One of the best thing about Japanese cuisine is their quality of desserts. It is not always easy to get them here in the US. Paris Baguette is not Japanese pasty café, but they are similar to Japanese sweets and breads. And, they are quite affordable, and for this reason, I like to visit them every now and then. They seem to be expanding everyday, I see a new location all the time. Here is another new location, at Hudson Lights in NJ. This is where my favorite movie theater, iPic Theater (you can read about it here: http://www.foodlovergirl.com/ipic-theater-hudson-lights/ and here: http://www.foodlovergirl.com/ipic-theater-hudson-lights-2/ ) is located. They also have restaurants, nail salon, clothing stores, etc. here in Hudson Lights.

This one is quite large, with nice high ceiling to make the space even bigger. The corner walls were covered with windows, from floor to ceiling, bringing in lots and lots of natural lights. They have several different table seating of all sizes. Good for single visitor or group of people.

 

They had a cute little counter seating by one wall. I liked the white and blue tiles on the bottom. And that is their color, as the staffs wear matching French-chic clothes that are white and blue. I also found one little seating section with three tufted chairs, away from the main dining area. I liked the look of those chairs.

 

Here at Paris Baguette, they offer cakes, bread, pastries, and sandwiches. As for the cakes, you can either buy the whole cake, or individual slices. They are pretty darn good, and they all look really nice, beautifully made. They are in refrigerated window showcase near the registry.

Bread and pastries are in different window showcase, on the right side of the registry. They are long, and holds good varieties of items. They have both sweet and savory, whatever your craving calls for.

The sandwiches are separated into two areas as well. Cold sandwiches in refrigerated unit, and other kinds like croissant sandwich or focaccia sandwiches that can be heated up are in a regular window showcase.

They have few items that you can buy to go home with, or make a really adorable gifts to someone. The ones that I thought was the cutest was these Mr. and Mrs. Bears cakes. They are just so cute together!

And yes, they do have drinks. In the refrigerator, you can find bottled/canned drinks like soda, juice, milk, and water. If you want something more fancy, they do make all sorts of coffee, tea, bubble tea, etc.

We were there for a little afternoon sweets, so we ordered a couple of desserts and teas. The first cake of our choice was Green Tea Fresh Cream Cake ($5.75). It is made with green tea sponge, fresh cream, strawberries, chocolate, and Rum liqueur. I assume the “chocolate” part is the little thin square on the top with their logo on it. It was pretty good, nice size, and very tasty. The sponge was fluffy with good green tea flavor, cream was velvety without being thick or overly sweet. Strawberries were not as decadent and sweet as the ones in Japan, but they were ok. It was a good piece of cake, I was happy for sure.

The second choice was Lemon Blueberry Mini Tart ($6.95). This one was a bit smaller than the Green Tea cake, but I assume it requires more labor since the price is higher. It is made with tart shell, grean tea sponge, vanilla sponge crumble, legre cream (fresh cream and custard cream), lemon glaze, liqueur, and bay leaf. Yes, it is intricate, and I can see the reason for the higher price tag.

It has layers of all the ingredients, starting from the tart, green tea sponge, blueberry compote (?) in the middle, fresh cream and custard cream. The tart shell was rather hard, and with the fragile top, it was not the easiest thing to eat. We still managed, and it was quite delicious. The lemon flavor was subtle so that it is not overpowering. We enjoyed this one as well.

Now, the teas… My husband ordered Iced Green Tea Latte ($4.95/large) and I “tried” to order Iced Taro Bubble Tea. The cashier told me that they ran our of taro tea. So, I asked if they still have Ice Milk Bubble Tea. He said “yeah yeah” in not-so-polite way. I put in an order for Iced Milk Bubble Tea ($4.95/small). While they were making our teas, we sat and waited with our cakes. The iced green tea came out in a couple of minutes. Then, I was called by the staffs, and they told me that they ran out of bubbles…seriously??? I was going to put in a different order, but then they acted like they don’t know how to void transaction… So, I had to order something with the same price. I went with the same thing my husband got.

Iced Green Tea Latte was a good size, and it was nice and creamy. Even though I didn’t get what I wanted, I was satisfied with the quality of the latte.

The service is just a-ok, not so great. Whenever there are just young people working without much of management figure, I feel like the quality of service suffers. The desserts are good as always, and the latte, again, was pretty good. I would hope that they will keep the bubbles well stocked, so that they don’t ran out of them so early in the day (it was early in the afternoon)… Regardless, I will be returning to one of their many locations for more sweets in a near future…

 

Paris Baguette @ Hudson Lights – 185 Main St #8C, Fort Lee, NJ 07024