After chatting with my friend Jen, whom has recently visited Beard Papa's "ビアード・パパのパ" in SF *feeling envious*, and written an entry on her blog, here is my tribute to this amazing store....and for those whom enjoy the puff as much as I do....
I stumbled upon the late Boston location when I first visited Boston for the interview of my current job....well....I spent 2 hours for the interview, and 2 days visiting the city. As a person whom spent her high school years in Hong Kong, Beard Papa's wasn't a nouveau icon....but with the sign in sight, rushing towards the custard clouds was the natural reflex. What attracted me more was the intense aroma of fresh vanilla bean... one of the staff started extract the minuscule seeds from the second most expensive spices after saffron. My cooking instincts then attracted me to a plastic cup filled with the spent pods used for display. With a brief hesitation, I spoke with the manager, and the soon after, the cup of spent pods ended up in my bag.
As Alton Brown puts it....nothing is worth more than a cooking tool that can multi-task. I would say the same for ingredients. The spent vanilla pods would be a waste if they do not end up in your jar of castor sugar, or a good bottle of potato vodka!
It was sad to see Beard Papa's disappear from the Faneuil Hall....I always ponder from the thought of whether there is just a lack of demand for great pastisseries in Boston. It was determined not to miss out on them when I headed back to Hong Kong this past June....and I was surprised by the diversity this company has incorporated to their stores....stay tune for my new Asian experience of the "ビアード・パパのパ"!
Jen's blog: http://rhymeswithhungry.blogspot.com/
3 comments:
They are pretty good. I didn't know there's one in SF.
Come to New York! They have them here too :) - Jeanne
There are several in California and even some in Canada on the west coast. It seems they are more popular over in the west and not so much here in the east. Us New Englanders can't get enough of the ice cream it seems and have no more room for cream puffs, which seems strange since it is so coooolllldd here!
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