Croissant D’or finally opened today at Westfield Woden. I’ve been walking past anticipating its opening for the last few weeks as it was meant to open in September.
I love the feature wall they have of Paris and the Eiffel Tower. It’s quite a small space and only fits a few tables and chairs.
There are two glass displays of goodies. One has the smaller sweets made up of macarons, tarts, danishes, eclairs, slices and more.
The second displays the full cakes in two different sizes. The smaller sized cakes go for around $20-25, and the bigger cakes from $40. They also sell individual slices of their cakes to go that fit into their own cake slice–shaped containers. Cute!
I ordered my soy mocha and 3 macarons ($2.50 each) to go. The soy mocha wasn’t bad – a 50/50 mixture of chocolate and coffee as it should be. The chocolate chilli macaron was surprisingly quite spicy. I wasn’t expecting that much of a chilli hit. Don’t think I’d order that one again. The pistachio was nice but not that flavoursome. I like how they sprinkled chopped up pistachios on top. The bilberry macaron was my favourite of the three. A nice berry flavoured macaron. I’m not sure if macarons are meant to be that crunchy on the outside? Biting into these ones, a bit of the outer shell flew everywhere and onto my lap. The outer shell was crunchier than usual but the inside was soft. These were different to the zumbarons in Sydney, where they’re completely soft and chewy.
I headed back to try their lunch menu. I expected them to only sell sweets and cakes, but they have a decent all day breakfast and lunch menu, including salads, smoothies, tartines (open French sandwiches) and burgers.
I decided on the Peach Beach smoothie ($6.50) – a mix of peach, pineapple, mango and orange. The menu states all smoothies are made with ice cream and your choice of milk. As I only drink soy milk, I think they substituted the ice cream for yogurt as it tasted a bit like a lassi. Still tasted good! And it went down quickly.
I ordered the grilled Cajun chicken burger with haloumi, peri peri mayo and salad which was served with a side of fries ($12.90). I quite liked this – the chicken was tender and smothered in the spicy peri peri mayo. The haloumi added some saltiness to the burger. Not bad! I’m glad I had my smoothie/lassi as the burger had some kick to it from the spicy mayo. The fries didn’t have any salt on them so we had to add it ourselves from the salt shaker on the table. Not the best fries I’ve had.
Food porn of my friends dishes
They were both satisfied with their meals and also commented that the bread was really nice. I couldn’t go home without trying some of the dessert. The big red velvet cake looks so good!
I chose the slices of red velvet cake, and chocolate fudge cake to take home (both $5.50 a slice). The red velvet was slightly taller than the chocolate fudge.
The red velvet had a layer of strawberry icing inside. The sponge was chocolatey and sweet, but not as moist as I would’ve liked it to be. The strawberry icing in the middle assisted in reducing the dryness. The chocolate icing on top was nice and light. I did like this cake and would probably order it again.
The first thing you notice about the chocolate fudge cake is the colourful outside – crushed up pieces of what I think are macaron shells. This didn’t add much to the cake but made it look pretty. The top is glazed with slivers of almonds sprinkled on top. The chocolate fudge is much denser and heavier than the red velvet. I think it has been made with almond meal or some kind of meal as it had that sort of texture to it. Though it was meant to be a chocolate fudge, I couldn’t taste much sweet chocolate. It must be more of a dark chocolate fudge as it also had a tiny hint of bitterness to it. Compared to the red velvet, it wasn’t as chocolatey or that great. I wouldn’t order this again.
So the verdict – lunch was okay and pretty average. For a burger, I’d still prefer Grill’d or Brodburger. Service was very friendly, and our waitress asked us for some feedback after we’d finished our meals. The selection of cakes on display are very enticing and will be bought for the next few birthday morning teas at my work. I was a bit disappointed in the macarons. They weren’t as good as I was hoping they would be. I’m still keen on trying out the huge assortment of other goodies on display and something on the breakfast menu (pancakes!).
Small kinks to be worked out: minor stuff up with the ordering system – the machine kind of froze for a bit. We were the only ones sitting down to eat and it took a while for the food to come out which was concerning. Probably just learning the ropes. All little things that I’m sure will be smoothed out in no time.
See Hercanberra article for another story on Croissant D’or.
Foodgasm 6.5/10