This Pierre Herme patisserie is in a slightly swankier part of town than the first one I went to and looks very different. While the front of the other one is all glass and the inside is bright and colourful, the window of this one serves as a display case, which is filled with pitihivers.
The interior of this one is much darker, all the fittings and fixtures in a dark brown wood. Another difference - the first store was happy to let me take pictures, this one, not so much. I managed to snap a couple of photos as I walked in the door before someone asked me to stop. Booooo!
I want one of everything, but neither my wallet nor my stomach could handle that, so I settle on three individual sized pieces:
~ Ispahan: rose macaron, rose cream, raspberry and lychee
~ Infiniment vanille: pate sablee, vanilla white chocolate ganache, vanilla mascarpone cream
~ Infiniment citron: pate sablee, lemon cream, candied lemon zest, lemon jelly
It's cold and rainy back on the street, so I jump on the Metro and head for the hostel so I can get stuck into these little beauties.
Being that in the past year or so I had become more-than-normal obsessed with the wonderfulness that is lemon, I go for the lemon tart first (Infiniment citron). Pierre Herme's lemon cream is the stuff dreams are made of. It's smooth and tangy and I want more. Actually, I want to dive into a sea of the stuff. Come to think of it, that is how I want to go out - drowning in a sea of PH's lemon cream. How big does a body of liquid need to be to be considered a sea?
Next up, is the Infiniment vanille.
I love this one. I know plenty of people say vanilla is, well so vanilla, but not so. Vanilla, when done right, rocks. This is done right. A short pastry, creamy filling and a beautiful vanilla perfume throughout. Hellooooooo lover.
And finally, the Ispahan.
This one is the prettiest of the bunch. It comes in a little gold fluted case and it looks just lovely. The flavours and textures of this one just go so well together. The raspberries are tart and juicy which is good alongside the sweet lychee (I'm still in awe of how good all the produce that I came across was in France, don't even get me started on the mandarins I had over there). You get the smooth from the rose cream and the crunchy from the macaron shell.
Happiness is....
