Review - Pitchoun Bakery, Los Angeles

My wife and I are on a constant search for bread. Yep, we know it's filled with carbs and generally bad for us, but seriously, can anything compete with a fresh baked loaf of your favorite type of bread? Nope. Especially if you've got an amazing drinking chocolate to go along with it!

What kind of bread do we search for? Mainly French baguettes. We got engaged in Paris, and you know that dream so many people have of walking into a little corner bakery in Paris and walking out with a still-warm baguette, nibbling on it as you walk down the street? We lived it, and it's every bit as fantastic as it sounds. So here in Los Angeles, we're trying to find a similar experience.

We recently found Pitchoun in downtown LA. On a Sunday morning, we took the subway down to give it a shot. On our way down, we checked Yelp for their hours, and it said they were "Closed Now". We trudged on anyway, figuring we could just find another bakery nearby if they really were closed. Thankfully they were open!

It's a cute place with a very nice patio out front, packed with eye-catching orange furniture. Inside, it was much bigger than we anticipated.

And right there next to the door, stacked up in the corner, the baguettes called to us. I think they knew we were coming, because there were tons of them.

Along with all their breads, pastries, and assorted baked goods, they also sold plenty of prepackaged candies and treats.

Their menu was gigantic, and quietly scrawled there on the bottom of the hot drinks was hot chocolate. I had no reason to think they would make anything other than the ordinary powder mix or syrup-in-steamed-milk most coffee shops serve, but of course I ordered one.

We actually ordered lots of things! More than we should have. But seriously, everything just looked so good, and amazing bakeries are one of our weak spots. We were kind of helpless. ;)

My wife started with one of her favorites, a palmier, aka elephant ear. She also chose a lemon tart. I started with a bacon ficelle, which is basically a small baguette with bacon in it. I also picked a chocolate eclair, which in my opinion is a great standard baked good to judge most bakeries on.

My bacon ficelle and chocolate eclair were amazing, both delicious, the perfect combination of savory followed by sweet. My wife enjoyed her palmier, but mentioned that it was a little dense, and that she prefers hers a little crispier. The lemon tart was spectacular, maybe the best pastry we ordered.

They have wine, as well, plenty of it. And some really cool lighting made from wine bottles.

Yep, we bought a baguette, and I'm pretty sure it was half gone by the time we got home. Absolutely wonderful baguette!

At this point, I know what you're thinking - "Let's go, get to the hot chocolate! This isn't a bakery blog!" Right you are!

The hot chocolate was excellent, definitely not what I was expecting! It tasted of real chocolate with a hint of amaretto or cherry. Milk-based and thin, not thick like a European drinking chocolate. When I asked how it was made, I was told the chef makes a chocolate ganache that they use for it. The ganache is made with Valrhona chocolate, but they were not sure what else. The bariasta who prepares it usually adds a touch of vanilla syrup, which may have been the extra sweetness I was tasting and thinking was amaretto. And be prepared - if you order the 16 oz, this drink comes in a soup bowl, not a mug!

Pitchoun is wonderful, and if you're looking for a Parisian experience in Los Angeles, this is as close as my wife and I have found.






If you happen to know of some places we should check out, please leave it in the comments! Until then, I'm looking forward to going back to Pitchoun.

Review - Moonstruck Dark Hot Cocoa

My sister-in-law and her family live in Portland, and this past Christmas my wife and I took the opportunity to fly up there for the first time. Portland is great! Not overly crowded like Los Angeles, and they have a huge variety of trendy places to eat and shop - not to mention some amazing chocolate shops!

We were walking the streets after visiting Cacao (which will be the topic of a future post) and stumbled upon Moonstruck Chocolate Cafe. Wow, what a surprise! I've long enjoyed Moonstruck's chocolate bars, and while I'm sure I had read on the label that they were located in Portland, I wasn't even thinking of it at the time, and I certainly was not aware that they had a whole cafe.

Inside we found a cute little cafe serving all kinds of coffee and chocolate drinks. They had a great selection of pastries and chocolate morsels, as well as all their packaged chocolate products on display for sale.

They also had a decent selection of hot chocolates and drinking chocolates on the menu. If you don't know the difference, drinking chocolates are thicker, richer, and come in smaller servings.

They had a special holiday hot chocolate available, so that's what I got. Rocky Road hot chocolate. It was good, but not mind blowing, like I was hoping it would be. It felt like a powder mix with some extra flavorings added in. Still good, of course. Hot chocolate is like pizza - even when it's bad, it's still pretty good. And this was far from bad.

I hadn't seen their hot chocolates available in stores near me in Los Angeles, so I went ahead and picked up their basic Dark Hot Cocoa mix. I figured it'd be a good place to start with their mixes.

A few things jumped out at me immediately. First off, the ingredients list. Notice there is more sugar than cocoa. Hmmm... Suspicious. As a lover of fine hot chocolates, I always prefer to see cocoa or cocoa mass (liquor) as the main ingredient. I do like that the ingredient list is small, however. Natural flavor is a bit vague, it could be almost anything. Guar gum I'm guessing is being used here as a thickener.

I made mine according to the instructions on the tin. Sometimes I like to deviate, but for a fair review, I make it as instructed. The tin even has a little indulgent, encouraging paragraph there on the back, almost a poem.


The mix itself is extremely light and fluffy. Don't breathe too hard into the tin, it'll go everywhere! The fault there lies with the powdered sugar, since it's basically that exact same texture. I don't mind it, though. Powdered sugar dissolves easier that normal sugar.






It's a very tasty mix, I actually like it better than the Rocky Road hot chocolate I had in the cafe. This mix has the flavor of cherry or amaretto, which was kind of surprising, as it's supposed to be just a plain dark chocolate mix. It was very pleasant, though.

It's a good mix for sure, however, I'm just a little disappointed that a chocolate maker such as Moonstruck doesn't create a mix with real chocolate in it. That's something I'd certainly love to see from them, as their chocolate bars are wonderful and come in many great flavors. Of course, nothing is stopping us from just using those bars as a hot chocolate, right?