Tonight I was invited to have dinner at my friend's in Paris and planned to take a cake with me… Considered one of the capital’s best pastry shops, I passed by Arnaud Lahrer located on St. Germain street. Ice cream, chocolates and cakes, this guy does it all.
Not as good as the internet would have you think, the cakes are average.
- The dark chocolate cake with raspberries turned out to be stale and dry and the raspberry and pistachio tart didn’t leave me impressed.
- The speculoos Mille Feuille: presented vertically, this three layered Mille Feuille has a dozen papers of puff pastry and cream. The multi layered puff pastry is covered with sticky caramel and inside is a thin sheet of speculoos biscuit. The cream on the other hand is special, full bodied and intense.
- Tarte Diabolo: this one is really good! A bed of vanilla sablé topped with a chocolate ganache and a hint of salt with caramel. A crunch and gooeyness follows while the flavors appear delightfully one after another. A journey...
Paris Pâtisseries (2010) “Almost every one of them is picture perfect or perfectly wild in its design… It seems the focus is more on creating a “food sculpture” someone would want to buy than it is on crafting an excellent patisserie.”
I also got myself several chocolates; being surprised by the gourmet collection of smoked dark chocolates. Not as good as I expected though, the chocolates lack strength, flavor and texture.
