There are people saying, you would know a bakery is a good bakery simply look at their bread, or the most common items. Looking back however, I found myself seldomly buying any of the common or basic pastries. So I decided to start a blog on the comparison on some of the pastries that almost all bakeries have. I have to admit the choice of this first item is a bit of personal preference, well we all know I am a chocolate head. But anyway, let’s start with the Pain au Chocolat, or, the chocolate croissant.

The list of items followed are in the sequence of time as I bought them. I’ll give the rate of stars separately.

Ovenbird Bakery

At the first sight of the cut section, I was not quite impressed. It have large and vacant inside bubbles as you can see from the picture. The first bite was a pleasant experience though -- they did some special work on forming a crispy and shiny layer on the top of the croissant. The chocolate part was solid. Not sure if it's because I ate it directly as I received it or what, it looks a bit cold. I like the general taste but I can't say it's a very outstanding chocolate croissant judging from all aspects.

Maillard Patisserie

I wasn't able to cut the croissant into two half to show the inside because it's simply too crunchy to be cut, while not destroying the shape of it. The inside structure was perfect, you can see the beautiful layer, meaning they've done a incredibly great job in making the puff pastry initially. The chocolate inside is melting a little bit, it was around 20 degrees outside so I reckon it's meant to be in this status (not because it's too hot outside). And the chocolate part melt with the crispy outside into your mouth -- a very delightful taste. The only reason that I minus 0.2 score is that you can feel the bottom of the croissant to be a bit oily, which I think is normal for a pastry that has such a nice crunchy structure, but meanwhile I was wondering if there's any way to avoid this.

Ovenbird 4/5 Maillard 4.8/5