Ottawa Foodies

I had some macarons from The French Baker today and I was incredibly impressed. They were amazing! I had pistachio, strawberry, and chocolate and I can't wait to go back and get more.

Somehow at 2pm on a beautiful Saturday afternoon there were macarons left. Pistachio, strawberry and chocolate.

I've never had a macaron before so I have nothing to compare them to, but OMG - these were like little cookie/candy/cake (I can't decide what they are) sandwiches of heaven. I thought they were perfect and will be back for more.

I thought my favourite would be the chocolate, and it was very, very good - but actually I preferred the delicate nut flavour of the pistachio variety; and amazing strawberry-ness of the strawberry (they must use real strawberries in these).

I recently tried a macaron from The French Baker, and sadly, I wasn't impressed. The found the outer crust not delicate enough, and the meringue on the inside not chewy enough. There wasn't a fine balance between the two, and the one I had frankly did not have a lot of taste. I also bought one for a friend who had never tried macarons before (I rave about macarons to him all the time), and actually ended up eating it myself because I didn't want his first experience to be a mediocre one.

I went in Monday after lunch for a little pick me up alongside the baguette for dinner.
I picked up a hazelnut macrons, not entirely sure what I was getting into, also not entirely sure when "hazelnut" came out of my mouth why I hadn't said "Chocolate".

Turns out, I was in the mood for hazelnut, I just didn't know it at the time. As cinderella said, the outside is crisp, but not crunchy--more flaky, and the filling is sweet and creamy, with lots of moist, nutty flavour :) They were definitely delicious, and I will be back for more!

i had the hazelnut; i'm sorry to say that i wasn't that impressed. too chewy, and the visual texture was rather lumpy. lots of sweet creme filling.

since this was on a thursday evening, i will go back on sunday morning for a retry. they only had four flavours when i went (lemon, orange, hazelnut, and a pink one which i don't remember); i was told the bakers are there on sunday mornings so i'll pounce them then...

I went out and bought some two weeks ago after seeing this post. Wow, I'm no macaron expert, but these were exquisite! The exterior is crispy, and the filling is just sweet enough, with lots of flavor! I had one hazelnut, one lemon, one raspberry and one pistachio.

Went back this morning, and they also had chocolate and orange. Picked up one of each. They are absolutely delicious!

Well they were amazing! I ended up sharing them at a dinner party. I tried one of each and vote them all super great!

No coconut Tiana, just egg whites, ground almonds, sugar, and flavourings and colour for the lemon and raspberry ones. The noisette have ground hazelnut and ground almond.

So that was you this morning. I had to laugh because you called just after I ate my morning snack...a raspberry macaron to go with my coffee. The one we were short was the one I ate. Sorry, my bad!

I called this morning to see if they had any in and they did! I have never tried them here before but was really looking forward to it. Previously, I'd only had those found on Preston.

They had chocolate, pistachio, raspberry and lemon. I ordered 3 of each but they only had 2 raspberry ones left. I think I'll live through it.

So far, I've only eaten a chocolate one. It was amazing. The outside was perfectly crispy but gave way nicely when I bit into it. The ganache was nice and solid compared to how fluid the Preston ones are. I'm fairly certain there was coconut in it as well.

It was a soft chewy pleasure beneath the thin crispy exterior. 1 down... 10 more to go...

I work in Hull and every Thursday during the summer there is a market on Laval street.

This is the first summer that there has been an Art-Is-In stand - so fun!

I bought a package of 6 macarons for $10 - 2 chocolate, 2 strawberry and 2 pistachio.

I haven't eaten any of mine yet but I did taste a pistachio that they had samples of and it was really tasty. Crunchy on the outside and moist and gooey on the inside.

Can't wait to dig in to the rest tonight :)

It being the first time I've tried macaroons, I can't comment on how authentic they are. I sampled the white chocolate, pistachio, caramel, chocolate, and pumpkin spice flavors.

Incredibly tasty (although the caramel was not to my liking, the filling was almost as thick as the batter) with rich creamy filling and crispy exterior. A bit stale, but we got there later in the day and there were only a few remaining. I can only imagine how they'd taste fresh!

We also picked up a fruit tart and a mini cake, which will be sampled after supper. If they are half as tasty as they look, they'll be incredible.

Edit: I've gone back a few times, and I have to say, their pumpkin spice macaroons are definitely their best!

I liked the macarons here. They had an airy texture and perfect tender ganache inside.

I ordered white chocolate, pistachio, banana, orange, strawberry, blueberry and mocha. My favourites were the white chocolate and strawberry.

i'm sadly disappointed!

i had the chocolate and pistachio;
the ratio of biscuit to filling was rather low, the batter was lumpy, and the texture was -very- chewy.

the pistachio had slightly more crisp, but i think only because of an air pocket. less chewy.

i don't mean to be a macaron snob, but it's just all wrong.

1.45$ + tax, each

Bought a box of 6 to try them out, abit disapointing because the macaron cracked as I was holding it, too "airy", not chewey enough.

the lemon one was too sweet ! aside of tasting "sweet", couldn't taste a strong flavor of lemon...

Macarons were too soggy and broke very easily, even in the box. They were melty, the meringues not crispy and it was very watered down.

I liked the mango and maple ones the best, the lavender one was okay, and I did not really like the rum one due to the strong rum taste and the banana one because it seemed too synthetic.

Pricy macarons, I wouldn't buy them here anytime soon. :(

Hmm, that doesn't seem to be the experience I had, but the ones I tried were back in November. Did they say how fresh they were? It could be the ones you had weren't freshly made, but it's still not good to leave them there if they're not at peak freshness. (They did tell me it's been a slow climb to sell them since so few of their clients even know of what macarons are.) Perhaps if you return, you can ask when the current macarons were made. I'll try to return soon and get some again and compare with my previous experience. It would be a shame that so many other of their products would be of excellent quality and these fall by the wayside.

I bought eight of those when I first visited Maison Chalouin. I was pretty excited to try them, since I have been trying out every macaron I can find in Ottawa and Montreal.

Sadly, these were beyond disappointing. The meringue was stale, it was also severely cracked, and the flavors were pretty bad. I tried raspberry, lemon, tiramisu and mango. Mango was somewhat better. The lemon one tasted like I had bitten into a lime, far too acidic. And tiramisu didn't taste anything like tiramisu, but like the ganache had been forgotten in booze. For 8, the total came us to almost 15$. La Maison du Macaron in Montreal is still the unbeatable place in my book. For a quick fix, I like the French Baker.

Similar to some of the modern French macarons, using their own recipe and made in-store. They gave me a few samples since I had never had a macaron before. Yeah, definitely made a few sales from that.

Very light mousse in the middle, definitely melt-in-your-mouth. The meringue seemed of excellent consistency, but it's not something I get very often. While they may not be the best ever, there seems absolutely nothing wrong with these!

Flavours vary depending on what they can have the time to do; some seen are mango, lavender and tiramisu.

Price: $9.74/100g, though they don't say how many that can make. I think it's around 8-10.

(Also shown is their creamy and very bendable nougat bars.)