macarons, macarons & mini PH

Ever since Autumn, I've been seeing more and more macarons about, so I'd like to share with you what I've been sampling...

Starbucks caramel and raspberry macarons. The caramel one is sickly sweet. Definitely eat it with black coffee. The raspberry one has raspberry gelatin inside, it is not too sweet.

Bon Nouvelle's macarons have been featured in many foodie magazines here. I love the huge display they have in the middle of their shop. Apparently, they change it every month!

All edible except for the gold leaf ones.


I bought a box of 14 so I could share with Satoshi.

These were really small, and just right for a mid-afternoon snack. The flavors we had were cafe noix (coffee and sesame), chocolat passion (chocolate with passion fruit), pistache (pistachio), vanille (vanilla), mangue (mango with cinnamon), fraise (strawberry), the vert (green tea).

Secession's macaron flavors are seasonal, they have different flavors throughout the year. Their macs are bigger than Bon Nouvelle's, as big as PH's (Pierre Herme), but not as good as PH.

There was tarragon, chocolate, orange, pineapple, sesame & cherry. Satoshi and I agreed that the orange one was super bitter! My favorite was the sesame.

My search for macarons weren't all successes though, there was one shop, to be left unnamed, that had advertised macarons. So, I travelled quite a ways to buy some, only to find out that for the rest of the year, they have decided not to make any! I knew I should have called to see if they had them on hand.

Yesterday I met a fellow blogger, Tamakikat and we went to check out the IXC.caffe which is run by Cassina, an Italian brand interior shop in Osaka. They were supposedly serving PH macarons...meh, we were bummed that we weren't allowed to choose from the flavors they had (they gave us pistachio and caramel sel) and they weren't really worth the price they were charging and if I remember correctly, the PH macarons I had in Tokyo were WAY bigger! Still we had a nice time chatting and walking around Osaka.

While I'm on the subject of PH, Carol e-mailed me to tell me about the mini PH collection. I found a site in Japan that was selling it and ordered my own. Boy, they are REALLY mini. I've put my 6-inch scissors next to them so you can see how tiny they are! Usually when you buy figurines like these in the store, the boxes are not labelled, so to collect the complete set, you usually need to buy more than the actual amount in the set. And when you have to do this, you usually end up with two or more of the same figurine. Luckily, the company that was selling these, sold me the complete set (whew!), but I'm afraid to take them out of the plastic--I may lose a piece....

Bon Nouvelle
3-2-15 Kida
Nada, Kobe
Phone: 078.857.7342
Open:10:00-21:00, call ahead to be sure they are open

Secession
1486 Mikage aza Shironomae
Mikage, Kobe
Phone: 078.854.2678
Closed: Wednesdays
Open: 10:00-19:30

UPDATE: the IXC.caffe is now closed in Osaka (2011)