Pâtisserie Boule

Last Sunday, in lieu of Easter eggs, D. indulged me with a box of macarons from the French pâtisserie Boule. Aside from the rave reviews, it's one of only a handful of places in L.A. that makes the delectable treats, so I was eager to check it out.

The shop is small yet sleek and stylish with its light blue interior. There is a dizzying array of treats: Boule offers not just pastries but also chocolates, candies, cookies, cakes and sorbets which all look like edible works of art.

It was tough to choose but Jennifer -- the nice and pretty staff member who attended to us -- was very helpful with suggestions and descriptions of the goodies. She also gave us samples so we can taste anything that caught our fancy. That certainly earned Boule brownie points with me. I wish all stores were as generous with their goods.

I knew for sure I wanted macarons. Not to be confused with macaroons which are usually made with coconut, French macarons are flavored meringue cookies with a cake-lake interior, sandwiched together with a jam or cream filling. Biting into one is like biting into a crispy cloud with a chewy, creamy center. Pure bliss.

I finally decided on a box of macarons, one of each flavor: chocolate, pistachio, rose petal, lavender, vanilla, lemon, coffee and coconut.

In a second box, we got a canneles bordelais (vanilla cake bathed with a vanilla-rum glaze), a café éclair (puff pastry with coffee icing and custard filling) and a le tigre (chocolate spotted hazelnut cake with chocolate ganache in the center).

In the third box we got six coconut macaroons, three plain and three dipped in chocolate chip and a financier (a rectangular cake made with almond flour and bananas with a bit of caramel in the center).

Of all these pastries, my favorites were the macarons (loved them all), the financier (the best banana cake ever) and the café éclair (the coffee flavor is intensely good).

Boule wasn’t cheap but heck, it’s my birthday week and I deserved it. There are other sweets to try, so we’ll definitely be back.

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