3 posts tagged “nuts”

This time i went to a place called "Boston Bakery", here in Caracas...so it seems that people here like to name their business after foreign cities and in another language other than spanish, I didn't see anything particularly bostonian while I was there, and the people there didn't know if the owners hailed from Boston either..ah well...

Here's the front, it's kind of hidden, i had to look around for it...

A guy can only have so many brownies every now and then right? Specially of you try to keep being as healthy as you can!.
So this time was the turn for the next batch of chocolate goodness:
First off, I went to this small very quiet and quaint bakery/coffee shop/patisserie called Banette located here in the Los Palos Grandes zone in Caracas. The place was, as I said, very quiet and i got my order right away, no hassle, no queues. The only thing was that the lady at the counter gave me the wrong receipt. Still, nothing that can't be too complicated to fix. I went over the counter again and got the right one. I ordered a small coffee, a Cachito de Jamon (a ham cachito, which is a salty baked dough filled with bits of ham) and of course the brownie.

My order with the wrong receipt:

Since I love chocolate, and i love brownies, I decided to get into this hunt for the perfect brownie here in the city, just to see what the city has to offer.
When i mean the "perfect brownie" is of course, the one I will like the best. I like my brownies to have a crust on top, to be soft and mushy at the center and to have not too many nuts, whatever they may be (walnuts, nuts, cashews, almonds, hazelnuts, etc). I also like them to be chewy and not insanely sweet. I also like the chocolate used in them to be of quality.

So I started off at some of the closest and allegedly best patisseries:
Fisrt it was the St. Honoré, in the Chacao district:

There was a very annoying queue inside that was very long and there were other queues that were for something else but i didn't know what they were for, there were no signals within sight to know for sure.
 I had to ask which one was the one for desserts and they pointed me to one of them, very condescendingly to boot. After i made it to the top of the queue, they told me i was at the wrong one, and pointed me to the other one.
 After all this very annoying waste of time, i finally got to the brownie i wanted:
Very crappy presentation, a cardboard plate and some not too clean napkins. And a plastic spoon. I hate them.
The sweet was ok in sugars, and it didn't taste quirky in any way. But there was no crust and the cake was too dry and not chocolate-y enough for me. It had a fresh half of a nut on to as you can see. All in all, i wasn't a fan. And of course the service was  dismal.

After that, I went to another one, called Maison Plaza (a sort of café, with a restaurant on the side) , which i have been there before and i like: a view of the fountain

When i got there (no queues), i asked for a brownie and the new lady there didn't know what i was saying, I sais again: a brownie, made of chocolate. And she said: chocolate? and i replied Yes, made with chocolate. So she went and got me this:
Yes, you noticed, it's a chocolate Fondant, NOT a Brownie. But this fondant (served inside a panetonne paper cup) looked better than the brownie that was showcased and it was more expensive too, but they charged it to me as a brownie, so needless to say, i was only too happy to try this one out instead of the other one. I asked for a bottle of water to tame my guilt as well.
Presentation was way better, with a real plate, with a logo of the place and Clean napkins. I had a very nice table all to myself. Didn't even mind the plastic spoon. A closer look:
It was wonderful! Chocolate was of top quality, soft, creamy and sweet but not too much and the cake part was just perfect, it had lots of moisture but it was firm.
That's all for now, but i promise to be on the lookout for some more brownie madness.
Until next time!