Earlier this year, I noticed that we had two bakery franchises whose "French patisserie by way of Korean recipes" concept was intriguing. I've been on a bit of a bakery kick this month, so I decided that the time was right to visit both Paris Baguette and Tous les Jours to get a sense of what these new additions to our local bakery scene have to offer. In the process, I learned that I appreciate bakeries that work smoked sausage into their offerings, and that I am also a texture slut.
Overall, the idea of two similar out-of-town operations coming to Utah around the same time isn't unheard of; our recent glut of fried-chicken restaurants can attest to this. What was initially fascinating to me is that Paris Baguette and Tous les Jours are only a mile or so apart, both of them on the 7200 South drag in Midvale. As they were so close to one another, it seemed like a good idea to hit them both up with my wife and daughter, since the amount of food I wanted to try required at least three hungry Springers.
We started with Paris Baguette which, speaking of franchise frenzy, is neighbors with the Post Malone-ified Raising Cane's location. Under the watchful gaze of a 30-foot, fuchsia-tinted portrait of the rap-rocker himself, we entered the bakery and got our bearings. Paris Baguette's service is cafeteria style—diners can grab a tray from up front, and then use sheets of wax paper to snag whatever they like out of the display cases. Once you've got everything loaded up, you take it up to the cash register, where you can also order from a wide variety of coffees and teas. While I totally love this approach, it does make it easy to give into your reckless abandon and completely forget that you have to pay for your pile of pastries at the end.
Our order at Paris Baguette consisted of a pepperoni pizzetta ($5.29), a ham-and-cheese pastry ($4.69), a crab meat croquette ($4.29), a strawberry croissant ($5.89) and a choux cream bread ($2.89). The savory options can be zapped in a toaster oven, which I would definitely recommend in order to get anything cheese-related nice and melty. Of the savory options, the pizetta and the ham-and-cheese pastry were my favorites. They used a good, smoky mozzarella, which is the star of the show, though the pepperoni and pastry dough were also excellent. The ham-and-cheese pastry has a slice of parmesan on the outside that gets baked onto the pastry itself, making this an excellent study in crisp textures and buttery flavors.
The strawberry croissant was also a fine example of how the simple pleasures of a buttery laminate cannot be beat. It was the choux cream bread that really gave me pause, however. Most of the items we tried were French through and through, but this little bun is where France and Korea really high-five. The choux cream is a bit like the light, eggy choux dough used in eclairs, and it's stuffed into this wonderfully soft sweetbread bun which is a nod to Korean baking. It still has a bit of chew from the golden exterior, but the dough is so light and airy that it's an absolute pleasure to eat.
We paced ourselves appropriately at Paris Baguette, so we headed just a few blocks west to get to Tous les Jours. We were already veterans at the whole "grab a tray and load up" service style, which is also in play at Tous les Jours. They offer metal tongs for filling up your tray, and their savory items are stored in a heated case to keep them melty. Here we tried the sweet frank roll ($4.35), the croque monsieur ($5.25), some milky bread ($4.65) and a strawberry soft ($3.85).
Both the sweet frank roll and the croque monsieur are tasty—again, wrapping a sausage in some butter pastry is always going to be a win for me. The croque monsieur had a nice mozzarella crust on top of the bread, and the ham and cheese inside got nice and creamy after being heated up. I liked both of these, but I think Paris Baguette has the right idea by popping their savory items in a toaster oven.
I'm aware that "milky bread" and "strawberry soft" might not sound particularly appetizing to Western ears, but you are a fool if you avoid these items. Milky bread (sometimes called milk bread) is another Korean baked delicacy that somehow manages to be decadently soft. Even the fluffiest angel food cake would be considered too dense in their presence. The strawberry soft is a pink, baguette-sized version of the milk bread that is sliced open and filled with an equally frothy strawberry pastry cream. It's like eating a dessert sandwich that melts in your mouth, leaving you with a lovely, subtle strawberry flavor.
Both Paris Baguette and Tous les Jours are fascinating studies in the French-Korean baking fusion that has made both brands international successes. Bakery fans looking for something out of the ordinary will enjoy either of them.