gorgeous dried Apricots; viscous & oily; gorgeous peach juice; very polished; great, great wine; very delicate; nice floral aspects; subtle cactus juice & on the finish; a concoction of Cantaloupe & dandelion dancing on the back-end; very complex; great balance of acidity & fruit; great structure; absolute elegance at it’s finest; DS-92; GV-92.

Scallops. Total fail here, these were not fresh.

Shrimp. These were fine.

Calamari (squid).

Crab legs. Got a bit mushy in the pot.

Fried fish cakes. Pretty tasty, with an interesting chewy texture.

2010 Domaine / Maison Vincent Girardin Meursault Les Narvaux. Burghound 89-91. An elegant, pure and cool nose of white flower and citrus leads to minerally and well-concentrated middle weight flavors that possess a racy, intense and well-balanced finish. This dry and relatively forward effort should offer 2 to 3 years of upside development if desired.

Miscellaneous vegetable plate.

Miscellaneous mushroom plate.

Soft tofu. I love it, but hard to get out of the pot.

Hot Pot Dumplings. Chewy, tasty. Not sure what if anything was actually inside.

Udon noodles. Again hard to get out of the pot.

Fresh egg noodles. I loved these. Mixed with the sauce they made one of those tangy/spicy Chinese noodle dishes.

Glass noodles. Also great.

Chinese donut. Not actually sweet at all, but with a very nice crunch.

Mongolian bread. Hot from the oven and nice. Who says Chinese don’t make bread?

Mongolian beef pie. This one was delicious. We had a second that was a bit overdone and wasn’t so great.

2010 Copain P2. 89 points. Neither red, white nor rose. Slight tannins from red give body and structure while the pinot gris gives a fragrant juciness that allows it to go with so many modern foods, especially on a warm day with a slight chill.

Lamb dumplings. A little weak.

Pork dumplings. Same. Just kinda soft without too much flavor.

Lamb skewers. With the usual cumin.

Beef skewers.

Chicken skewers.

At the end, the cooling sauce is starting to congeal.

Overall, Little Sheep is a decent hot pot place. The broth was good, the sauces good, and many of the ingredients like the meat and breads quite good. The seafood was fairly lousy, and the dumplings weak. They also don’t have a ton of broth choices and you have to share the pot with about 4-5 people.

Now I’d place it about Hot Pot Hot Pot (with a 8+ person per pot and no sauce bar), but below Hai di Lao. However both of the first two have a bit more variety of non hot pot ingredients than Hai di Lao.

After, we wandered downstairs in this monster Maxi-mall (which also includes Spicy City) and checked out this bakery.

A couple of us got this layered Crepe Cake. It’s just crepes and custard, chilled. Mild, sweet, milky and delicious — like a sort of crepey tres leches cake.

Another mild cakey thing.

And they also have various teas and slushies. On the left a milk tea, on the right a mango slushie.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!

Related posts:

  1. Pecorino – No Sheep is Safe
  2. Hot Pot Hot Pot
  3. Happy Table – New Bay is Old Bay
  4. Heavy Noodling at JTYH
  5. New Bay Seafood
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Bake Code, Bakery, Chinese cuisine, Dessert, hedonists, hot pot, lamb, Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot, Mongolian cuisine, Riesling, Wine

Fully Baked – Euro Pane

Sep14

Restaurant: Euro Pane

Location: 950 E Colorado Blvd. Ste 107. Pasadena, CA 91106. (626) 577-1828

Date: September 2, 2012

Cuisine: Bakery

Rating: Solid trendy bakery food

_

Euro Pane is a highly rated little bakery/restaurant in Pasadena. They serve simple breakfast/lunch fare in the modern New York style.

The interior is stylish, although the seating is limited and leans toward the backless.

The menu.

Even better, the pastry cabinet. You can see the popular macarons over on the right. I didn’t try them this visit.

“Pain aux Chocolate (Chocolate croissant).”

“Beet salad.” This was a nice take on this ubiquitous dish.

“Prosciutto, brie cheese, arugula, flatbread.” The bread itself (barely visible below) was chewy and sweet with an almost cornbread like vibe. The overall salad-like effect of the thing was very tasty.

“French toast.” There is real Creme Chantilly back there too.

“Chocolate tart.” Very dense and classic little pastry.

