Don't go to a dinner party without them

"Are you bringing the cream puffs?," Cliff asked hopefully. Then drolly, "Don't bother coming if you're not."

So prized are the cream puffs of Chantilly Patisserie that I believe my dinner party stock value has tripled because of them. (But I want you to love me for who I am!)

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Despite the fact that Los Angeles is an ugly city and the south bay cites of Torrance, Lomita and Gardena are its uglier and most placeless places they do embody a Zen-like truth. In the space of nothingness, something magical can arise.

In normal cities, a sense of place is usually evenly distributed throughout a region. San Francisco, Boston, Manhattan all feel a certain way. In Los Angeles, however, placefulness is much more concentrated. You can drive for endless blocks down relentlessly ugly boulevards, like Ventura, Crenshaw or Pico where any given slice resembles any other given slice. Welcome to the Great Emptiness of Nowhere. But in certain highly charged locations, like the secret train platform to Hogwarts, you step into an unexpected zone of placefulness.

A dramatic example of this is Polka restaurant in Eagle Rock. One minute you're standing outside a faceless mini-mall. Step across the threshold and an unseen teleporter has instantaneously zapped you to a different universe. Is that Rod Serling eating pierogi at the corner table? You have entered another, much more Polish, dimension of space and time. Eagle Rock seems a distant memory as you gaze at the intense volume of lace, tschochke and dumplings that has materialized before you. You wonder to yourself whether you should have brought your passport.

Another place that has been outfitted by the same Serling Industries Teleporter is Chantilly Patisserie in Lomita ("The Friendly City"). For miles and miles, you drive through ugly suburban scrub, and pull into a flavorless mini-mall. Open the door to the chic bakery and ZAP! You've stepped over the threshold to Shinjuku or Ginza. Suddenly, everything FEELS different.

You walk up to the case and peer inside. Jeweled edibles present themselves and you wonder whether it would be too embarrassing to order one of everything. But, being in the know, you know there is only one thing to order: The Cream Puff.

In the past few years, Los Angeles has been living through something of a cream puff boom, spearheaded by the arrival (invasion?) of Beard Papa, the Japanese chain.  Beard Papa is the Toyota Corolla of the cream puff world--high volume, flabbily non-descript and perfectly fine for those with low thresholds for gastronomic satisfaction.  

Sometimes, however, the grass IS greener on the other side of the fence. In this case, the greener side is in Lomita and takes the form of a taut, disciplined confection handcrafted by Keiko Nojima, the reigning master of the Los Angeles cream puff.

There are three forms that temptation can take--vanilla custard, black sesame and the newest--chocolate. Black sesame is the most original flavor with kinako sweet soybean powder sprinkled on top and honey swirled into the black sesame cream. It is simultaneously earthy and transcendent. Custard, their bestseller, is refined, adult and completely addictive. Comparing it to the Beard Papa version is like putting an elegant geisha next to a gum-chewing bar girl. No comparison. Chocolate is high quality and a welcome addition to the trio. But somehow not as original as black sesame or as satisfying as the traditional custard.

No matter what, these are glorious things and your dinner parties will never be the same.


Patisserie Chantilly
2383 Lomita Blvd
#10
Lomita, CA 90717
(310) 257-9454
www.patisseriechantilly.com