By Megan Gordon
This week, I pay homage to two very different sweet shops in two very different neighborhoods: The Mission and The Marina. Wherever you live or work, I say take advantage of the next time you need a little comfort food, sneak out of the office early, and stop by one of these places for a cookie or a cream puff and a glass of milk. Maybe you can even find someone to read you a story while you take a nap.
Pacific Puffs
Don’t get me wrong. I love a good chocolate layer cake (or a slice of it, that is) after a long day. It’s rich, reliable, and won’t let you down—three elements of daily life that I can’t say I often experience. But sometimes a basic, no-frills cream puff and a glass of milk gets a girl through the afternoon like nothing else. Enter Pacific Puffs: a relatively new Cream Puffery in the Marina, serving up a little simple satisfaction each day. And really, there’s nothing more feel-good than a few homegrown brothers starting a cream puff business in the heart of the Marina using a recipe that’s been in their family for decades.
Trent and Rhys Carvolth bake the puffs in an off-site kitchen in Bernal Heights in small batches and sell them at their Union Street location. When you visit, you’ll have an important decision to make: whipped cream or custard filling? Those who may be turned off by the cloyingly sweet cream filling of an unnamed local competitor may gravitate towards the whipped cream-filled puffs. But for the true puff-aficionado, the Classic Cream Puff is the way to go. It’s made with traditional choux pastry (a light dough consisting of butter, water, flour and eggs) and filled with a mixture of vanilla custard and whipped cream, topped with a chocolate glaze.