Wednesday, 02 December 2009

• Saint Germain

  
  

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  Saint Germain
  2301 Kuhio Ave. #117A
  Honolulu HI, 96815
  808-924-4305
  http://www.stghi.com
  
  Price: $
  Ambiance: Casual
  Food: 2/5
  Service: 2/5
  Tummy Points: 2/5
  Notes: Chocolate croissant
  ~$1.29. Baked goods aren't
  freshly baked in the morning. 
  
  
  

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  Our Hawaii trip was a short with no time to spare.  We needed a quick walk and eat type breakfast just to keep our stomachs from growling at us.  Across from our hotel was a bakery so we decided to pay them a visit to see what we could pick up.  Inside it's laid out like walk in bakery with a counter of "freshly" baked buns under plastic covers and center counters of pre-packaged not as fresh bread.  Saint Germain also has a small casual seating area with metal unpadded chairs in case you really want to enjoy your baked goods on the spot.  But I was content with eating on the go.

  Ideally the bread for the day is preoared and baked early in the morning at the store so if you get to a bakery early, you get their best bread.  Unless they're so popular and run out, they may bake more bread mid-day.  Unfortunately, a common trend with bakeries of this size and ones within a franchise or chain, they have one central location that prepares all the bread dough prior to baking.  If the store has an oven then baking is done on site.  Otherwise a truck or van drops off pre-baked goods to the location, just like a grocery store.

  

  Inside the chocolate croissant is a small piece of semi-sweet chocolate that has melted a bit while it was being baked.  The chocolate stretches a little over half of the croissant which isn't bad but it's a bit narrow.  I'd like to see almost half a Hersey's bar of chocolate in there.  The crust was not crispy but not overly hard.  The inside was light and airy but slightly dry.  It's obvious this location does not prepare the dough on site but it's large enough to have an oven.  However, the quality of the croissant seems to indicate they either baked it really really early in the day, it was left over from yesterday, or it was shipped to the store pre-baked.

  The best croissant I've ever had was in England with its crispy outside and warm airy inside.  I haven't had amazing croissants in North America before.  With the trend of pre-baking everything off site to save money, I can only see the continued decline in baked good quality at bakeries.  If they start cutting cost in their ingredients, they will not be any better than a local grocery store.

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