The Neighborhoods: Tartine Bakery in The Mission

It doesn’t matter what time of day you walk into Tartine Bakery it is packed. But if you get into line with the optimism of an eight year old, as I did last week with my young friend Izzy, you will be able to snag a table by the time your cappuccino is made. It is always busy at Tartine because it appeals to the eight year old in all of us.  Chocolate chip cookies are huge, banana cream and coconut cream tarts sit under a tall drift of whipped cream, rose petals are scattered over puffy cake tops, deep, dark chocolate éclairs glisten, creamy bread pudding murmurs comfort.   

When go I alone early in the morning I get the ‘morning bun’, a spiral of flaky (croissant?) dough baked to a deep brown and tossed, hot out of the oven, into a bowl of orange scented sugar.  Or at least that is my best guess at how they create these AMAZING buns.  A line forms the minute they appear. I once saw this line of low key, cool, tattooed, Range Rover driving folks almost turn into an angry mob when the first woman in line ordered two dozen.  ‘Will there be any left for me?’ we all seemed to be thinking.  I tried to quell my own anxiety by repeating that these were just morning buns and this was not a line at a failing bank in 1929.  With my new found Zen-like calm I reminded myself that if the mbs were gone I could drown my sorrow with the almond croissant, straight out of a Parisian patisserie-boulangerie.  continue......

At lunch I have one of their open-faced sandwiches.  My favorites are the long slices of crusty bread, spread with a béchamel, topped with wild mushrooms or asparagus, more béchamel and then broiled until the tops are bubbly and brown.  They pickle their own baby carrots with plenty of red pepper flakes.  The sharp heat of the pickled carrots provides a nice contrast (palette relief) from the richness of the sandwich.  Another bite of the rich sandwich quells the heat of the carrot and so it goes on and on until both have disappeared.

They also bake bread.  Tender, alive loaves that, when squeezed gently, puffs back up like a down pillow or a baby’s chubby cheek or the Pillsbury doughboy’s tummy.  No kidding.  Bread comes out of the oven around 4pm.  A line forms for that also.  Yes, a bread line.

Comments

[Karletta]

Miro, You have a lot more self control than I do. Anything less than a mile and I would be dragging myself there every morning! I will try the Gougere next time....

[Miro]

You must try the Gougere - it looks menacing but is an airy, very eggy Goat cheese puff that is unlike any pastry I've had. I'm so lucky it's 5 blocks away because if it was TWO blocks away I would be in serious trouble.