Instead of my usual breakfast (a banana, a bowl of cereals with warm milk, and a slice of bread with Nutella), I went to the Boulangerie Nantaise to taste their baguettes and croissants and go on with my review of French bakeries in Seattle.

The decoration of this place makes it—well, I’m puzzled about it. Posters and signs on the walls make it clear that you are in a French place. Pictures of Paris, box made of fer-blanc, maps, drawings, they all refer to France. It looks different from the rest of this country, covered with Star-Spangled Banners and pictures of Uncle Sam. I really wonder why you feel so patriotic. Does your loyalty go to your state or to the Union? Do states have anthems too? On YouTube, I saw Jen Hudson performing your national anthem during your big-sports-event-I-don’t-currently-remember-the-name, and I asked myself if you had local celebrities singing the local anthem during local big-sports-events.

Let’s go back to the bakery with all that Froggie stuff on the walls. There’s a lot of it, and it’s a relief if you want to spend a short time outside of this US-patriotic-propaganda around you. But all this decoration may be perceived as too much. In fact, that’s what I thought at first. I believed this French bakery was a fake one trying to look genuine and dissimulating its fakeness behind the French-style posters.

Once you’ve tasted the croissant ($2), you know there’s no fake here. If you are lucky, you may also have the chance to meet Alexandre (that’s also a name you may have trouble pronouncing), the French baker of the place, along with David (yeah, you have this name in English too, but try to say it in a French way so I can laugh at you). (In fact, it’s delightful to see you trying to say things in a French manner, which must be so hard since you don’t use the same sounds in English. Make an attempt with “une tuerie a eu lieu dans l’Ain”. Hahahahaha.)

The particularity of this bakery lies in its use of organic ingredients. It explains why prices are a bit high ($2.60 for a baguette). But when you finish the croissant and wonder how many pounds it’s gonna cost you, you just smile. It’s organic. It must be healthy. Too much healthy can do no harm, for sure.

According to me, this place earns a B.

Good points:
• The taste of the croissant, not wonderfully orgasismic (yeah, orgasismic) but correct
• The decoration because collecting all these things must have taken a long time

Bad points:
• Not a lot of choice in the vitrine
• Too much Frenchie-style decoration, it could have been more subtle