Sunday, December 13, 2009

Pastry woes

On the one hand, I'm not at all surprised to learn that the place Jo and I had been going once a week for croissants - the place with the best croissants, to my knowledge, in the city, at least since Payard closed - is in trouble with the health department. On the other, I was startled to notice "croissants" mentioned specifically in the PDF report.

9 comments:

Petey said...

You could make Nick Kristof spend a semester at Bouley...

(Also, please stop picking on Kristof. It's like picking on the retarded kid in class. Not only is it kinda mean, but it's also too easy.)

Petey said...

"I was startled to notice "croissants" mentioned specifically in the PDF report."

Context is important, of course. Lack of sneeze guards seems a crime on the level of jaywalking.

Matt said...

I used to eat lunch at that place from time to time. My impression is that inspectors can find lots of violations fairly easily if they want to, and they often sound worse than they are, but you'd think they'd work hard to get things together after a few bad inspections.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy said...

Petey,

True, sneeze guards are not major. But I was able to ignore that the report was about a place I go to often when I imagined the problem only pertaining to non-pastry items. It was once "pastry area" and "croissant" appeared that I realized I might take a break.

Matt,

You mean you didn't notice the year-round flies? The croissant and more caked onto the otherwise lovely cushioned benches? You never got plates that were visibly dirty, or coffee with odd stuff floating in it? It's one of the few places I'd go and think, wow, this place is filthy, and I go to a number of places that I could imagine would elicit this response in others. But the croissants are so good! And the coffee's, what, $1.35? Given the location, the prices are shockingly reasonable. Something had to give.

Matt said...

I always got my food to go, so it was just on paper plate or a box. I guess that was lucky!

Phoebe Maltz Bovy said...

Yes, that would have been much better than weekend-morning lingering, which allows a much better view of the place than is ideal.

Britta said...

I worked at a coffee shop frequented by many old people. One crusty old guy called the health and safety inspector because his bag of potato chips was about a month past its sell-by date.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy said...

Britta,

That sounds frustrating. But did the health dept. agree that this was a legitimate concern? I sort of think with the place I mention here, with a place that gets 80 points twice on one of those things, that's visibly filthy, cantankerous patrons aren't the issue.

Anonymous said...

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