Laduree wins!

As if there was any doubt, Laduree wins my personal Paris- Macaron-Fest.

I’ve just finished eating seven out of a little black Laduree box of eight macarons (at one earlier as an hor’s d’oeuvere to my Gerald Mulot in bed supper of une tranche de pizza (ok ish); a jambon et gruyere on tradititonal Polain style bread (better than I’d find in Sydney but needed both more butter and mustard) and a sensational Tart Tatin made with a thick base of long cooked apples topped with caramised apple slices.

I didn’t realize when I was in the bakery in the rue de Seine that Gerald Mulot is some people’s favourite lemon tart maker, and I’m not going to have time this visit to get back there (source of this information was a photo in the Paris Breakfasts blog).

I’ve also been eating my way through 16 or so macarons from Jean Paul Hevin, bought the other day from his rue St Honore store after I had walked out in Parisisan irritation from Laduree at 18 rue Royale (the store not tea rooms) after having not realised that I had broken the French rule about queing ie start by joining at the back of the store when I was trying to buy some Marron Glaces as a birthday present for my mother. So the staff, who turned out to be very English speaking, ignored me and served people who had arrived after me before me.

As it turned out they only had a small size; apparently I would have to go to the Champs Elysee store to get the big size I wanted. As I had already been to the stores in what is now called “Le” Printemps (the “Au” seems to have gone to Ibizia for the winter). Life being full of compromises I took two small sized boxes instead and will look for other examples as we trip across Europe.

The Laudree examples are crisper and tastier than M Hervin’s, although M Hervin has very cute inside wrapping paper of ladies in various costumes carrying boxes marked “Hervin” along Paris streets with an especially cute scooter and trailer being driven by a young miss (Good luck to them: the streets are more perilious than ever, with bicycles, scooters, roadworks, bits “en course du travail”, parked cars and vans all over the place and rarely very wide to begin with, not to mention mobile telephone clutching frenchies of all ages skittering along rapidly, and me staggering slowly – although people are very helpful in the metro offering seats and sometimes arms to help, not forgetting the odd bits of dirty water left over from the morning street hosing [a shock to an Australian’s eyes that there is that much water in the world]).

Laudree is as usual, very superior and ignores everybody else. Breakfast at Angelina, the chocolate aside, yesterday was a disappointment although the cake display at the front of the store looked very bright and had interesting cakes to look at. The rest of the store was faded and badly needed a refit, unlike Laduree which looks fresh and glittering.