What a wonderful way to start my holidays - a hot summer day and a nice drive into Vancouver to have brunch and pick up some pastries, but not just any pastries.
Having been in Belgium a few weeks ago and being bowled over by the wonderful goodness of _real_ Belgium waffles served with a topping of whipped cream, chocolate and strawberries, we swore that if we ever found a place with real Belgium waffles in the Vancouver area we'd go there for sure.
Well, a month ago Annette does The Ride To Conquer Cancer from Vancouver to Seattle, and one of the food sponsors was a company called Patisserie Lebeau; they supplied waffles at the food stops during the day. Annette had them and said "these are real Belgium waffles"...luckily her friend Connie found the wrappings from a waffle and on there was the company name, address, web site...woo woo!
Annette looks them up and finds out they are in the Kitsalano area near the Burrard Street bridge. In the mean time Alan, one of my brothers, has been raving about this Danish bakery in Burnaby at Royal Oak and Rumble that have great pastries and have something called a Kringle. Well, we were also in Denmark, birthplace of the Pedersen clan, and we loved the pastries there....why not drive into town and make a day out of picking up some decadent treats that will help us relive our recent European trip by tantalizing our taste buds!
So, we set off from Maple Ridge into Vancouver and arrive at the Patisserie Lebeau just after lunch - a perfect time to have a late brunch and pick up some goodies to go. Annette ordered a plain waffle (are you kidding me!) and I ordered a waffle topped with whipped cream, fresh strawberries and fresh blueberries.....in a word - "AMAZING". Annette even helped me with my lunch by picking away at the fresh fruit so I wouldn't have to eat so much.
I was down to the last few bites when I thought "crap, I should have taken a picture"! Oh well, what can you do...it was hard to think with what was on the plate just begging me to dig in.
We finished up our waffles, licked the last of the whipping cream off my fingers, and stood in line to buy a couple boxes of frozen waffles, as well as a small crumb style banana cake and some cookies.
Now, on into Burnaby for the Danish pastries....
At Royal Oak and Rumble is The Elite Bakery, specializing in Danish pastries - this is where we came for the Kringle. It's a large pastry, kinda looks like a cinnamon bun only it's about 5 times as big. Lots of flaky pastry topped with sugar and thinly sliced walnuts. It's thin, not thick like a bun, and very easy to break off a section and wolf it down.....I mean delicately snack on a little bit of it at a time...
We made the run home in the car with the air conditioning up high trying to keep the frozen waffles and other pastries cool....I think it worked...I plan on having a pretty good waffle breakfast tomorrow morning and a great after dinner dessert.
Here are the links to the two yummy places: next time you're in town check them out. Annette's already stated that they are a "must" stop whenever we head into town in the future!
Patisserie Lebeau http://www.grababetterwaffle.com/
Elite Bakery http://www.elitebakery.ca/
