Chocolate Monkey Bread

We have visited tonnes of restaurants in the past couple of weeks and it was high time to take a break. Since we need to be surrounded by food at all times the only choices were gaming parlors and café/bakeries and we chose the latter!

This was officially the first time we organised a bloggers meet and it was a mixture of excitement and nervousness but thanks to everyone for joining in and bringing out the best in us! Since winter is actually here and Christmas is approaching it’s time to change focus from the restaurants to bakeries and Au Bon Pain has come up with a whole new range of items in its menu fitting the occasion.

The new range of items have been named as the “Winter Hotties” and if you have dual thoughts: good for you!

There are about 14 new additions to their regular menu which include bakery items, sandwiches, drinks and desserts and we’ll let you know which ones to try for sure and which ones you can do without.

It’s time to start off with our views on the Winter Hotties ;):

We started off with the Monkey Bread, Chocolate Monkey Bread and the Double Chocolate Croisbun.

The Monkey Bread was fun to look at because although it had a more or less constant shape, it had designs on top which were random. Taste wise, it was like a normal bread like the name suggests but it was a bit stiff, slightly chewy and dry. The Chocolate version of this tasted a lot better. First of all: 

Chocolate and then the stiffness and chewiness was not there so we would choose the chocolate over the non-chocolate Monkey Bread any time.

The Double Chocolate Croisbun also looked good. It looked like a muffin with 3 sectors topped off with chocolate cream. What more: there is a separate chocolate layer inside as well which can be experienced only if you have it. The fresh Croisbun was spongy and was complemented with the chocolate inside-out. If you try this out, do insist on a fresh piece as otherwise it loses its charm.

Double Chocolate Croisbun

Monkey Bread

Next up, the drinks and the “wiches”:

Their new menu consists of two varieties of Bubble Tea: Passion fruit and Strawberries, Mulled Wine and a Toffee Latte. Out of these 4, 2 exceeded expectations and the other 2 need improvement. The mulled wine is brilliant: it’s non-alcoholic but tastes similar to wine. It also has a tarty after taste like red wine, has a rich dark red colour and is a warm drink. It sure hit the spot and is definitely a must try!

The bubble tea concept is becoming quite familiar as most cafés and tea joints have this item. It is a pretty refreshing drink with fun bubbles which burst in the mouth and release the flavour of the drink. In this case, the passion fruit tea had the characteristic flavours and tasted great but the strawberry was not quite up to the mark. It did not taste like strawberries first, and second the flavour really doesn’t go well with these drinks. The Toffee Latte is a coffee based drink with caramel. The whipped cream and caramel had the good old taste but the drink itself was quite watery. Taste wise it is the way it should be and if they cut down on the water, this has potential!

Start-Wiches!

Strawberry and Passion fruit Bubble Tea

Mulled Wine

Toffee Latte

Now they have 2 types of sandwiches: Start-Wich and Flavour Burst sandwiches.

The Start-Wich has two variants: vegetarian and with egg. We tried the egg variant and it has a good mouth feel. It has roasted vegetables, eggs and mozzarella. The egg start-wich has poached eggs in it which complements well with the mozzarella. The usage of more cheese would have been it even better. The Flavour Burst sandwiches were brilliant. The Chicken and the Paneer both were extraordinary and lip smacking. Chicken and Paneer were in abundance and along with the beautifully caramelized and flavoured onions, this deserves nothing less than a thumbs up. The nomenclature is perfect as well because with each bite you get a burst of peri-peri.

The last two items were presented well but the taste told a different tale. The Harvest Chicken & Veg Salad was very well presented. It had a good crunch of almonds and pumpkin seeds along with fresh greens. The feta cheese added a bitter element and overall it was well balanced. The salad dressing however ruined the salad as it was too pungent and not suitable at all!

