Panya

"Have you ever been to Panya Bakery?" a friend inquired recently.  "They have a bacon-flavored macaron."

She said the two magic words.  Bacon and macaron.  I was repulsed and Alex's face lit up.

So today, I needed a quick bite in between my hectic schedule and decided Panya was a good spot to hit up.  For bacon macarons, or whatnot.

Like a normal person, I bought some sushi.  Like a fanatical foodie, Alex got macarons: raspberry-rose, chocolate-passionfruit, and white chocolate-bacon.  Complete with bacon bits, apparently.  While I ate my abnormally-sized California roll (aside: I will usually never pay for a California roll because I'm a little bit of a sushi snob, but the rice-to-filling ratio was so high and I needed to get my money's worth for a long evening of calling babies; don't ask), Alex thoughtfully chewed over some of Panya's macarons.

Number one, the raspberry rose.  He bit into it and made a face.  This was highly unusual.  Normally, macaron consumption is followed by ecstacy-faces.  Not Ronald Weasley faces.

 

 I was concerned, so I took a bite.  I've never had such...resistance from a macaron before!  It was so chewy...like the texture of gum crossed with astronaut ice cream.  So weird!  It tasted like a typical rose macaron, and the raspberry made it a little sweeter I guess, but it was so weird to have to nom nom nom like a cow chewing her cud.  Bizarre.

A little more sushi later, we had the chocolate passionfruit.  This one felt more like a macaron, thankfully.  The chocolate was very rich and almost fudge-y, but the tangy passionfruit cut through it very well and made an otherwise-cloying macaron taste actually quite light and refreshing.

Finally, the moment of truth: white chocolate bacon.  Alex likened it to a chocolate-covered pretzel, salty and sweet, with a good balance of ever-so-slightly-bacon flavor balancing the white chocolate.  I thought it tasted rather chemical-y and medicinal.  I'm sorry, the classic white chocolate bacon combination has not won me over.  I do recommend it, though, as a step outside your comfort zones and an adventure to check out the very cute, very affordable Panya Bakery.

Panya Bakery
8 Stuyvesant Street