The Hungarian Pastry Shop
1030 Amsterdam Avenue
(between West 110th and 111th streets)
New York, NY 10025
212-866-4230

The best pastries I had in France were while we toured Normandy. OH, MY GOD!! A religious experience!!:-D

Yipper- I was at that bakery last year when I visited St John's! And I agree!
All over Paris and France, I enjoyed batons, plain croissants or the almonds ones, not a big fan of the chocolate in the morning. The pastries near me are Italian or Portugues, and heavier. Yeah, and what is with the chocolate-lined tart shells for fruit?!
WillTravel-I learned to make yogurt from a friend from Turkey and a day's drive from the Russian border. Pretty simple. You mix live yogurt cultures as a starter (D*nn*n plain yogurt 1/2-1 6-oz container is enough) in a gallon of milk, heat in a big metal pot, cool it in a sink of cool water, heat it again, cool in water again, then cover it with a lid and a thick towel and let it sit in a cool, dry spot for 18 hours. I just use a corner of my kitchen. Very tasty I enjoy it plain, with fresh fruit or a little preserves. Try a batch, but don't forget the cultures like i did the first time! Iended up with a vat or warm sour milk!

usbeauty and judyrose, thanks for the info! I'm putting it in my NY file for the next visit.

I didn't know anyone else knew about the Hungarian Pastry Shop. It was my "school cafeteria" during my college days.

usbeauty, please email directly. We may be fellow alumna. :-)

Paris is the only city I've ever been in where I was sold a moldy croissant. Very disappointing. I bought it in the morning along with several other baked items to take back to the hotel for the family breakfast. Walked a couple of blocks and decided to sample it. Took a nice bite, and immediately noticed it was filled with mold. Turned around and walked back to the bakery--they insisted that I must have bought it several days before and that I must have left it sitting around the kitchen. What kitchen? This in spite of the fact that it had only been a few minutes since I purchased the stuff.

I want to thank all of you for the address and name of the Hungarian Pastry Shop in NYC. I memtioned it on this tread in the beginning of August and never looked back at this thread, until tonight. I am glad others had solid information to pass on.

hopingtotravel,

Sorry to say, but IMO La Patisserie doesn't come close to anything I had in France.

However, Grand Central Bakery makes a Como bread that is terrific--Pavarotti was quoted as saying it was the best bread he ever tasted (!) and their Yukon Gold is delicious too (and lasts longer).

But if anyone in Seattle knows of any croissants that can compare to the ones in France, please share.

Doesn't surprise me that you might find them in NYC!

usbeauty,
I'm very impressed that you make your own! (But no, I don't want to try it myself!)

At the risk of being a kill-joy, let me say that eating and drinking in an exciting faraway land usual engages more senses than just the taste buds.

Upon our return, its usually fruitless to try and "re-create" the experience.
However, it is fun to try.

I can't eat the yogurt when I am in the States. The US has a different philosophy on it. They see it as a diet food hence all the fat free/coconut cream flavours. Blech!

The closest I can come to real yogurt while in the US is at the health food stores. Stony Creek and Brown Cow perhaps? Try the full fat and just enjoy, but don't over indulge!
cheers,
Jan

Hi will,

As far as yogurt goes, making your own is the best thing to do.

You cannot get a croissant as good as they make them in France except, perhaps, in Quebec.

The flour is different, the butter is different, the water is different, the ovens are different.

BTW, French croissants today are not what they were when I first visited. In the 60's and 70's they were smaller and chewier.

<i>La Patisserie in Seattle is fun, but then I've never tasted in Paris.</i>

hopingtotravel, as a fellow Seattleite, here's hoping you get to have croissants in Paris sometime in the future.

Seattle may not have any croissants as good as those in Paris...but Paris doesn't have the majestic donuts you can get at Rainier Beach's King Donut!

I returned from my trip to Paris hoping to find Dannon Yogurt fruit on the bottom only to find that it is nothing like yogurt from Paris.The yogurt in Paris has REAL chunks of fruit and a silky smooth taste. I was wondering if you or anybody could help me find this yogurt- at this point money is not an option I must hbave this yogurt!

I like Yoplait yogurt a lot. Not sure how this compares to Parisian yogurt though as I don't have it very often.

One could have a croissant at a cafe on the Left Bank of Paris and find it to be the best one ever. If you had the money, you could then hire the woman baking them to come home with you, bringing her pans and all her ingredients from Paris with her. Once you got home, she could bake you those croissants, and guess what? They just wouldn't be as good. Why? Eating a croissant in your kitchen in Peoria is never going to be quite the same as eating one at a cafe in Paris. Simple as that!!

A local wine merchant tells me he has been driven crazy by people returning from France or Italy and asking if he can order a specific wine they found that was unbelievable. He often does manage to find that exact same wine. Invariably the people will come back to him and say &quot;there must be something different with the ones they export. It just isn't as good as we remember it&quot;. What isn't as good is that these people didn't just spend the day looking at Roman ruins, or D'Orsay impressionist paintings and sit down in a lovely cafe to try the wine.

Patrick, I couldn't agree with you more. Add to the list French caf&eacute;-au-lait ... when you get home, you can imitate it, but you can't replicate it.

I think that's the joy of travelling.

Anselm

It's true to some extent, but the food in the US frequently seems bland and has a certain &quot;processed&quot; quality to it. I've a feeling that that's because how the produce is treated differently in the US vs. Europe. In the US, bigger is always better, and taste suffers as a result.

And, no, I don't think that this is the travel effect, while I admit that there's that side of things.

Surely someone must agree with me?

Apart from the quality of produce, I'd be remiss in not pointing out that the whole attitude towards food is different:

See, for example,
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/bo...w/06REEDL.html

So, no I disagree it's just travel.

111op, I hope you weren't serious about how in the US it is &quot;always&quot; bigger is better. There are hundreds or thousands of places in the US that thrive in the midst of mass marketing with their small proudly run bakeries, produce markets, organic growers, you name it. If one goes to the supermarket at home and buys Wonder Bread and tries to compare it to the corner baker in Paris, or course that is insanity. But don't forget there are supermarkets in France selling some of that same &quot;crap&quot; also. There aren't many places any more in the states (at least in major population areas) where you can't seek out the individually owned an operated food market, bakery, butcher, or whatever.