Peri Peri Flavor Burst Chicken Sandwich

Harvest Salad

Lastly, the Dark Lava Meltdown was the only dessert item in their new menu. It looked very appealing but had a similar problem like that of the Harvest Salad. The chocolate cake tasted good but there was no lava oozing out. The edges were a bit too hard and there was molten chocolate in the centre but no lava. Except for these, it did taste good but the whipped cream on top was tasteless and its texture did not go well with the main thing.

Dark Lava Meltdown

Positives and negatives aside, we did have a lot of fun. This was our first FLB meet and there are many more to come!

We hope we could help you out in what to try and what not to try from the new Winter Hotties collection.

Do try out the items we recommended and you won’t regret it. Let us know about your experience if you do!

We’ll be back soon with more news on grub.

Till then—stay tuned and bon apetit!

There are a large number of cafes in Bangalore city and in all of India for that matter, out of which most of them have sprung up in the past 1-2 years.

We quite recently visited a renowned cafe, for trying out a few additions they made in their menu and most of these additions are definitely worth a try!

Without further ado, the cafe we visited is none other than Au Bon Pain, which is spread out all across the country now and because of their quality products they are very well known. This outlet is situated in CMH road, Bangalore and the locality has a lot of energy in the air.

Not much to mention about the ambiance because all the outlets have the same decor. The decor is quite classy though and not at all loud. Their staff is very courteous and to be honest the cleanliness of this store in particular is quite appealing.

Coming down to the new items: They have launched a few items called cone-wich, a chicken keema kouign-amann, banana walnut muffin, crème and mango custard Danish, raspberry crème croisbun, croi-mosa, a bagel poha sandwich, cinnamon buns and a few coolers for the summer.

We found the chicken keema preparation to be the best undoubtedly! It looks more like a quiche, but with a puffed head. The head is covered with herbs and a big bite with the herbs and the spicy keema tasted phenomenal! It is quite spongy as well, but slightly oily.

The croi-mosa was very interesting. It is basically a fusion of a croissant and a samosa and they really did a good job! The stuffing was very fragrant, balanced and tasty. The whole thing looks sort of like a croissant but has a crunch like a samosa.

The cone-wich has many variants: one chicken, a mushroom and eggplant and a tandoori paneer variant. We tried the last one and it was a different experience to be honest. The item is served in a cup and the advantage of this cone design is that the stuffing runs deep and you get the real deal till the end. Taste wise, it was a bit too tangy for comfort. It was pretty overpowering and the taste of the paneer was masked. The sweet corns were a good addition though.

The banana walnut muffin was fantastic! It was soft and spongy with the essence of banana throughout and few chunks of walnut deep within. We really liked this one and this is highly recommended.

Both the Danish were pretty similar except for the layers on top. They were flat shaped and very spongy. We liked the crème custard one more as its flavour was more distinguishable.

The raspberry croisbun was a decent addition but it could have been made better. The raspberry jam on top was the only flavour you will get while biting through. If they added something more inside it could have tasted better. The cinnamon buns were small but packed a punch. The sweetness was well balanced and the flavour was not overpowering.

The poha bagel combo was kind of funny but taste wise quite impressive. The presentation was very good and on top of that, the poha was very flavoursome. The bagels were thin, crunchy and had a cheese coating.  

Now for the main attraction in the summers: the coolers! They introduced many variants including the banana yoghurt cooler and the papaya orange cooler.

We tried the papaya orange cooler and it was very refreshing. The flavours were distinguishable and well balanced.

We also tried the frozen mint cooler which is the “old is gold” type. It was even more refreshing!

The new additions are definitely impressive and have a great variety. They are handpicked to cater to the palate of a wide variety of people.

Hope this post helps out a fellow foodie in need!

Hope this menu lasts, because we will definitely be trying some of the items again soon!

Till next time—bon appétit! 

If you know about Kolkata’s Park Street then there is one place you would know about for sure, Flury’s .

A tea room that has been there since the time when Kolkata used to be the Capital of this country! It is a place which every Kolkata resident knows about and you’ve got to have some “Breakfast at Flury’s “ days. Oh no! , Not tiffany’s :P