Paul at Avenue des Champs-Élysées

Okay, so when in Paris, having a Macaroons is basically, a rite of passage. I've never really been a big fan of the stuff. Even though I have a sweet tooth, I find these meringue-like cookies to be a little bit too sweet for my liking. But anyway, whilst out at the Champs-Élysées, I spotted a bistro that may or may not be familiar to Singaporeans. Paul.

 

 

Yup...Paul has a franchise in Singapore over at Takashimaya. Honestly speaking though, I didn't even realise Paul was that "atas" or famous. So seeing it at Champs-Élysées and seeing the crowd in the store certainly piqued my interest. So I discovered that Paul is a chain of cafes established in 1889. So they serve pastries, cakes, breads, croissants(have I mentioned that the croissants in France are just the best!), basically whatever confectionary you can name, they have it. But having wafted into the shop, I was basically only interested in one and only one thing...macaroons!

 

 

 

 

Ok for the benefit of those of you who have been living under a shell, a macaroon, is a type of light, baked confection, it can be described as either a meringue-like cookie or a small cake depending on the consistency of the pastry. It has its roots in Italy, but somehow the French(correct me if I'm wrong) are considered to have the best macaroons.

 

The macaroons that I got from Paul weren't the smallish ones that most people have. I ordered the bigger sized ones so that I could share with my companions and I ordered one of each flavour. So they had vanilla, I think the pink one was raspberry/strawberry, green tea, double chocolate, cappuccino.

 

Looking at the bright colours, you'd expect a single bite to be an explosion of sugar within your mouth but they were alright. Some macaroons are just so sweet that they leave that sugary(in not a good way) aftertaste lingering in the back of your mouth and throat, well, this one was not one of them. I wouldn't say they were fantastic, but they were just...alright.

 

I paid I think around 20 Euros for these babies. So they were a little bit expensive, but then again, Europe is expensive. They weren't too bad, so maybe I'll be heading down to Paul's later...