A Slow And Lack-Luster Start

So, in a meager attempt to keep up with my aspiration of regularly visiting bakeries and eating their baked goods, I did a quick Google search Saturday afternoon and turned up something that got me really excited. According to Google, there was a Boudin Sourdough on Michigan Ave, less than a mile from my apartment!

I put on my coat, hat, and gloves, and, with high hopes, set off to investigate the veracity of this.

The disappointment was a little overwhelming as I was unable to find this place supposedly there. Instead there was a Jamba Juice and a Caffè Baci laughing at me mockingly through their storefront windows.

Feeling sufficiently vanquished and deflated, I locked my bike up and went inside Caffè Baci to see what manner of breads or pastries they might offer. Given that it was at this point 3pm, the pickings were understandably (a) slim and (b) stale. On the plus side, after 3pm all pastries were half-off which seemed like a decent incentive to just see it through at that point.

Looking at the meager remains of the bagel/muffin/pastry cabinet on the counter, I decided to go with the lone pain au chocolat* sitting up on top. It looked so sad and lonely, and I really wasn't in the mood for a muffin. I mean, seriously? A muffin? What kind of person do you think I am? Alright, don't answer that...

A few minutes later I was sitting at a table with my pain au chocolat and a bottle of IBC root beer, looking suspiciously through the window at every pedestrian who walked past my locked up bike. Yeah, it was gonna be one of those meals.

 What a classy looking baggie. "Eat Italian, Dream Italian." Such an inspirational slogan, on which to ponder the meaning of the universe while eating slightly stale, cold pastry. Alas, time to get started.

 There it is! Sorry for the low-quality picture, I took it with my piece-of-junk phone camera. Overall, it looks about as one would expect a slightly stale pastry to look. It was a little shiny but not really glossy. It was a little crumbly and flaky but had a lot of flex and give to it. Seemed very standard, potentially industrially-produced style pastry.

And there's a shot of the innards, about half-way through. It was, as expected, a bit stale, which meant it was a little tougher and chewier than it would have been fresh, it was (of course) a little below room temperature, and the chocolate inside was pretty solid. Speaking of the chocolate, it was pretty disappointing -- not very flavorful, a but waxy and crumbly... again, possibly a side-effect of it being a little stale, with the chocolate potentially melted and then re-solidified. Still seems to poor quality to me though.

In all, it was a decent, though lack-luster, pain au chocolat. I suspect that it would have been better had I eaten it earlier in the morning, but it still had that industrially-produced je ne sais quoi which left an unpleasant sensation with me for the rest of the afternoon.

On the plus side, this (disappointing) expedition did serve as motivation to get my off the couch and out on my bike, which was good! Leaving Caffè Baci after my pastry and root beer were done, I saddled up and went on a ride around downtown. I rode down Michigan to Van Buren, and from there over to Halsted. Riding north along Halsted I got to look around at part of Greektown which was nice, and verified with my eyes the location of another bakery/restaurant I found online (and hope to visit soon), Artopolis. I stayed on Halsted up to Ohio, thought I might be lost, and then spotted what I refer to as "Pete's Jewel", being the Jewel at Des Plaines and Kinzie. East on Grand until it became one-way, then a block south via Wells St (does anyone know where on Wells St Wells St Popcorn is?) on to Illinois, which I took to Columbus, and from there went home. Certainly not the grandest of rides at a little over 5 miles, but given how cold it was (and how lazy and out of shape I am) I was quite pleased.

*nota benne: in an effort to sound more knowledgeable and baker-y, I'm going to try to use more technical (i.e. french) terms for things. maybe it will work!