Parisian Patisserie Boulangerie – visit 3
19 Keilor Road
Essendon
If I lived closer to Essendon, I’d be here every weekend for croissant fix – but I don’t =(. The other day Mr JL (who had heard heaps about this place, no doubt from me) asked whether I wanted to come with – duh yes! It seems to have become regular practice for me, eagerly raising my hands for these culinary treks across Melbourne with not so much as a few seconds of hesitation. Anyways, so I gathered up a few other hungry friends and 35 minute drive to Essendon here we come!!!
It was 10.40am on a Wednesday morning, and there were already throngs of people occupying all my tables!!! Just because we’re on holidays doesn’t mean everyone should decide to just take Wednesday off as well – conspiracy I say. So what can one do? We parked ourselves on the tables outside in the retched pollen-saturated wind.
Just as well that I erroneously took photos through the glass pane, it shows the reflections of us (well maybe mostly me) gawking eagerly at the glistening pastries. I swear to God they were calling out for us to gobble them up then and there!!! Given I was the only one who had been before, I (*cough* I mean we) decided that I’d order on behalf of everyone a few things to share. Amidst my chaotic pointing and rather indecipherable French, a table by the window was vacated – a quick scurry and pounce, and VOULA we have a table inside!!!
A ‘few’ of items to share on our puny table.
… and *cough* a few more to share.
Latte (left) & decaf cappuccino (right). My latte was smooth and roast’y!
Spinach ricotta brioche.
First up a savoury course. Though I was a little disappointed that they no longer make the savoury (pizza) brioche, but luckily the brioche was delightfully light with crispy shards of spinach and gooey melted ricotta. I really appreciate them re-heating the savoury items under the broiler just before serving – liberating wafts of fresh buttery bread, simply mouth watering.
Almond croissant.
The infamous almond croissant never fails to elicit a sigh of satisfaction. The slightly crisp outer shell sprinkled with shards of roasted almonds, covers a divinely light and almost doughy texture beneath. The custard and almond filling has a heavenly aroma marrying so well with the buttery pastry. I could’ve had one on my own, let alone share between 5 – it was the last one left, sigh!
And then it had vanished before the eyes.
Lemon tart.
It had a super crumbly shortbread that was very short and very moreish. The gooey lemon custard, though deliciously refreshing and creamy-smooth, did not seem to impart the same shock effect as last time. Maybe I’m just becoming accustomed to ‘tart’ tarts.
Apricot brioche.
The brioche was ever so light, fluffy and oh-so-buttery, but there wasn’t much of that sweet and slightly acidic apricot to share around after dividing it into 5 portions.
Mixed berry brioche.
Same lovely brioche as above, decorated with fresh juicy strawberries and berries with a bed of creamy cream.
Pain au chocolate.
A firmer version of brioche sandwiches a bitter-sweet couverture
chocolate filling. Much the same as last time – not as sweet or guiltily decadent as the other pastries but does offer a bitter (almost refreshing) contrast.
Mille feuille.
The crunch of buttery pastry, the slightest sweetness of snow sugar smeared on the lips and the not-so-rich but velvety smooth custard was oh-so delectable. It was extremely painful to cut into portions, with the custard middle being squashed out, the snow sugar flying everywhere, and shards of pastry flicking off the plate – it was such an atrocious mess. Next time I’ll just order one to myself.
Roasted vegetables & pesto brioche.
After realising that a couple of items had not been served to the table, I passed on a quick reminder to the staff and as prompt as anything the missing items brought to our table. A savoury item after all that sweet seems rather out of place, but turns out Ms AY actually prefers the savoury brioches – should’ve and would’ve ordered more, but we were all pretty stuffed.
My memory is already a little vague at this point – very much intoxicated by all that buttery goodness. The roasted vegetables were a tad dry if I recall correctly, but the pesto certainly gave a flavoursome surprise throughout the brioche.
Crème Beignet.
Out final item was also another painstakingly difficult one to cut, especially when your aim is to NOT squeeze out all that creamy middle. End result: 5 perfectly cut wedges of beignet – SUCCESS!!! The brioche shell (yes, another brioche, shush!) was again light and fluffy. The custard core was pure indulgence with a beautifully eggy aroma – damn that cream is good.
Rating: Yummy+1 (and a failsafe yummy+2 for the almond croissant). A hell of a lot of sugar & butter for a single sitting, and quite the travel, but so worth it! We finished up close to midday and by this stage the table was rather quiet and dare I say slightly lethargic. I suspect people were suffering from Allan-eats-too-much-and-now-I’m-also-eating-too-much syndrome. None of us had any lunch, and some of us didn’t even have much of a dinner. And of course me being the ravenous one goes on and has a big dinner out and dessert at Cutler & Co. Stay tuned!
