I wish he'd make those rosemary walnut rolls again. Those were amazing.

turkob wrote:I wish he'd make those rosemary walnut rolls again. Those were amazing.

+1

Today's offerings, from top to bottom: olive oil pound cake, gingerbread pound cake, paris brest, curry scones, caneles, kouign amann, and cheese and fruit (cherry?) Danish.

Every time I go, in addition to getting previous favorites, I try something new and love it, and regret not buying more of them. This time it was the paris brest, with its slight hazelnut accent. Yum! At least I've learned to try everything, and not overlook anything.

Decided to stop in this morning prior to heading back home after a nice weekend stay in the city. Per Turkob's recommendation (who I ran into last night at the Sun Wah feast), I showed up promptly at 10 for the Caneles to be put out. Looking at the racks of pastries, I was having trouble deciding what I wanted, so I did what any good LTHer would do... order all of the different choices, and I wasn't disappointed.

Today there were raspberry oat bars, cheese danish, caneles, paris brest, and the kouign amanns. I am guessing that there is enough butter in those amazing kouign amanns to make Paula Deen blush, but wow. I have to say, I liked everything about the place, great coffee, amazing pastries, Jonathan was great, nice people. I was amazed that there wasn't a line out the door. I would imagine there will be one soon.

Thank you so much! Glad you liked everything!
So, I did the math.... 21grams of butter per kouign, hence around 17/18 grams fat. Not bad.

Made our first trip on Saturday. What a delight! Pretty much had one of everything there. Also, some great rockin' tunes. When I was there there was this awesome song...I think it was the Kinks, been trying to find it ever since.

I was playing the album Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround pt.1 if that helps.
Glad you had fun, good meet you!

Here's more info about the "caneles at 10:00 a.m." meme. When the caneles come out at 10:00, they're hot (natch); the outside is beautifully crunchy and the inside is heavenly custardy. Buy them at 10:30 and they're still slightly warm (and still quite amazing). If you take them home and put them in a Ziploc bag to consume after dinner that same evening, they still taste good, but lose some of the crunch on the outside. If they last overnight - they're tough to resist for that long, but if they do - the next day you'll find that they seem sort of soggy. To sum up, the sooner you consume them, the better they are.

Actually, if you just don't store them in a bag and keep them out in the open they should stay fairly crispy (from personal experience)

nsxtasy wrote:Here's more info about the "caneles at 10:00 a.m." meme. When the caneles come out at 10:00, they're hot (natch); the outside is beautifully crunchy and the inside is heavenly custardy. Buy them at 10:30 and they're still slightly warm (and still quite amazing). If you take them home and put them in a Ziploc bag to consume after dinner that same evening, they still taste good, but lose some of the crunch on the outside. If they last overnight - they're tough to resist for that long, but if they do - the next day you'll find that they seem sort of soggy. To sum up, the sooner you consume them, the better they are.

In the interest of science, I am more than willing to serve as a subject and eat as many caneles as necessary to further validate your observations.

fropones wrote:Actually, if you just don't store them in a bag and keep them out in the open they should stay fairly crispy (from personal experience)

Thanks! I'll try that next time.

sallekhana wrote:I was playing the album Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround pt.1 if that helps.
Glad you had fun, good meet you!

Yup, that's it. The track in particular is "Powerman". Great stuff! Loved the goods, music and Jo. I'll be back!

sallekhana wrote:I was playing the album Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround pt.1 if that helps.
Glad you had fun, good meet you!

I dare you to play Part Two.

This is a place that is truly great, is in a real neighborhood, and might really benefit from the GNR. Despite the fact that the pastries are more compelling than any Super Bowl ad and are a beacon in the darkness of Chicago breakfast sweets, I get the feeling he could use more traffic.

I picked up a V-Day gift basket at Bad Wolf. As normal, the owner was super cool. I really like their coffee. Here's a pic of the box. The bottom left are marshmallow treats (a couple with chocolate). I'm not too sure what the 2 items on the right side are. But, I can't imagine them being anything less than incredible. I'm excited to try these...assuming the gf shares.

