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I 100% agree, and I've only visited NYC a couple times. Each time I visit, I try to eat at least one slice of pizza and one bagel every day. The thing that blo
by awhitty 4y ago
I 100% agree, and I've only visited NYC a couple times.
Each time I visit, I try to eat at least one slice of pizza and one bagel every day. The thing that blows me away is how generally good they are, no matter where I buy them. Of course I'll look at reviews, but I won't walk more than 5 blocks to get a slice. Never been disappointed.
Same thing visiting Paris - you can hunt for the BEST croissant, but the remarkable thing is that nearly everywhere you shop, you'll find a really, really good one. I live near Arsicault in SF, and though they might make the BEST croissant in the US (and I will probably live a shorter life due to the number of them I put in my body every week), I'd trade that for a really good croissant on every corner.
I think it reflects having shared cultural values around the food and a knowledge in the community of what makes the food great both in terms of inputs and outputs, and I hope we never stop valuing good pizza!!
- cammikebrown 4y agoArsicault is also about three times the price of a croissant in Paris
- lifeisstillgood 4y agoEverything in SF is about three times the price of Paris ...
- yamtaddle 4y agoI live in a cheap flyover country city and our "good" croissants are also about 3x Parisian prices... but aren't good.
- ghaff 4y agoOne thing I've heard said about French food generally in the past is that there's an entire supply chain in France around French food in particular so you really tend not to get bad French staples at very many places--even if it's a random touristy place. You can rinse and repeat in many places for various items. For example, when I was last in Germany, you'd get good sandwiches with good bread at any random train station in a system of any size. Try that in the US.
- yodsanklai 4y ago> so you really tend not to get bad French staples at very many places--even if it's a random touristy place. French here! I'm usually not that picky with croissants, but much more with other patisseries, such as eclairs. It's a bit harder to find good patisseries, and the quality doesn't always correlate with the price. Even in what looks like legit "patisseries artisanales", you can find eclairs which are basically frozen industrial stuff and sell for 3.50+ euros, which I think is a scam. That being said, yes, I think you can normally find decent bread, croissants and patisseries (and cheese) pretty much everywhere in France. On a side note, I lived in London and I noticed that Sainsbury made good bread and croissants, for much cheaper than the fancy "French" bakeries.
- mc32 4y agoMaybe I'm wrong but I had the impression that in France pastry shops had legit pastry chefs who had to go through apprenticeships whereas in America for example, pastry shops give a baker a recipe to follow and that's pretty much it (for the ones that bake in-house I mean)
- BowBun 4y agoIt varies. Your neighborhood bakery/pastry shop may have a baker that learned from their parent(s). Or it could be a higher-end shop with a trained patisserie chef. Or it could be a 'front' bakery that receives their daily shipment from a regional factory that makes them by hand or by machine.
- magixx 4y agoFor simpler items like croissants, IMO the recipe and following directions is all that matters. I've made a decent amount of semi complex desserts from recipe authors I trust and they turned out great. Sure, there are some minor physical skills you learn and knowledge you gain, but for baking I find that as long as you follow good recipes precisely you can get great results. This does fall apart when you start talking about decorating desserts as that is definitely more art/skill than science.
- 4y ago
- neilv 4y agoHas any NYC bagel aficionado living in Boston tried Bagelsaurus? (In Porter Square, on Mass. Ave.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xup2Lcd4Ers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xup2Lcd4Ers
- pzone 4y agoI used to live near Bagelsaurus and it is better than any bagel I can get in my Brooklyn neighborhood now. Dragon Pizza there similarly high quality.
- marrone12 4y agoBetter than bagel pub??
- bnralt 4y agoThere are a number of foods that are supposedly only being amazing within a certain geographic location, but the best ones I've had were far outside if that location. The best shrimp poboy I had was in Tampa; nothing I could find in New Orleans even came close. There was a New York style pizza place in Shanghai which people that went back to America would talk about missing (better than any pizza I've had in NYC). An Italian person I knew visited D.C. and when they got back to Rome they kept talking about how much they missed the pizza place in Washington. For bagels, best I've ever had is probably a split between New Jersey (not _far_ from NYC) and Montreal.
- guythedudebro 4y agoWas the pizza place in Washington 2Amys?
- bnralt 4y agoThat's the one.
- TylerE 4y agoBest pizza I’ve ever had. Franks in New Haven is close, but just not that crazy about thin crust. (Ironically, some of the worst “real” pizza I’ve had was at the Atlanta restaurant owned by someone whose “How to make real pizza” page gets posted here every year or two. Yea, it had a nice char but everything about it was just bland bland bland)
- oreilles 4y agoFinding a decent croissant is fairly easy in Paris, but if you've ever tasted an actually good croissant, buttery but not sickening, airy but not empty, crispy but not dry, you know how incredibly difficult to find those are.
- pnf 4y agoI've spent a lot of time in Paris and NYC but have found it very hard to find a randomly good croissant; less so a randomly good slice. I've tried many of the foodie favorites for both and been largely unimpressed. There have a few truly excellent. Maybe they ruined me for others.
- TechnicolorByte 4y agoWhile we’re on the topic, any recommended pizza places in SF?
- Nihilartikel 4y agoArizmendi bakery has rotating toppings but is a ceaselessly classy slice.
- jhatax 4y agoNorth Beach has some good spots. My go to after a night of drinking is Golden Boy.
- sheepybloke 4y agoDoppio Zero on Hayes by Davis Symphony was quite good, although a bit fancier. Amici's East Coast Pizzeria on Lombard in Marina was also very tasty. Also, it's not as fun, but Mountain Mikes is also great, inexpensive pizza, like in your Papa Johns range but better overall.
- nlh 4y agoJust want to say you took the words out of my mouth on this one. I was given the exact same advice re: Parisian croissants, and I feel exactly the same way about Arsicault in SF. I’d I’ve never had a better one in the US, let alone SF. Note to others: Arsicault is worth the visit if you’re in SF! Also don’t be a sucker and wait in line for an hour on a Saturday morning. Just go at like 11am on a Tuesday and walk right in.
- hindsightbias 4y agoMy neighbors still remember my shrieks of rage when I read Arsicault got rated.
- TechnicolorByte 4y agoSorry, what do you mean that it got rated?
- wildzzz 4y agoI really like croissants but haven't ever been to Paris. My last trip abroad was to Portugal and it was crazy how some sandwich shop at the train station had croissants that tasted better than any specialty bakeshop I've ever been to in the US.
- neycoda 4y agoIt's not about quality when they're reducing sauce to save money, as stated in the article. The slices may still be better than in any other state, but the focus has shifted from quality to price.