Home

Beard Papa (Bakery cuisine) $

99 Yerba Buena Lane, San Francisco, 94103 (Directions)

415-978-9972

Website Menu vCard

Fresh Cream Puffs with various fillings from the oven to your mouth.
Reviewer: Jason Total Reviews: 992 Reviewed: 6/9/2006 Rating: 7.5 My photo gallery	With so much press about Beard Papa opening up in San Francisco, the jatbar folks had to trek up north and investigate. Hearing stories about lines wrapping around the building and tales of fresh doughy goodies from the oven leaving you speechless. With high expectations, we had our work set out for us to give a normal person's honest review. As part of the fun of San Francisco, finding parking can be a headache and I'm sure Terry's review will reflect this out of town experience. Having lived in San Francisco for a couple of years, it's just part of daily life and expected. We circled 2 times around the block aimlessly looking for an open meter then finally settled for paid parking 2 blocks down the street. 1 hour will cost $2.50 and all the time we needed was 15 minutes. A short walk to Beard Papa and no lines wrapped around the corner, good luck is on our side. As with any new restaurant, this place is immaculately clean and smiling faces behind the counter eagerly awaiting our orders. The entire menu isn't ready with future flavors like pumpkin, green tea, coming soon, we ordered vanilla and chocolate. I don't know how long the cream puffs were sitting but we didn't get any of the hot ones. vanilla - $1.95 each, cream puffs tasted fresh but my dreams of warm flaky crust with a moist dough filled with chilled cream had me thinking, I drove all the way up here for this? chocolate - pretty much the same as vanilla but had cocoa dust on top with a chocolate flavored cream. The one thing I enjoyed about the cream puffs was the amount of sugar added. Wasn't overly sweet and reminiscent of a japanese baker's restrain on the use of sugar, props to that. Maybe we didn't experience a true Beard Papa cream puff as it wasn't out of the oven. What I had today wasn't anything out of the ordinary. It was good, it was enjoyable but it's not worth an out of city drive. If I lived near Yerba Buena I'd visit Beard Papa, if I was in another district like Hayes, not worth my time as there are far more other good bakers out there.

Reviewer: Terry Total Reviews: 724 Reviewed: 6/9/2006 Rating: 7.5 My photo gallery	I have a feeling this will be a controversial review. A lot of people awaited this restaurants opening with anticipation. Many swear by these things. And then there's me. I like sweets, but am not a connoisseur of the cream puff. This means I have nothing to lose if the place sucks. Other than a few bucks and a long drive. Jason and I made such a drive this morning, catching them just about as they opened, hopefully beating anticipated crowds. It was a bit of trouble finding parking tho there is plenty of garage parking a block or two away. And its easily within walking distance of Moscone center, so would be a good MacWorld break destination for sure. The place was empty when we arrived. But it seemed like they were expecting more crowds as they were churning these things in/out of the oven like crazy. They had a few huge trayloads of them on the counter. I shuffled up to the counter and ordered a vanilla and a chocolate. They came out to nearly 4 bucks. Dang, these things better deliver. I was sad to see them pull mine off of the cooled pile and not fresh-from-the-oven. I attacked the vanilla first (finding a table in the cramped restaurant). The thing was cold (bummer) but the cream was firm inside. Didn't want something too messy, so this was good. The dough was a bit crispy with a tad of grease. Not as greasy or sweet as a Malasada, but still sweet enough for me. The cream inside was sweeter and had a decent flavor. It didn't blow me away on first bite - and that really bummed me out. For the price I was expecting something much better tasting. The Tex-Drive-In on the Big Island of Hawaii has Malasadas with filling that tasted much better (http://www.jatbar.com/detail.asp?num=563), was larger, and was a heckuva lot cheaper. The chocolate was more of the same. Good (perhaps even tasting better than the vanilla - and I'm not a chocolate type of guy in general) but not mind-blowing. Perhaps if this place was located in a much cheaper location like Fremont we would see some cheaper prices. As it is tho, I just can't justify this place as a must-visit delicacy. After visiting this, we stopped by for some cream puffs at Golden Gate Bakery in Chinatown. Check out that review for the head-to-head action.

Reviewer: Lainie Total Reviews: 41 Reviewed: 12/29/2006 Rating: 8 My photo gallery	It's certainly worth a trip if you're a fan of Japanese style desserts or the cream puff in general. I agree that it's very good, not too sweet and very creamy and subtle filling (especially the yummy vanilla flavor). And the puff is flaky and airy. But it's not mind-blowing. If you're in the mood for a light, creamy sweet treat, it's the perfect thing. Sometimes the lines are insane and that's when I think it's not worth it.


Disclaimer

User submitted quickies (help)

Login to write a quickie.