Le Marais Bakery

http://www.lemaraisbakery.com/#bistro 


Place: Le Marais[1] Bakery
Location: 2066 Chestnut Street (between Mallorca Way and Pierce Street)
Hours: Monday - Sunday open at 7:00am; however, la cuisine doesn't open for le petit déjeuner until 8:00am (or five minutes or so later)
Meal: Cr'q Forestier ~ mushrooms[2], Gruyère, salade; for a breakfastary dessert, a Kouign-Amann[3] (which had just piqued[4] my interest at last Sunday's breakfast destination); and a cuppa (and one refilla) Stumptown Coffee Roasters Holler Mountain

https://www.stumptowncoffee.com/products/holler-mountain

(I am continuing yesterday's EweToobular non-juxtaselections with some more Lucinda Williams songs because I can.

If youse got a problem wiff that, start yer own 'd*mn 'blog-thing!)


I had passed Le Marais Bakery last weekend when I was heading to La PanotiQ Bakery Café. I have been meaning to check them out ("out which to check them"?), too. It's nice to see two decent French bakeries battling it out in the Marina (and just two blocks apart on the same side of the street). Le Marais Bakery is a littler older and has been open for just over three years now (end of June 2013). They currently have two locations (this one and another nearby shop in Ghirardelli Square) and are opening another in the Castro very soon. The restaurant/bistro area is small-to-medium-sized (but with very high ceilings to give the place an open-aired feel to it almost) and has seating of thirteen tables for two and two large bench-style tables for six-to-eight people; additionally, there are six small, round tables for two people each located on the sidewalk outside (because an inside sidewalk makes absolutely no sense what-so-ever, even for a French bakery/bistro).

(This painting of persimmons[5] was above my table this morning.)


Quelques autres idées pour le petit déjeuner: Breakfast Board (you get to choose five different items [I suppose you can choose five of all the same item, but that would be pretty boring] from a long list of pastries/croissants, eggs, yoghurt, and fruits and such; if I get back there again [one of these days/years], I will probably go for this choice); Quiche (they offer both vegetarian or ham versions; this comes with a side of petite salade, aussi); Avocado Toast (sunny-side egg, crème fraîche [which I was very glad to see spelled la manière française correcte; you'd be surprised how many so-called "Frenchy" places do not bother to use the actual diacritics]; I see this dish more and more often on menus); or even Shakshouka (eggs poached in tomato stew; I have had versions of this Middle Eastern dish at a few other restaurants).

My breakfast sandwich was off the "Sur Le Pouce" section of their menu. "Sur Le Pouce" (which literally translates as "on the thumb") basically means "On-the-Go". "Croque" means "crunch" and comes from the French verb "crouquer" meaning "to eat noisily". (I am throwing in those two stupid, useless cunning linguist pointers sans frais supplémentaires.)

My sandwich this morning was really chock-fulla (sautéed/grillé) mushrooms (definitely not for any of you fungiphobes out there) and about as cheesy as you could expect (definitely not for any of you lactophobes, either). I have always wanted to try a "Croque"-style sandwich, but most of the offerings that I have ever seen are made with dead, decaying animal flesh (usually of the porky variety) of some sort. If I had ever ordered this sandwich sans les morts chair animale en décomposition, I suppose that would just be like a French version of "un lapin gallois"[6]. 

The "petite salade" was really very simple and nothing special. It was your typical mesclun with some cherry (grape?) tomatoes, and it had the lightest (if any) of dressing on it. Even so, it went well with the heavier sandwich and I finished it all off.

I am glad I got a chance to try the Kouign-Amman. I liked it. It was a sweetened square of puff-pastry dealie.

I didn't bother to see what (if any) condimentary supplementation they may have had to offer. I figured it being a French bakery kinda place and all, I wouldn't need any of my own bottles of hot sauce. If I ever get back there again, I might bring some with me just in case I decide to go with any kind of eggy-dish or potatoes side.

Now which of these new French bakery places located in the Marina did I like better? I did really like the fingerling potatoes side last weekend; however, these two places offer different breakfast fares, and both places offer very good Coffee choices. So, it's really a coin-toss (or is that "un €-jet"?). 


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: 
Cr'q Forestier ~ 6.7;
Kouign-Amman ~ 6.4;
Stumptown Coffee Roasters Holler Mountain ~ 7.2

___________________

1. Le stupide, inutile cunning linguist pointer of the day, première partie:

"Le marais" means either "the swamp" or "the marsh" in French. I like the former translation better for the upscaley Marina neighborhood. 

(Or for you Red Sox fans out there, "le marais" can also be translated as "fen". [Just how much does a fen weigh, anyway?!])

I don't think that this "swamp" (or "marsh") is in reference to the Marina District being built on swampland/landfill. Apparently, Le Marais is an historic neighborhood in Paris (the one in France, not Texas).

2. Le stupide, inutile cunning linguist pointer of the day, deuxième partie:

The word for "mushroom" in French is "(le) champignon".

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kouign-amann

4. Le stupide, inutile cunning linguist pointer of the day, numéro trois:

Sorry, I could not locate the specific French word for "piqued".

5. Le stupide, inutile cunning linguist pointer of the day, numéro quatre:

The French word for "persimmon" is "(le) plaqueminier".

6. I will let you do your own translation of that phrase to get the stupid, useless cunning linguistic pun.

I also noticed that on the weekends pour "Le Brunch", they even offer an Australian grilled/baked sandwich version made with kangaroo meat that is called a Croque-Dundee*...


*(I am truly sorry for that horrible last joke there, but if I didn't include it here, I am sure that either my brother Nick or old Air Force buddy Karl Brandt would have done so on my defacedbook Timeline-thing.)