Despite their booming popularity in Japan, I still think macarons are a great thing. The king of pastry, if you will. There aren’t a lot of places that make good ones – you often see them wrapped individually in plastic, and that just can’t be a positive sign.
Still, I’m always willing to try a new place, and this new patisserie in Ginza looked pretty good. They’re open until midnight, catering to the hostess-gift trade (and less disturbingly than the pet shops, don’t you think?).
No, I take back what I said about looking pretty good. When someone and I saw these in the case, we said “Oooh.” Then we said “Those look right. They look like Pierre Herme macarons. They’re beautiful.”
Holy cow, they really are beautiful. The style is different from Pierre Herme, with a firmer shell, but the flavor is right on, beautiful. As we found when we stood outside and ate these with the staff watching us. The chocolate-orange and caramel were standouts for me; the pistachio lacked nut flavor, and the rum raisin was just OK.
One other beautiful thing to mention is the counter girl. She was startling.
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