Overall, Euro Pane did a nice job. People rave about the egg salad sandwich here too. It looked good, as did the salmon flatbread. If you are out East and in the mood for some upmarket bakery-lunch fare, the place is solid.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Maison Giraud at Last
  2. Maison Giraud
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Bakery, Beet, Colorado Boulevard, Euro Pane, French Toast, Macaron, Pasadena, Pasadena California

Maison Giraud at Last

Nov16

Restaurant: Maison Giraud [1, 2, 3]

Location: 1032 Swarthmore Ave, Pacific Palisades, Ca 90272. 310-459-7562

Date: November 16, 2011

Cuisine: French

Rating: Awesome French baked goods

_

I’ve been waiting for Maison Giraud, the new local (just blocks away!) Pacific Palisades restaurant bakery from acclaimed LA French chef Alain Giraud to open for what seems like forever. Finally, the day has happened. Today is the first time they are serving at all, bakery and breakfast. By next monday they plan to be open from breakfast, lunch, and dinner.


The Swathmore Ave frontage has been revealing itself in stages since at least the 4th of July.


The menu is out front. We didn’t have time to actually sit down. You can find the full menu on the website. Soon…


Clean inside. We proceeded straight to the bakery counter to find that it had already been picked fairly clean :-).


These gorgeous (I only had my iPhone for photos, sorry) pane raison.


On the left a single chocolate croissant and on the right a croissant batter thing with tiny blueberries and bakeries custard. We tried both of these. Stellar! Much better I thought than Bouchon Bakery. The pastry had that crunch/chewy mouth feel that is intensely Parisian, but very rare in the states. Must be the butter from Normandy!

We’ll be back as soon as we can (perhaps not until after the holidays) to try it out for dinner. The menu, at a glance, looked a lot like Annisette’s minus the raw bar. There was a lot of good stuff though. I didn’t see a Croque Madame though. I may have to ask for it special.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
Comments (4)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Alain Giraud, Bakery, chocolate croissant, croissant, Croque Madame, French Restaraunt, Maison Giraud, Pacific Palisades, pane raison, Restaraunt, Restaurant Review

Paulette Macarons

Apr02

Store: Paulette Macarons

Location: 9466 Charleville Boulevard at Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90212 310. 275 0023

Date: March 30, 2011

Cuisine: French Macarons

Rating: Very niche, but some of the best macarons I’ve tasted

Only major metropoli like LA, NY, and San Francisco can support places like this. A dedicated French macaroon bakery! I’m not exactly sure why it is that macarons have taken off (at least in LA) during the last year or two, but they have. Not that I mind, I’ve always been a fan of french baking and macarons specifically. I enjoy the some texture and intense flavors. Previously I would only get them in the petite fours courses at very high end resteraunts, now I can have them with the incomparable Cafe Luxxe coffee — or here.

They had 13 flavors on display when I went in. I tried 11 of them. These are decadent little treats, but not exactly “good value” at $19 for 12!

You can get little towers of them if you are so inclined.

Here is my little $19 worth. General notes: the texture was nicely soft, and the fillings distinct and generous. These were a bit firmer and less spongy than some macarons, but still marvelous, probably 8/10 on texture, 10/10 on flavor. The really great thing about these macarons is how intense the flavor is.

Left to right:

1. Peanut – Like a little nutter butter.

2. Colombian Coffee – one of the weaker flavors. Good, but I would have preferred more intense.

3. Sicilian Pistachio – also a little mild, but certainly pistachio flavored, like one of the bands of spumoni ice cream.

4. Carmel and Salt – Amazing, although perhaps Tavern (SEE HERE) makes a slightly punchier variant. The carmel itself was wonderful.

5. Sweet Wedding Almond – Amazing too. This had that perfect marzipan almond taste. Not something everyone might love, but I certainly did.

6. Coffee again

7. Violet Cassis – Really yummy, intense, and interesting. Flowery and fruity all at once.

8. Passion fruit – 9/10 for intensity (more is more with passion fruit).

9. Caribbean Chocolate – The middle was delectable, the outside merely good.

10. Lemon – intense and nice, like a lemon tart.

11. Rose – wow. I loved this one. Like the almond, not for everyone, but tasted like Turkish Delight or Persian wedding treats.

12. Coconut – very nice fresh toasted coconut flavor.

By: agavin
Comments (13)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Almond, Bakery, Cake, coffee, Cookie, Cooking, Dessert, Food, Home, macaroon, Passion Fruit, Rose, San Francisco, Turkish Delight
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