annoyance of the day

Went to Trader Joe's for the first time with liliane and discovered deliciousness.

Except English muffins: these are not English muffins. They are tiny round hard white bread hamburger buns and normally this would not annoy me except I really wanted a toasted English muffin circa 1 AM and am feeling hate. The texture is wrong wrong wrong the grain is wrong, it's unnaturally hard instead of mildly chewy and I FEEL BETRAYED. Also, got lemons crossbred with mandarins and not sure what to do with that.

Also went to Tous les Jours bakery for French-Korean fusion baked goods and I made the mistake of a.) carrying more than $10 and b.) arriving right when they were bringing out fresh baked goods (c.) going in at all, was inevitable once within line of sight). I will not record for posterity anything but the chocolate ganache bread exists and holy shit I pity everyone who isn't me.

Comments

[ratcreature]

Is chocolate ganache bread the same as brioche filled with chocolate ganache?

[moonflower_rose]

That sounds goddamn delicious

[green_grrl]

The only English muffins are Thomas’s English muffins. Everything other is subpar.

[aerialiste]

I had the same TJ muffin experience so my heart goes out to you. Inside a magical Houston place called H-Mart, there's a similar Japanese-French bakery, and I am only allowed to have three things when I visit there, and I'm also forced to buy a bunch of green leafy stuff like tat tsoi and bok choi. It sounds like the citrus is yuzu? with which you can make a lemonade-like beverage, though honestly I'm more familiar with it as an ingredient in shower gel.

[aerialiste]

also: very good things at TJ's, if they have them this winter:

• pumpkin butter! a miracle on your toast
• coconut chips, which I will eat from the bag like cherries and you know how well that turns out
• frozen gyoza, amazing dipped into sauce of equal parts tamari and rice vinegar
• they have a ridiculously good frozen made-in-Italy pizza line
• there's a really nice brand of papardelle too
• seriously I lived off TJ's in Boston/Phoenix, I've eaten almost everything they have
• why are we not consuming all of these things right now

[lemon_badgeress]

Also, got lemons crossbred with mandarins and not sure what to do with that I think setting up a tiny altar is the safest route.

[twistedchick]

I don't know if this is a local or national thing, but the Trader Joe's near me changed its source bakery, from which its cakes and cookies and muffins come, and possibly the bread, and their new bakery is nowhere near as good as it was. The chocolate babka does not have rich chocolate flavor -- they are shorting on the chocolate or using a lower grade of it. The supposedly chocolate-chocolate cookies and muffins are brown with bits of chocolate in them; there is no flavor outside the bits of chocolate. I have complained about this to the manager several time and finally quit buying those things there.

I'm also still looking for a good bakery that has San Francisco sourdough bread; the Whole Foods near us changed its bakery, or its method, and now no longer calls what they have San Francisco, just sourdough -- the loaves are smaller, more dense and less tasty. I suspect they are not allowing them to rise enough. The store also reduced the size of the bags the bread goes into, while keeping the price set, so you're paying the same amount for half as much bread. I hope to find an independent bakery that does it right -- light, only a little chewy and full of flavor.

[lillian13]

Argh, so sorry about the muffins.

I've already eaten all my Tous les Jours haul as well, if that makes you feel better.

[silverflight8]

Bakeries are dangerous. No one warns you about this as a child...

[timespirt]

They call them crumpets I believe.

[archaeologist_d]

That chocolate ganache bread sounds wonderful.