No Love at First Bite

The macarons at Payard looked lovely under the sparkling glass display case, so I ordered a couple to accompany my organic peach iced tea. I took one bite of the yellow passionfruit macaron, and a look came over my face. "Heavenly?" my friend asked.

"Er. No. More like inedible," came my surprised response.

It was a hard, chewy, lumpen bit of uninspired flavor. I put down the passionfruit and reached for the classic chocolate macaron, hoping that the passionfruit was just a fluke. But the chocolate was, if you can imagine, even worse. It had the consistency of a brownie that had been left on the table for several days. It's hard to believe that a patisserie as celebrated as Payard can whip up such lovely dessert confections, and yet have "macarons" that in all honesty should don't deserve the honor of the name.

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