Reviewing my photos from the trip, I can’t ignore the shear number of macaron photos I took. I have decided to put them all together in one post, with special extra tasting notes from the bloggers.

London:

Ladurée Tea Salon
Harrods
Knightsbridge London
About AUD$3 each

I wasn’t expecting my first macarons to appear on day one of our holiday, in London, in Harrods! Searching for a cup of tea at lunchtime we were directed to the Tea Salon on the ground floor, only to behold a Ladurée shop! So I bought some macarons (of course).

Salted caramel, licorice, cassis, strawberry, citron, orange blossom and jasmine. I loved the licorice. The flavour just lingered on the back of my tongue, just long enough.

San Sebastian / Donostia:

Our next stop was Donostia – San Sebastian, in the Basque region of Spain. I wasn’t expecting to see macarons here either but as I was soon to discover, the Basque count the macaron as their own, originating from the French Basque town of Bayonne. These ones I bought from the oldest bakery in town dating back to 1699, Barrenetxe.

It’s a single shell and it’s covered in a raspberry toffee, like a melted raspberry pop is the closest thing I can think of. Not jammy, but delicious!

There were also Parisian style macarons all over San Sebastian…

Bordeaux turned out some very pretty macarons, but I bought some salted caramels and some caneles, and took these lovely pictures instead.

Paris:

Across the street from our apartment on Rue Moufettard, Mason Morange Patisserie served up delicious bread and pastries, and 16 macarons one day (when I really only wanted 6 – darn my French/Spanish pronunciation). These were quite delicious Salted Caramel, Citron, Coffee and chocolate, maybe raspberry?

Mojito macarons at Angelina’s on Rue de Rivoli (Didn’t buy any, 5 cakes and 6 hot chocolates cost €74 phew!)

Fauchon – looking like the cover of Pierre Hermé’s book

We came across a Basque food festival one night near Notre dame, and here we found more Basque macarons. Not delicate, pastel Parisian macarons: hearty, rustic Basque macarons.

I decided to bring some macarons home to treat friends and neighbours.

Le Grande Epicerie
38, Rue de Sevres
75007 PARIS

I’m sure that these were better than average macarons, but frankly compared with the next two “take home packs” they faded to the background. Flavours were Salted Caramel, Apricot and White Balsamic, Chocolate au Lait, Cardamon and Strawberry, Gingerbread,

Patisserie Sadaharu AOKI
35 rue de Vaugirard
75006 PARIS.
€16 for 12 macarons
approx AUD$2.60 each.

By far the prettiest and best packaged macarons. All were a standard shape and size (small) with beautiful strong packaging designed to product the little darlings. The flavours were very restrained and subtle, with the wasabi and the licorice being favourites. They were a bit too crispy on the day we bought them, but by the time they travelled home to Australia – they were pretty perfect texture-wise. Second Favourite. I tried 3 times to buy from Aoki’s shop. It’s around the corner from Pierre Hermé so we went there at about 10:30, but all I got was a photo of the outside of the shop. We went and had a coffee down the street, and went back, still not open! Oh well, off we went to Le Grand Epicerie, giving up on the Japanese wunderkid! Luckily, we ended up back in the 6th later on in the day and I was able to pop in for my fix. I was told off for trying to take photographs in the shop though so you’ll have to trust me when I say that it was full of beautiful chocolates and dainties.

Here I picked up a copy of Printemps Desserts magazine and so now have a bundle of Pierre Hermé macaron recipes to try.

Pierre Hermé
72 rue Bonapart
75006 Paris
€30 for 20 macarons or €80 a kilo

The winner though, particularly for the texture and the delicious salted caramel flavour were the Pierre Hermé macarons. The packaging was completely useless, even if you were only taking them around the corner, let alone around the world; but the macarons were delightful. We arrived at about 9:45am and joined the already 10 strong queue outside the door. In true French style, they opened the doors at about 10:15am. By this stage the line was around the corner.

We brought the last three selections home to share with friends, and a bunch of food bloggers at the Gastronomica Slow Food Quiz night at Matteos.

Believe it or not – I even found frozen gourmet macarons at Picard – a store that purely sells frozen food. Apricot, pistachio, pain-d’epices and fig, and praline.
You could also buy a box of 16 salted caramel, or chocolate flavour. €4,95 for 12.

€6,75 for 15 macarons or approx AUD$0.80 each. Flavours were rose/peach, citron and green basil, yuzu/paline, spice. Pretty adventurous I thought for frozen food.

I’m left with the distinct feeling that I went all over Europe photographing macarons, but really – they just leapt out at me! And they are dear sweet pretty things.

It was a pretty frosty when we headed out, and arrived in Rathdowne street to see our dinner guests standing out on the street…ah why?

Turned out that Black Ruby’s didn’t have our booking due to an answering machine malfunction. Darn it! No room at the inn but the obliging Kate sent us away with a bottle of red to keep us company. It was a nice touch, unnecessary as I realise these things just happen, not much you can do about it but accept it in good grace. So we walked the street for a bit looking for a cancellation – what GFC? Every restaurant except the Rathdown street food store and La Porchetta’s was packed.

We rang around a few places and ended up with a spot in 45mins time at Little Zephyr Kitchen 563 Nicholson Street.

We headed up the road for a drink and Gerald’s while we waited, and ran into some old friends. I like Geralds’s, I just wish it was walking distance from my house. (Or perhaps not!)

We’ve eaten at Little Zephyr Kitchen before, one night when we wanted to go to Bistro Flor, and found it an adequate substitute, some nice flavours, a bit clumsy with some offerings but definitely one with potential.

I think I’m striking a few stars off that potential after last night. It’s not that it was bad, it just didn’t feel very “right”.

We shared three entrees, some tasty borek cigars filled with feta and some nice warming spices, a small Aubergine, split in half and grilled, topped with spice lamb mince, and the standout dish of the night some pan seared calimari with house made chorizo. The chorizo really did stand out as delicious and moreish, crunchy and spicy and a good counterfoil to the calamari.

On to the mains then. We were told that the gnocchi was the ‘best in town” and that the chef had learnt it from Guy Grossi (Did we know who Guy is?), and then warned that it was soft and fluffy, “because we’ve had some comments from people who have been surprised that the gnocchi was soft and fluffy…” like … huh? Too much chatty waitstaff, too much useless information. The Gnocchi was OK.

The seafood hotpot looked better than it tasted …

the lamb pizza – salty and, well, meh, not very interesting fill-er-up stodge.

Atlantic Salmon on fat chips with Hollandaise .. meh.

We had dessert as well, but nothing really stood out there either.

Portions were large, service was OK, but $5 EACH corkage….that was a bit rich. You surely “don’t want to encourage it” as we were informed. I think they could have been a bit more generous about the corkage, I’d explained to them that our booking had been lost when I called, and we did turn over a table for them that wouldn’t have turned over otherwise, and once they offered us a discount to $4 each per person I was determined to drink the 2003 Lethbridge Pinot Noir we had brought with us (for our other planned meal, where BYO is welcome) and then they brought it back to the table on ice!!!!!

So I wasn’t all that impressed this time around, and was actually a bit annoyed about the wine – why don’t you just say no? And your website has annoying music on it that you can’t turn off…one of my pet peeves.

So we left fed, but underwhelmed, but not feeling like we’d paid too much. you know, a bit …meh.