Macaron Day round-up

Thursday was NYC Macaron Day, which is an annual day of amazement and wonder when you can walk around the city and get free macarons from participating bakeries. I took my lunch break to hit up the West Village stops.

First up was Francois Payard, which is the originator of the amazingness of Macaron Day. I got a chocolate macaron and it was so, so awesome. Perfect texture, flavor, everything.





I would have eaten about a zillion more. Fortunately, there were two more stops on my walk.

Next up was Mille-Feuille Bakery Cafe. They weren't offering chocolate macarons when I was there, only caramel. But even the caramel was delightful, despite its handicap of not being chocolate. They also had other appealing-looking chocolate baked goods on display. I would go back.

Third stop was bisous, ciao, which you know is going to be good because they only sell macarons. They had more than a dozen flavors, though not all were available for the free sample.



The one I got was blood orange with a dark chocolate cream in the middle. Phenomenal. So flavorful. I would go back here, too, and try more of their many flavors, like the peppermint dark chocolate one, which sounds like it's designed for me.



BOTTOM LINE: Macarons are expensive. So it's really nice to have a day when you can eat them for free.

Francois Payard Bakery's Chocolate Financier

One of my life goal is to work my way through every pastry offered at Francois Payard, because everything I've tried there so far has been fantastic. For example, this chocolate financier:

A photograph doesn't do it justice, clearly. Or at least not a photograph taken by me.

This thing was chewy and lightly chocolatey, with a few chocolate chips on the bottom to hammer it home. I don't think I'd ever had a financier before, and I don't know exactly what to compare it to. Sort of brownie texture, but less heavy, perhaps?

The Payard chocolate financier comes in an assorted box:

I'm sure these are all very good, but I did not eat the rest of them, because they are not chocolate.

BOTTOM LINE: Francois Payard is an excellent French bakery. Highly recommended.