Angelina

Since we finished up at school "early" today, a couple of classmates and I decided to head to Pain de Sucre, on the recommendation of another fellow student. As luck would have it, the patisserie is closed on Tuesdays which was a bummer (felt particularly sorry for one of our party as this was the 2nd time he's paid a visit and found the place closed, 3rd time lucky!!).

As we were in the surrounding area, we decided to head up to a Parisian establishment, Angelina for a spot of cake and tea. The good news is that there wasn't much of a queue when we rocked up. The bad news was that arriving that late in the day meant that there was a restricted choice of cakes, was a bit peeved about this cos you would think if they are open until 7pm, there would be close to a full range available until then? We eventually plumped for a trio of Mont Blanc (a speciality), Paris-New York (twist on a classic, Paris-Brest) and Tartes aux Hosards? (forgot the name of the last cake but it was a lovely mini fruit tart) to accompany our pots of tea, all very civilised!

The verdict? Cakes were quite tasty (have been informed that the head pastry chef at Angelina is ex-Pierre Hermé) and the service could've been a bit better, but then again, you have to bear in mind that we're in the middle of tourist trap Paris. The salon is very traditional and from a bygone era, but in my humble opinion, fails to trump Café Tortoni in BA or Pasteis de Belem in Lisbon for atmosphere.