Our 39th Spot:

Croissante

2908 El Camino Real Santa Clara, CA 95051

www.croissantebakery.com

(clears throat) Okay, let me explain about the out of order numbers again… The Tea Spot that was scheduled to be visited in October was actually visited in August (Jade Chocolates) becauuuse I didn’t want to miss their Hawaiian-themed tea service (and they change themes often). Then, I was supposed to take a month off in October just to have a breather…which turned out to be timely, since my Mom passed away end of Sept. HOWeverr, this Spot just started offering Afternoon Tea AND I like to try it out as early as possible for you guys sooo- here we are! Squeezed this one in on the Tour before our 38th to-be-visited Spot scheduled for November, which is WHY it’s our 39th. (exhale)

If I can go back to my roots for a moment and be extremely Bay Area– it was HELLA loud in there. This was our first time in that bakery. It had been bookmarked in my Yelp to try, just never made it yet. So I was excited to kill two birds with one stone, and check this off while trying their tea service. But yeah, the sheer level of volume initially turned me off. Tho, I remained optimistic!

So- they offer loose AND bag. One pot to share, and they brought it to us not ready yet. (rolling eyes emoji) We chose their Jardin Bleu. No descriptions on the menu, they just told us “vanilla”. Ohhkaay… Thankfully, of the minimal choices on their menu, we both were interested in that one. We like a dark steep, so we let a good amount of time go before our first pours. But even then, it was still light. The vanilla was there, and maybe a berry aftertaste…? In the middle of our service, anticipating that it was gonna be better (having over-steeped by now), it was still just okay. And you are not allowed to change your tea blend.

Our tier came and as he was explaining everything, I already off the bat didn’t like that there’s not 2 of everything and you have to share some tiny items.

Plain Scones with jam and clotted cream – nice flavor but too crispy for me, more like a biscuit, you cut it and it crumbles; menu says “clotted cream” but I don’t know what that was

Egg Sandwich – it was good, could use salt, I like the soft boil, almost like a cold wet scramble

Prosciutto Sandwich – grill is nice, not every bite has prosciutto, I don’t know what else to say; the Huz said “it’s a decent grilled cheese”

Lemon Mint Pot de Creme – the mint made it taste dirty, “earthy”, very very faint lemon flavor, I do like the custard consistency a lot; thankfully my date was who I married, cuz we were forced to share this pot if we both wanted to try it

Chocolate Pot de Creme – this one taste worse, not creamy, almost eggy, curdled! I changed my mind! (when I saw there were one each of the pots, I said he could have the lemon cuz I’m not a lemon dessert person); he says “…and don’t serve it to me in plastic!” Hahah! Said it had a jell-o shot feel

Mini Madeleine dipped in Chocolate – honestly forgot to make a note… these were so cute + little, but nothing special, they are as big as your kid’s pinky finger and YES we cut each in half so we could both try

Matcha Tiramisu – tastes like shampoo

Matcha Truffle – I got a big dose of powder to tongue! I had made a sour face just as our server came to check on us!

Dark Chocolate Truffle – very nice, but nothing fantastic about it, reminded me of Trader Joe’s one (in that square red box)

Strawberry Pistachio Choux – here’s how our conversation went about this one…

Me: “What does that taste like, DIRT?”

Him: “Yeah.”

“Like they didn’t clean the pistachio.”

(3 crying laughing emjois)

It was way too much filling, tho I liked the pastry a lot

Rose Mousse – how do you eat it, you can’t pick it up, I had to bite down on the paper it was sitting on and scrape it off with my teeth, not cute, I thought that clear disc was hard candy but it was like chicken cartilage!!

Special Tart – I’m sure there was an official name for this one, but I didn’t hear him. I know for sure it was lilikoi. After setting down our tier and saying there was something else he was bringing out for us “to share”… After seeing all those sweets, I was hoping it was gonna be like a huge ham sandwich!! I usually like passion fruit stuff, but I didn’t like this. Didn’t like the coconut, and I don’t know why it reminded me of baby food.

Listen, the staff was very nice. Good service, sure. But this WASN’T IT for me guys!! I didn’t like that it was 500 sweet things to only TWO savories. The atmosphere wasn’t tea party vibes! The Huz goes: “I’m still trying to understand the aesthetic of how this fits into afternoon tea.” He was saying it would have been nice for a Bakery to put out more baked goods; “use your storefront to catapult this,” he says. And I agree! I think the focus was too much on the shock factor and what it looked like…as opposed to taste and flavor. We left there HUNGRY. Didn’t take the leftovers either. No joke- we stopped by McDonald’s on the way home and enjoyed some double-double’s!! And I wouldn’t normally nitpick on this, but there was just too much not to say something- if you want us to take you seriously as an Afternoon Tea Spot, REPRINT YOUR MENUS. I counted way too many typos. It’s not “darjeenling” for goodness sake!

You know how people say “Not everyone needs to have a podcast”? Well, not everyone needs to offer Afternoon Tea.

This was the first of 5 Tea things we have coming in the next 4 weeks!! EXCITING! So if you’re not already, please take a moment to enter your email below to subscribe so you can get all Blog Posts we share. Follow us on Threads too, cuz we post real time thoughts from all our Tea Adventures! We appreciate any donations that you are moved to contribute as well. See you here soon!

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