Floor pastry from Bread and Cocoa, San Francisco

Before work this morning, I went to the cafe / pastry shop on my hotel's corner, Bread and Coco. I was there on Monday morning, when I enjoyed a coffee, orange juice (California-style?) and my all time favorite -- a chocolate pastry.

The flavors were just right and the place has a great Motown soundtrack.

Because of this exceptional experience, I returned. This time, I got the usual coffee and OJ but this time the main course was something different:

Floor pastry.

The conditions have to be right for a floor pastry to be made. Some of them are as follows:

• Some jerk in front of you swoops in and steals the last chocolate pastry


• Mind reeling, you grab some giant fruit-filled pastry


• The giant fruit-filled pasty fits in the pastry envelope but doesn't leave room to fold the end over


• The cashier rings you up for a bear claw


• You receive your coffee without room for sugar


• You only have two arms but three breakfast items, so you have to put the pastry in your Chrome bag


• While trying to be a cool guy and put the pastry in your bag, it falls out of the pastry envelope, landing face-down on the floor under a table

But let's get you in on the ground floor of the floor pastry-eating experience.

The material of this particular item is akin to the particle board that comprised most of the furniture you had in college -- you attempt to cut it and get a few sizable bits but, in general, it crumbles all over the place.

In the end, the dirt people tracked in had a negligible effect on flavor.

Oh, and the fruit was blueberry.

Fan art! Wacky Wednesday bonus edition.

Upon reading Nate's Plate for the first time, Tom, my office's design director, found himself inspired. And probably hungry. Then, this happened:

Thanks, Tom! To my thousands of loyal readers, feel free to send me more pictures of personified food.

On the divine pleasures of the chocolate pastry

There are times in our lives when we owe a little treat to ourselves and this morning was one of those times.

I had to wake up at an unreasonable hour today to get to work extra early. I typically need about two hours before I can eat in the morning, but when I wake up early, I am hungry right away. As I piloted my Saturn (soon to be for sale) across Oakland County, I realized I only had one choice for breakfast: To stop at the local Panera for a chocolate pastry.



Here is the seldom-seen underside. This may look like the profile of the worst hamburger imaginable, but no. That brown is pure chocolate stock. And look -- It's giving you a slight, coy, "c'mere" grin.

"Put me in your mouth," it says.

I popped this baby in the microwave for 12 seconds so it was warm but instantly consumable and I was briefly transported to a world far far away from writing about Dodge's NASCAR endeavors.

The chocolate pastry takes the extreme boredom of croissant consumption and inverts it using a chocolate rod. You owe one to yourself.