For an afternoon tea I was going to host, I wanted some macarons. My favored macaron shop is in New York City, which I am unlikely to visit for leisure until after Small Sophie is old enough to visit NYC for a full day and not have her short legs get tired. I looked up macarons near me and discovered le macaron (521 Main St, Bethlehem, PA 18018), a macaron shop with good macarons, hard beignets, and okay meringues.
I called ahead to ask if I should order ahead or if I could just come in for only 18 macarons if I wanted all the flavors to be available. I was advised that unless I wanted special packaging, I could just come in and could likely expect all of the flavors to be present.
The only lady I could see working there had a pleasant attitude and helpfully had all the macaron details memorized.
They offered me a sample of the chocolate banana macaron. The bold, complementary flavors and the delicate texture of the cookie convinced me that I made the right choice in choosing this bakery for my upcoming tea party’s macarons.
The pricing ended up being $2.90 per macaron for quantities of 12 to 23. Had I bought 1-12, I believe the price would have been $3 per macaron.
Although le macaron did have a much larger variety of meringue cookie flavors than many other shops and a nice six-for-the-price-of-five deal where you do get to pick which six, the texture and taste were not exceptional. The flavor was balanced, though, so there was not a sense of too much or too little. That is a part that some places get dreadfully wrong.
I also took two hazelnut beignets. They were rather hard and unpleasant. I think they were stale. Maybe it is because I went in the evening? (The beignets at La Française French Bakery in Breckenridge, Colorado, were much, much better, and I wished I had those.)
I would come back for their wide variety of good-tasting macaron flavors. I might try the beignets again, but earlier in the day. Google Maps claims a lot of other people liked their beignets, so the other visitors must surely had significantly better ones than the ones I had.
And the tea party was as good as it can be for a group of 5-year-olds. In retrospect, I could have given the preschoolers Costco macarons and they might have appreciated that just as much.