I'm heading out to pick up my box and that picture has made me very happy.

I'm splitting that box with mbh so +1 on that

I see French macaroons. I've never seen French macaroons at Bad Wolf before. Must... go... back...

Stupid valentines day! I stopped this morning to pickup two olive oil pound cakes that I had ordered for a work luncheon and was hoping to pick up a couple of kouign amann while I was there. Nothing else was out because the oven was monopolized by the V-day boxes. Great for him, sad for me.

This was happening at Bad Wolf.

5 hottest new coffee spots in the US by Food & Wine restaurant editor.

Awesome.

The cream filling for the paris-brest could also go in the Best Things I've Eaten Lately thread. It somehow managed to be both rich and light. I loved that it was slightly salty to offset the sweetness.

LauraS wrote:The cream filling for the paris-brest could also go in the Best Things I've Eaten Lately thread. It somehow managed to be both rich and light. I loved that it was slightly salty to offset the sweetness.

I'm pretty sure I actually posted that a while back - it's a really good thing!

The croissant I tried from here yesterday was legit. A little unevenly browned, but that is about the minorest quibble I could come up with. It was crunchy, flaky, buttery and delicious.

A Good Day at Bad Wolf
A Pictorial Essay



Counter Culture Coffee Latte

One of the smoothest tasting cups of coffee I've had in quite some time.

Croissant

Still warm and fresh from the oven. Light and flaky. Definitely in the conversation for best croissant in the city.


Interior detail of croissant showing how delicate it is.

Canele

Dark and chewy with notes of caramel outside; soft and almost soufflé-like inside. The only way I can eat just one is if I only have one.

Paris-Brest

Beautiful choux filled with a light pastry cream.

Kouign Amann

The queen of kouign amann in Chicago, now that Fioriole has stopped making them on a regular basis.

Whoa. Those pictures look awesome.

sallekhana wrote:Whoa. Those pictures look awesome.

Thanks, but pictures are easy. You did the hard work.

First time poster to LTH, but after my visit to Bad Wolf this weekend, I figured I should join the chorus in praise of Bad Wolf. I really like the vibe of the place; it straddles the line of storefront coffee spot and hangout coffee shop in a nice way. Not much to add to the accolades given to the pastries. I only had a croissant, but it was truly great, certainly the best I have had in the city (though I will admit I do not have a huge sample size to compare it to). Coffee was rich and delicious and it was good to see a pretty solid amount of customers on Sunday afternoon.

When I am at places like Bad Wolf, which have something a bit unique to offer, I often think about them in terms of can I bring my in-laws here (my wife and I are currently trying to convince her parents to move from the east coast out to our fair city). I think they would like Bad Wolf, but I have a question about the coffee service. For a regular cup of coffee, do they have things like cream and sugar? I didn't see any and I didn't need any myself, but others might. I admit I wasn't paying full attention to this and got my order to go so I didn't really investigate, but I was just curious if others had noticed this (one of the in-laws really likes coffee but doesn't drink it black). Thanks, and regardless I will definitely be back to sample even more!

Northcenter Joe wrote:For a regular cup of coffee, do they have things like cream and sugar?

I'm sure they do. I've never been in a coffeehouse that didn't.

Northcenter Joe wrote: ... For a regular cup of coffee, do they have things like cream and sugar? I didn't see any and I didn't need any myself, but others might. I admit I wasn't paying full attention to this and got my order to go so I didn't really investigate, but I was just curious if others had noticed this (one of the in-laws really likes coffee but doesn't drink it black). ...

In this photo of the interior the sugar is in the white ceramic container on the right. Closer view.

Jonathan will bring out some half and half if you ask for cream. He often recommends to those trying the brewed coffee for the first time to have a sip of it black to taste its smoothness and lack of bitterness.