The place is simply called La Boulangerie. No pun, no treat, simple. Offering a wide choice of pastries and breads, this bakery gave me what I have been looking for since I started this review of Seattle’s French bakeries: the smell of a boulangerie. When you enter here, you can feel the warmth of the oven and the delicate fragrance of cooked bread. Delicious.
Too bad the food is not. The croissants and the baguettes have some French arrière-goût, but something is missing, and only a professional baker could tell me if it’s a lack of butter or an excess of salt. Writing that hurts, since the baker is so nice. Xon D. Luong, the chef/owner, as his visit card says, has been a professional in French baking for 52 years. In a French mind, it means he started when he was 8, since French people don’t want to work beyond 60 years old. But I assume he is not as lazy and complaining as we are.
Au contraire. He does everything in his shop. As we would say, il est à l’eau et au moulin, cooker and register, lonely man in this big room filled with bread. You may have a seat and just enjoy the odour of the shop. That’s typically the place where you want to stay when you wish to avoid all this hi-tech coffee shops with free wi-fi that are located a block further.
The bakery reminded me of all those little cafés far from the trendy places in Paris that do not have much room, a lounge space, and comfortable sofas, but where you just feel good. And it’s not because of the place itself, but merely because of Luong’s smile. (My fingers make a special guest appearance on the picture on the right for all those who wanted to see more pictures of me.)
I should reward this place with a B-.
Good points:
• Xon Luong’s kindness and courage
• The good smell
• Wide choice of pastries
Bad points:
• The taste
As grandma says to grandpa who forgets his Viagra: I can work with those two fingers if I have to.
So let me get this straight. The food is not good at this place, but aside from noting that you give it a glowing review. You say the food is good at the place in West Seattle, but your review basically shits all over it for not being authentic.
No wonder people can’t stand the French.
M. Massillon,
I understand your disappointment with the pan here in Seattle. I spent 6 months living in Paris for work and I agree, there is no better bread in the world than that found in the lowliest boulangerie in France. I have decided it is the water. Not just the water used to make the dough, but the water the cows drink to produce milk, cheese and butter that tastes so different there. I miss it more than anything, even more than the gay English style pub in the Marais that I used to frequent…..
On the other hand, you do not have enough ice in France. Ice or bread, that is a tough one for me.
Sending this new intern out to review bakeries every day requires that he not be seen nor heard in the office. Which makes sense.
Why are you spending so much of your time in America trying American versions of French food?
Go for 10.
I am still wondering what the difference between a boulangerie and a brasserie is. Also I want him to review pho. do they still call Vietnam Indochine?
The best bread in the world is in Germany, not in France.
I see. You’re pretending to be a francophile when you are definitely not.
Jesus!
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=brasserie
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=boulangerie
You are welcome.
A lot of the problem is he’s not using organic terroir butter, and a lot of the ingredients aren’t hand crafted by French peasants.
You know, I’m giving you a chance, Mr. Massillon, but a French person who goes to America looking for French-equivalent baking is as stupid as an British person going to America in search of the perfect crumpet.
If you want to verbally rape our city, be my guest, god knows I do it all the time, but at least give it the raping it deserves instead of focusing on the stupid minutiae. Try criticizing something that’s actually viable.
I see a lot of hand waving… sorry, miming going on in these reviews but it’s pretty clear that this guy has realized, if he hadn’t already known, that America is the pinnacle of food culture on Earth. You’re looking at bread because you’re French but virtually any visitor can come to the US and find someone selling their comfort food. When the French finally confess they are sick of French food and inferior wine they might have a chance to compete again some day.
@7 the former is bread and pastry and coffee, the latter is a pub.
thanks will. In northern france all of the pastry shops that I went to were called brasseries so I was a bit confused. Also @10 touchy eh?
Is the Stranger also going to send someone to France and get him to review a bunch of faux American burger joints? Coz, gee, that would be real neato idea, too.
@16 he still needs to go to one of the Beefalo Burger joints. Mind you, he’ll have to rent one of those mini coopers to get there, but they are si bon si juste si samedi.
God this guys is such a whiner. I’m with #5.
Also, one of the raddest things about this city is the union of free wifi and coffee. You’re really gonna take a shit on that?
You know, these columns would be a lot more interesting and less painful if he were tasting something other than freaking french things.
Send him to Ivar’s! OOOO OOOO SPAGHETTI FACTORY!
After that he can start going to espresso shops and telling us how much we don’t know about espresso. That’ll be good.
@18 there’s a poll at the Seattle Times coffee blog about whether she should cover Starbucks or local indie coffee shops … or both.
Vote in it.
Ivar’s is a good choice. He should rent a kayak at the UW boat center or on Lake Union and go to the Ivar’s that’s on Lake Union.
@8 I agree.
@12: There’s unintended irony in your analogy, since it is exceedingly hard to find fresh-made crumpets in Britain anymore, whereas we actually do make great ones: http://www.thecrumpetshop.com/