Kee's Macaroons!!...

Went to pick up Angie's bday chocolates last wk--and then...got carried away with macaroons and bought one of each :P

There were only 11 there that day...

That smashed one is i think passion fruit. The green tea jasmine one was a nice touch b/c of the jasmine--green tea is a little overplayed to me in pastries (but i still likes mah goodies!). Rosewater lychee one was subdued and the lychee added to the general flavor. The Madeleine macaroon with rosewater was so overpowering (and ugly blemished macaron top part!) that it really reminded me of eating soap or those...skin toners :(

lavender was just plain pretty photograph :)

^_^ weeee!!! My favorite so far--TRUFFLE OIL macaroons!! strange right?? It hits u as an after-taste the way the thai chili chocolates gets you. I'm not big on truffle oil in my pastas and this def was...an oddball choice but YUMMAAAAAAAY!

Sour sap--the orange one--very tasty! a little tart, can't quite place it. Not a citrus flavor. I wanna say in the same family as...tamarind-y kind of tart/sour.

Verbana mint was all right (that's the speckled looking one next to the blood orange stripes. I've been spoiled by Parisian macaroons and whatnot :P Blood orange was pretty nice but...eh. Kaffir lime--I thought it'd be kitschy as too much like lime candy or key lime pie, but nope! still very restrained :)

Bottom line? Quite pretty, very flavorful with lots of interesting combos that add an edge what macaroons tend to be. I wish the chocolate lining wasn't so "chewy" but I'm assigning that to the temperature it was stored. Kee's gave me one to try @ the store b/c I was pretty much fawning over the wares :P (and mentioned the blog hehe and my inability to ...well...not buy everything all at once for the sole purpose of photographing them and not to indulge in some phantom sugar glutton :P). She's really nice!

Like the chocolates, the ingredients come across really well articulated on ur palate but of course restrained, very enjoyable and...gleeful! :) It's been such a long time since I've had my Sadaharu Aoki macarons, but this tides me over a bit. I do wish the cookie part of the macaroon was a little more substantial. I know they're always really airy and light--but it felt like there was...no cakey part to be airy, just a really good crust and then some bits of the cookie on the bottom. Can't complain though, they were all refreshing ^_^

EEeeeeeeEEEeeeEEeeeEeeels...

Unagi-don/eel rice bowl. Apparently I have a penchant for poor/country folk comfort foods (see entry on canh chua rau day and whatnot...). I caught the eel with my bare-muscled-hands. The little bastards eluded me numerous times, but just before day's end, one of them darted in my periphery and like a gazelle--or something really crazy phonetically, maybe OCELOT--i went for it and here you have....MY UNAGI RICE BOWL with the...pickled...daikon...or something. BEHOLD:
I frolicked home with the eel in my little reed basket. (I keep thinking of the poem "L'Anguila" or whatever the crap it was called--about the eel in Italian Lit). Anyhoodle, the wild daikon that grows (yellow and pickled natrually) in my backyard yielded magnificent perfectly cut wedges (as if bought at a store and cut with a very sharp Wusthof knife!).
We had seaweed salad also but I don't think you'd really give a shizz about it. BUT we did have dessert: a green tea swiss roll. with red beans inside. mmmmMMmmMmMmm.
Ever since I was little I loved the swiss roll cakes--given the french influences growing up (briefly) in Viet Nam we had a lot of yule logs for "father Noel" and all that crap and wandered off to get a eucharist one xmas when I was 5 b/c I was curious as to what people were waiting in line for. I was promptly plucked out of the line when they noticed I had gone a bit..missing.

Mike & I had also picked up some "aloe soft drink" (non carbonated) from the JasMart and he had to be fancy and drink it in a wineglass whereas the uncouth beast that I am chugged it out of the bottle.Analysis:

1. Green tea swiss roll = moist, light, a little crumbly, but adequately intense in green-tea flavor, not so sugary, red beans add a nice flavor and texture. BUENO (this is from the-prepackaged refridgerator section of JasMart).

2. Frozen Unagi = meh! for 5 bucks it could serve 3-4 people. This I got at the Sunrise...mart...thing in Soho (broome & spring?--I'll activate links later). You could oven bake it, microwave, or boil in the bag. I'd say for 5 bucks it makes a good alternative to a $12-$18 rice bowl. I didn't make the egg thing but whatever that's easy to put in some other time. The texture was a little flakey but still very soft--at Tono Sushi or Tokyo Pop and a couple other places, the unagi is broiled lova-ly and it just...melts in yo mouf! There was frozen unagi that sold for $11 per filet as opposed to my $5--this might just make up for the difference in texture.

3. Aloe drink = ...? I'm just conflicted b/c the bodega under my apt sells the Korean aloe drink and it's a little sweeter but yummy too--a little cleaner/crisper in taste. The one I go at Jasmart u can taste the artificial sweetener tho it's lighter. BUT--the one at Jasmart sells for 2 bucks whereas the bodega sells it for FOH DOLLAH! >:( I'll buy both :)

Sadaharu Aoki Macarons!!!...<3<3<3...

...the time has come...for my SADAHARU AOKI/macarons post!!! Now, according to my notes these are the flavors: pistacchio, caramel salé, violette, chocolat, fraise, framboise, pêche canalle (beats me but sounds like fish!), sesame noir, chocolat umé (prune salée), macha...there were tons, bite me if i didn't get it all!!

*golf clap*, *scattered golf clap*, *bowing and waving of the hand feverishly*. *ahem*.
So somebody on Flickr has pretty badass pics of the macarons big & small, with fresh fruis and alll!! ^_^ I nicked these next two off of Canon S3 IS in France's flickr b/c the shots were taken in the Jardin du Luxembourg (about a 3-5 min walk from Rue de Vaugirard where the St-Germain-des-Prés outpost for Sadaharu Aoki is...)

Anyhoodlekins, one notable thing is how DELICATE the shells were...AND SMOOTH! ^_^, and it was sweet and punchy but not saccharine and underwhelming as much as the rest of Paris and London was. :P

AND THEN THERE WERE GIANT MACARONS!! ^_^ my GOD it was glorious...I didn't eat it. I actually had another pastry upon recommendation, complete with a little Macha Green Tea macaron clinging on to the ample, singular, bosom of the lovely Macha Duomo via swirl of red bean paste. Dramatic? Yes. Glorious? YES. MY GOD..........yes.
(*whispers*: i love you. sweet, sweet dome and cancer looking/budding protrusion ^_^) I also had the house tea (aweeesoem). Here are pics of other ish I got--financiers (cakey things). What I didn't get were my own pics of the macarons (melted upon flight back to Oxford) AND the 2 citron tea cake, and earl gray cake :( I *had* to eat it b/c I had a week and a half of work @ Oxford before flying back to ny OH the BURDEN of eating it all so it wouldn't perish ^_^
I don't particularly care to post any other pictures of Sadaharu Aoki. just go to the site. oh the PICTURES. okay maybe one (or two) more... citrus/macadamia duomo and some bon bons! ^_^
Oh who am i kidding--here's some more! little sampler plates :P (last 4 pics courtesy of the sadaharuaoki site)