I heard about Madeleine Pâtisserie through some friends, but I never actually went until today, which is unusual, because it is so close to school. I finally walked in, thinking of getting someone a gift.
I’m not going to get into the decor of the place; I’m going straight to the macarons.
The first thing you see upon entering is the large case of macarons. They do sell other pastries, like croissants, madeleines (that look about as equally delicious as their macarons), and tarts. But the macarons are definitely the main attraction. There are a large array of them and in quite a multitude of colors. But don’t be daunted by the sheer number of them, there is a little chalk board off to the side with a list of all the flavors ranging from almond, caramel and dark chocolate to blood orange and white russian. Some of them are even lightly brushed with gold dust. Good golly.
It took a while, but i narrowed my selection down to four: almond, caramel, which chocolate coconut (they were out of plain white chocolate) and blood orange. I didn’t want to go too far off from plain flavors because they were, after all, for someone else. But one must be careful at this little place, each macaron goes for $2.50 a pop, so it adds up quickly.
But man, they are almost worth the price. I decided that $10 was just a tad bit much for a “no reason” gift for someone, so I decided to eat one…then that gradually grew to two…and now I just bought them for myself. haha.
Now, I’m no macaron expert. Heck, this is the first time I’ve ever had any, but THEY ARE DELICIOUS. With their delicate shells, chewy inside, and scrumptious filling, I couldn’t resist. At first bite, it seems like they’ll be overpoweringly sweet, but it just stops right before it gets to be too much. Then, it’s followed by a nice, mellow almond flavor that holds it all together.
It’s sad that I’ve never had a macaron before this point, but at the same time, I should have stayed in the dark about them. Now that I know they are a godsend…it’ll be harder to resist picking one up one the way to/from school!
Madeleine Patisserie
128 W 23rd St, New York, NY 10011
(between 6 & 7 ave)
(212) 243-2757
1 Comment
March 10, 2008 at 6:20 pm
[...] Read more about this topic from the author here. [...]