Le Rêve Bakery & Cafe

My lovely friend Christina read my post about Cafe Besalu and urged me to try her favorite pastry shop in Queen Anne, Le Rêve Bakery & Cafe. Well, you don't exactly have to twist my arm to get me to try a new eating spot, so we went together today! The cafe's name translates as "The Dream," and it's super cute, with a glass case full of tempting baked goods. But it was lunchtime, so we held off on the sweets and opted for soup. I had a mug of cream of broccoli and it was absolutely delicious, with flavorful florets and little squares of potato. I also had a caprese sandwich, but next time I'll just get a big bowl of soup. Plus, when you get the bowl of soup (as opposed to the mug) it comes with monkey bread -- not the kind with cinnamon, but a fluffy roll laced with a savory cheese.

I was totally full after that, but left with a huge, buttery twice-baked almond croissant, which I think is Le Rêve's most popular pastry. I ate more of it than I intended to -- but to my credit, I gave at least half of it to Oscar. Dangerous!

Online reviews lead me to believe that Le Rêve gets packed on the weekends, but we had no trouble getting a seat. I noticed some thoughtful touches, like both glasses and plastic cups for the kiddies near the water carafes. There's even outdoor seating. As a matter of fact, the whole Queen Anne neighborhood looks charming, so I definitely need to do more exploring here. Until next time, I'll be dreaming of the coconut cake that I didn't get to taste. Yet.

Cafe Besalu

A woman I met last night told me about the ginger biscuits at Cafe Besalu in Ballard. They are so good that when her aunt visited from the East Coast she tried to buy them all. Cafe Besalu restricted her to just twelve.

We joined the long line of patrons this rainy morning and ended up buying not just ginger biscuits, but most of the pastries they had, including pain au chocolat, almond croissants, almond schnecken, plum rolls, and more. I took a bite of most of these (okay, in some cases more than a bite...) and the pain au chocolat was definitely the best I've had since visiting France (still warm, with melted chocolate). The ginger biscuit was indeed delicious as promised: light, fluffy, not overly sweet, with a very subtle ginger flavor.

Despite the massive quantity of sweets we purchased, there were still more items there that I'd like to try, including the onion and gruyere pastry, the cornmeal apricot sage cookie, and the leek and goat cheese quiche. I will be back! But I'm actually glad I don't live closer to this place. Even though it's open only 7 a.m.-3 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, it could be dangerous!

Wnsmkrngl?

Back when Chris and his friend Mike were in college almost 20 years ago, one of their friend's sister asked them a mysterious question in her indistinct, mumbly dialect: "Wnsmkrngl?" After an exchange that went something like ""Wnsmkrngl?" and "What?!" about 10 times, they realized she was offering a type of Scandinavian pastry called kringle.

Mike is now a doctor in Seattle, and when we lived in the Bay Area Chris liked to send him kringle at Christmastime, with the one-word gift message: "Wnsmkrngl?" And of course Mike would send the same thing back to him. Some jokes never get old.

Now we live in the same neighborhood! So yesterday, Mike brought over the kringle gift in person. Thanks, Mike!