Faubourg (Park Royal)

With an invite to try Faubourg's seasonal offerings for October, it occurred to me that my best bet for a eating buddy would be Mijune.  Hey, she loves sweets and seems to have a bottomless pit for a stomach.  Alas, a tasting with Mijune is never complete without trying practically everything on the menu.  Hey and why not?  Why only sample a few items when you can have it all?  I guess the fact I was playing hockey right after made me feel less guilty.

We kicked things off with a selection of pastries including the classic Butter Croissant.  A few years ago, I put this item on my top 40 list of things to eat in Vancouver.  Well, something was not right here as it wasn't how I remembered it.  It wasn't bad per se, but it lacked the crispiness and lamination of the original one I had in Kerrisdale.  On the other hand, the Pain au Chocolate was remarkably better with crispy layers falling off as I took each bite.  My only wish would be for more chocolate as the filling was rather sparse.

Onto the Almond Croissant, it was more crispy and flaky than the butter croissant.  It wasn't overly sweet, but that was a direct result of a small amount of actual frangipane.  In fact, there was not a whole lot of almond flavour to it.  In stark contrast, the featured item of the month was our favourite of the bunch.  The Pumpkin & Cinnamon Croissant (looked more like a Danish) was crunchy and nicely laminated where it made a mess upon each bite.  Semi-sweet and only slightly kissed by the flavour of pumpkin, the filling was a good match.

I was not a huge fan of the Ham & Cheese Croissant due to the dense interior texture.  I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the filling (which was rather sparse as well), but it was in direct contrast to the Pain au Chocolate.  On the positive side, the exterior was crispy though.  Lastly, we had the Cheddar and Herbs Scone which was decent.  Although slightly underbaked where the exterior was a bit soft, it did have a balanced cheesiness while nicely accented by the savoury herbs.  Inside, it was fluffy and light with only a touch of flour-taste.

We moved from here to a selection of breads including the mini-Baguette.  I enjoyed the chewy crust as well as the overall taste of the bread.  However, the inside was a bit dense and not chewy enough in my opinion.  It was appealingly moist though where it wasn't dried-out.  Our favourite item of this selection was the Fig and Walnut as the entire loaf had an overall on point texture.  Outside was firm and chewy while the inside was soft and chewy at the same time.  The nuts and were plentiful while accented by an intermittent burst of sweetness from the figs.  I also enjoyed the Cheese Stick Bread where it was slightly crunchy on the outside and definitely cheesy throughout.

Onto the sweets, we tried the Mille Feuille first.  Although the banana mousse was light and only purposefully sweet, the puff pastry seemed to take on some moisture.  Hence it didn't break when we put the fork into it.  Rather, it went limp.  Was it because it was the end of the day?  Not sure, but it looked good though.  The Lemon Tart was next and it did taste lemony with an accenting amount of sugar.  Texturally, the custard seemed a bit gelatinized, but it was okay nonetheless.  As for the tart shell, it was rather thin and wasn't as firm as I would've liked it to be.

The next 2 pastries were our favourite by far.  Refreshing and light, the Green Tea Passion Fruit Mouse lived up to its namesake with bursts of tangy sweetness from the smooth and creamy passion fruit mousse.  In the centre, there was lychee gelee that was impactful and complimentary.  We would've liked to see more matcha taste, but it didn't make or break it.  We also enjoyed the Tri-Chocolate Decadent where it wasn't overly sweet while being luxurious in texture.  I found there was a distinction between the dark, milk and white chocolate layers, yet they all worked in harmony providing a variety of flavours.

The features for October were Shadow the Cat and the Fresh Fig Tart where the former fit into the Halloween theme just fine.  Cute and chocolaty, the cookie base for the cat was a bit too firm.  However, the combination of the cookie, coconut mousse and raspberry gelee center all enveloped by a rich chocolate ganache was on point.  As for the Fig & Almond Tart, the fanned fig on top was rather appealing while the rest of the tart featured layers of honey vanilla cream, fig jam and almond frangipane.  This wasn't overly sweet while the sporting nice aromatics.  I liked the presence of fig without it being too heavy.

As much as the Macarons looked well-made and uniform in shape, the texture was a little off.  The outside was on point with a light crispiness that gave way to a soft centre.  However, the missing texture was the classic chewiness.  Furthermore, we found the flavours far too sweet. With that being said, they were above-average on the macaron continuum.  The October featured flavour was the Pumpkin Spice Latte Macaron and as much as I'm not a fan of pumpkin anything, this was not bad as they eased up on the pumpkin flavour.  Now if you have been paying attention, it might seem we were being a bit critical of our selection of items.  That we were, but with the growing number of patisseries in town, there is no room for complacency.   With that being said Faubourg still remains a respectable choice within the GVRD.

*All food, drinks and gratuities were complimentary*

The Good:
- Lots of choice
- Pastries were overall good

The Bad:
- Inconsistencies with their croissants
- Unless something has changed, I prefer their Kerrisdale location more