You may also like: Parisian Patisserie (visit1 + visit 2), Cacao.
Left: reflection off the shiny railings – clearly to prevent hungry customers reaching over and gobbling everything up. Right: more beignets – creme, jam, chocolate.
The window display of everything you could want for a brunch-fest!
Almost Always Ravenous 
Love the food pics!!
Grrrr Allan, very grrr!!
I might have to tag along for the next trip 😉
gorgeous photos! can I lick my screen?
CY – thx! Now if i had YOUR camera i would be EVEN more happier !!! haha
Shellie – HAHAHA, i’ll take that grr with a lot of sympathies =P. you certainly can lick your screen, just hope its been sterilised recently haha.
LOL why do you want my camera? I don’t own any magic camera. For food photography the lenses don’t really matter, I think yours are great! 🙂 It takes a connoisseur like you to fully capture the essence of food in a picture.
nah, i need a bigger aperture… then i can have shorter depth of field. i like the blurred effect, and it de-clutters the photo so that you have a focal point.
I think for food you don’t really need up to f/2.8, when you shoot something small up close at f/2.8 the depth of field becomes too shallow that only a very tiny portion of the food is in focus, and the rest of the food is thrown out of focus. I used to shoot at f/2.8 for food but I found the depth of field too shallow so I ended up shooting at lower aperture like f/4 nowadays.
If you want the whole food to be in focus while the background becomes more blurry, try f/4 or thereabout at 50mm or so. The 50mm is a big part of the trick as a longer focal length will increase the “blurriness” of the background for any given aperture value. Having to use longer focal length might limit your composition in that it doesn’t allow a wide looking shot, but it does nicely to keep the whole food in focus while the background remains pretty blurry.
Oh and by the way I went there this morning, I agree with the YUMMY +2 rating for the almond croissant!! We arrived early in the morning so we had it fresh out of oven. Too yum to be forgotten.
i’m glad you agree it is a yummy+2 =). I hope you had one all by yourself, especially since you went early =P.
nah, but sometimes dark-ish lighting makes it terrible to take photos, and it blurs really easily. And flash is really harsh (well that’s my other problem… need an external one HAHA), but luckily i can photoshop the light balance back. Yeh, most of the time I do want most of the plate/bowl to be in focus, though sometimes to tell a story / focus on a particular point on the dish, i want that BIG aperture =). SO it’s me being fussy really hahaha.
You are mocking me aren’t you?
“If I lived closer to Essendon, I’d be here every weekend for croissant fix”
of course not =P. make sure you eventually get around to try their almond croissant though!!!
Oh my… these look divine!! Do want!!
make u take some home as well… i totally forgot to…LOLz. although we had the lucky last almond croissant… and this wasnt even 11am yet…@_@
I think when my parents come, on the way back from the airport, this is where we are going for breakfast *__*
brekky is a GOOD time. before things RUN out
I like that you had your savoury course first – very important 🙂
The spinach and ricotta brioche looks delicious! & that is not normally my thing. Ooooh it all looks so delicious. You’re so cruel to post this Allan. Essendon is not close to me, dammit! haha.
Heidi xo
i seemed to have gone down a slippery slope of sweet-tooth inevitability… never used to have so much sweets, LMAO.
Oh my… I still have yet to get myself to travel to this place! And I’ve been reading about this place everywhere! GRRRRRR.. I want almond croissant!!!!
LOLz. careful you leave it too long and you might just gorge yourself on a half a dozen croissants
i probably should be commenting on the food, except i can’t resist but mention the one thing that caught my attention: the very familiar looking hairy arm attached to the white/grey shirt with blue print. i do know person who owns this arm don’t i?
haha yes naughty naughty =P. and yes it is who you think it is =).
You SHARED an almond croissant between five people? SHARED?! Allan, you fool, you should have told your friends that there were none left and greedily scoffed it behind their backs. 🙂
i’ll bear that in mind next time =P… so evil !!! haha.
I absolutely LOOOOOVE your blog. I’m moving to Melbourne next month and I think I’m gonna spend a lot of time out trying out all these things !!
Thanks so much for sharing your passion and the beautiful pictures.
Angélique
PS: Just on note on the ‘Pain au Chocolat’ pic, this is actually not a Pain au chocolat. In france we call it ‘Brioche Suisse’ :-)… almost as good!
thanks for the info! haha, should let them know ey?