Thursday, March 13, 2014

Baked Goods from Prima Cafe

You may remember my review of Prima Cafe a long time ago.  They serve my absolute favorite frozen yogurt in the city.

But, they are also open for breakfast and lunch, and have a good looking baked goods selection in the morning.  You know I love breakfast baked goods, but Prima was originally only open Monday through Friday, so I never had the chance to try them.  Until now, as they recently added Saturdays hours too!

Prima Cafe sources their baked goods from City Baking Co, so I quickly looked up the offerings online.  I've sorta been on a scone and muffin kick, so I was excited to try them out, since I know many cafes use City Baking Co, and some of their products sound quiet tasty.
Blueberry Scone.  $2.25.
City Baking Co makes a large variety of scones, including glazed options, like a maple walnut scone with maple icing or an iced lemon curd scone.  Or, equally delicious sounding, but slightly less decadent, scones with other toppings, like a brown sugar crumble topped apricot scone or an almond and sweet crumb topped raspberry scone.  Mmm!  They also have a host of standard fruit scones (strawberry, ollalieberry, currant, pumpkin, etc), and low-fat versions as well.

I was of course excited for one of the topped ones, but Prima Cafe only carries two varieties: cranberry or blueberry.  Both standard scones, no topping, not fun.  But perhaps more breakfast appropriate.

Since I never like dried cranberries, I went for the blueberry.

It was an incredibly boring scone.  It wasn't bad, but there was just nothing to it.  Slightly dry, but not too bad.  The blueberries were all in a layer in the middle, tiny Maine blueberries, and really just had no flavor, and didn't add much moisture.  The base had no flavor.  I would have loved some buttermilk tang or something.  The top was equally boring, it could have used a sugar topping, or something.

This was a large scone, a good price for $2.25, and clearly fresh, but just really boring.  Would not get again.
Carrot Muffin.  $1.95.
Since I didn't care for the scone, on my next visit, I went for a muffin.  Just like the scones, City Baking Co makes a slew of muffins that sound fantastic.  Mixed berry with a brown sugar topping!  Raspberry and almond filled with a crumb topping!  But alas, Prima Cafe also did not carry any of those.  They really seemed to be picking only the healthier options.

I settled on the carrot muffin, having fond memories of my mom's carrot cake.  Rookie mistake: bad idea to order something when I wanted it to be something else.

Described as: "Made with freshly grated carrots, pineapple, and coconut this flavor packed muffin is sure to give your morning a “kick-start”."

It wasn't a very good muffin.  It wasn't dry, but it also wasn't moist.  Just a very consistent, boring doneness.  It was loaded with plump sweet raisins, and a few tiny bits of pineapple.  The whole thing seemed very oily.  It wasn't very spiced.

This really seemed like it should be better than it was.  Maybe I just wanted it to be my mom's amazing carrot cake.  I dunno.  I would not get again, but the price was right for a large muffin.
Almond Croissant.  $2.50.
On my final visit, I decided to give them one more chance, and tried the final baked goods category: croissants.  I went for the most decadent looking, the almond croissant.

It was a classic croissant, stuffed with almond paste, topped with sliced almonds, and covered in powdered sugar.

It seemed like it might have been baked without the filling, and then had it added in later, as the croissant was physically sliced in half.  That didn't quite make sense to me.  Maybe Prima sliced them?  I'm really not sure.  Anyway.  It was also a monster.  We have little almond bear claws at my office that I have at breakfast sometimes, and I think I could have fit ... 6 of them in this thing.  HUGE.

The croissant itself was good enough, a bit moist, a bit flaky, a bit crispy.  Not remarkable, but better than most generic croissants.

There was TONS of filling.  It originally looked like way too much to me, but I liked the filling so much that I didn't mind.  Almond paste, sweetened.  But wow, there was a lot of it.

The slivered almonds on top provided some crunch, and powdered sugar sweetened it further, and made it that much more messy to eat.

Overall, not amazing, and I certainly wouldn't go out of my way for it, but it was good enough, and quite satisfying.  I'd get another if I wanted a sweet treat that I was pretending to be acceptable for breakfast.  It went very well with my black coffee.  And $2.50 is a fine price for such a beast!
Prima Cafe Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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