Boulangerie Panetier Baluchon [RIP]

Bakery: Boulangerie Panetier Baluchon
Address: 762 rue Saint-Jean, Quebec City QC
Website: n/a
Style: French
Price: $$

My second stop in Quebec City is the bakery I think of when I think of bakeries in the city. After all, back in the day when I actually travelled to Quebec City on a semi-regular basis, this was the only bakery I ever had something from, mostly due to the fact that it was open the longest and closest to our parking spot. :/ Yeah, those were some fun times....

Panetier Baluchon is a modest bakery, especially in comparison to others in the area, especially in or near the old town, but they make a bit of a smaller selection of classic French baked goods (croissants, danishes, etc), breads, and a quite limited variety of more fancier tarts, cakes, and macarons. Coming there in the evening, I was a little... annoyed at finding everything in saran wrap and having to pay full price for it; it gave it the effect of buying muffins and loaf cake slices from a cafeteria and the raspberry square in particular did not handle the plastic wrap that well. The square was smushed (sic), flattened, and took on a sort of plastic sheen in some areas from being compressed so much.

Nonetheless, I did grab two items: the pear and almond danish ($2.95), a nicely sized bit of French dough with large pieces of pear in the middle on a bed of almond paste. This actually was one of the most memorable French baked goods on the whole trip: absolutely delicious,  buttery dough that was flavourful from the first bite to the last. Perfect consistency, flaky exterior with a slightly chewy, soft inside. Pears were properly cooked and almond paste was delicious, this guy was better than the competition down the street, at least in this department.

The next item was the raspberry square  ($2.49) which, sadly, looked a little worse for wear. I'm sure it wasn't supposed to look like it just went through the compressor.... The taste resembled, or rather the idea was similar to a date square with crumble on top and a fruit filling. Great fresh fruit filling. A little too oily in my opinion and it probably would have been better had it not been in saran wrap, but a simple, tasty treat.

Rating: ***