LAT: How long lines keep Porto's Bakery affordable — and growing

Stupid me outsmarted by funkied up autocorrect. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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Up against some serious competition…

–Dommy!

wtf…

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LOL no

to save everyone else the time:

All the finalist bakeries:

  • Pitchoun Bakery
  • Bakers and Baristas
  • Pascal patisserie
  • Farmshop
  • Renaud’s Bakery & Bistro
  • Porto’s Bakery & Cafe
  • La Tropézienne Bakery

I haven’t had a Porto’s croissant in years, but I can’t imagine that they’ve changed significantly. I guess it’s cheap enough and close enough to warrant another look…maybe.

One has to wonder what the criteria were. I’ve never found Porto’s to be supreme at anything that I’ve tried. The QPR is solid, but if I’m shoveling bakery calories in my belly, they’d better be FTC-acceptable - not just good for the money.

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According to Reddit, these croissants were made specifically for this event, i.e. Not the same ones available for sale.

I’m too lazy to read the article again to confirm.

These days the only things FTC acceptable to me from Portos are cheese rolls and clam chowder.

Their oatmeal raisin cookies are wonderfully good.

I used to get the chocolate chip cookies (his fav) for the hubster and the oatmeal (“Oh, you wouldn’t really like these…”) for me. And then one day he’d eaten all his cookies, and thus tried one of mine.

And my oatmeal cookies were never safe again!

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I didn’t see that it was the case in the article or accompanying pictures. The chef, who is french, said he’s been working on the recipe and is based on ratios. And they do tout their regular croissant as a ‘butter croissant’. But there is no doubt that EXTRA care was taken with the competition batch… which can be said for any food competition.

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Maybe it’s fantastic out of the oven, but just meh out of the case. Who knows.

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This makes sense to me, but can it make that much of a difference?

The answer is so obvious in hindsight: Sergio made those competition croissants. Sergio doesn’t make the Norwalk or Burbank croissants.

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I know. It’s just the win is so confusing.

Or perhaps Keith Gilabert was one of the judges…maybe they were garlic croissants…

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fwiw

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Well, what a scam. Who cares if you won if you don’t sell the damn thing in your store?

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I had a croissant from the Buena Park location and it was divine - personally enjoyed it a lot more than Chaumont. The Burbank location wasn’t as good, so I’d chalk it up to fresh-out-of-the-oven effect Ns1 brought up.

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Things I learned today…
Porto’s doesn’t do custom-sized cakes anymore. I called today to order a fruit tart for 50 and all they could offer was 5 regular-sized ones.

Maybe they still have their wedding business, but if you need a quarter or half sheet cake, you’re out of luck.

And ordering is online via their same day service.

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i tried this place a few times – probably over ten years ago – and thought everything was mediocre. is there really anything worthwhile there?

Basically vegan cheese rolls

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