Duke Bakery?
Haven’t tried it myself but here is an Irvine branch. The Costa Mesa brank was offering 20% odd during their soft open.
https://m.yelp.com/biz_photos/duke-bakery-costa-mesa?select=zD4nrJQuA5-z_iQTOYwp7g
Your best bet is still probably Surfa’s par baked ones.
Seems like almost all the OC bakeries are doing much more pastry than real bread. I checked the Duke’s site and looked at the pics on Yelp. There’s bread, but it’s mostly sweeter types. I’m near the Irvine one when I go to 99 Ranch, so I’ll check it out.
At Duke, you can sample mostly all of their breads but they are on the sweeter side.
Clark street is really excellent too. But man, Lodge is so good right now
Some other options in OC for good bread. You won’t find the same type of rustic breads and rounds you’d find a Lodge or Gjusta but they have good baguettes and loaves of bread.
Cream Pan
Blackmarket Bakery
The baguette at Petit Trois is the jam. I’m still trying to work out what the hell is in there as the wax paper they wrap it in always has grease stains on it when I get home. The texture and taste is unlike any baguette I’ve ever had. It’s the crack cocaine of baguettes.
Roan Mills bread at the Kenter Canyon stall farmers market in SM is fantastic as well. I usually get the Rosemary boule and shmear an entire stick of grass fed butter on it the minute I get home. Drool.
Replying to myself here: the baker at Seed says he does baguettes every day, and told me to come in at around 10 AM. Though that is a bit late for breakfast, even for an elderly retired person.
I have been trying alternatives. The La Brea baguette that Ralphs has every day is nearly as good as Seed’s and half the price – $1.99. And next down the list and also $1.99 is TJ’s new Organic baguette, very good if I give it a VERY light brushing of water and then 3 minutes @ 400º. Though it’s made in Canada, that’s not the long-distance champ: that would be the very slender one I picked up from La Española Foods down in Harbor City, which comes all the way from Spain! It was a good bit more expensive, though, and just okay.
However, the BIG thing to me, since I regard bread’s primary function to be that of a butter delivery system, is the butter itself … and TJ’s also-new Normandy butter, if I close my eyes real tight, has me right back in the 9th Arrondissement. Try it yourself!
not an answer to your question, but related:
i’m still swooning from the sublime four cheese pizza with garlic that the lodge bread crew turned out tonight.
their bread and their pizza just ring my bell.
i won’t “waste” the calories on any other bread anymore.
the only bread “worth” it, imho
I’m thinking you should find some way to make an open-faced gelato sandwich, using Bulgarini gelato and Lodge bread as the base.
But then, maybe not. It might just ruin you for all other desserts. Heck, might ruin you for all dishes.
nah.
for the gelato, i’d use the Gelato Lounge gelato with some of the Pitfire pizza chocolate sauce (made with cordilla sumapaz bittersweet chocolate.
more in line with what i’ve actually been doing is pouring the Cordilla Sumapaz sauce over THREE TWINS ORGANIC ice cream (available at whole foods, sprouts, bristol farms, gelson’s–basically everywhere)
that chocolate sauce is the only restaurant food that i will get “to go.”
it tastes just as good after you get it home as it tastes in the restaurant–this makes it a rarity among restaurant menu items.
iirc, YOU were the person who induced me to walk into a pitfire pizza in the first place!
nashwill, let’s face it.
if the butter itself is really, really, excellent
even corrugated cardboard might be adequate as a delivery system. . . .
Yes, indeed.
Maybe you can order up a soft serve pizza …
But back to that to-go thing, if I recall correctly don’t you also get Pitfire soft serve to go as well? Why, yes you do!
You’ve got the good makings of some fantastic homemade Chocolate Ice Cream Sundae right there. Lucky you!
i’ll get their soft serve to go ONLY if i have enough time to firm it up again in my own freezer before eating it
otherwise it becomes more like a liquid than a soft serve
re: their soft serve
imho, eating it in the restaurant immediately after it comes out of the machine is best.
that’s my story and i’m sticking with it!
Do you have a picture of this? Is it with all the other butters?
yes.
mine is in my butter dish—so I don’t have the packaging to snap a pic (it’s a tj private label package—I believe a light blue). very good QPR.
It really was great. I was a bit hesitant going in when I saw that it’d be a four cheese, but I thought it was one of the tastiest pizzas I’d had for a while. Each cheese (burrata, parmesan, smoked gouda and fontina) was distinct and worked well together. And the friggin’ crust.
Looking forward to many more pizza Sundays there.
Cark Street Bread at GC market has the best as far as I am concerned.
If you can find the bread at OC Bake Shack out of Anaheim, that might be some of the best bread in Southern California. As good if not better than Lodge, Clark, and Republique. Playa Vista, Anaheim Packing, Newport Beach Farmer’s Market.
Seems like OC Bake Shack bread is gonna take 90 minutes back and forth in the car for me. Not sure I want it THAT much. Have you heard of them selling wholesale to any specialty markets in South OC?
Looks as if great specialty bread’s biz model is like boutique wine in CA. Sell direct to the public almost exclusively. Not helping me satisfy my craving. :o(
A brioche might serve as a better base…