Beard Papa is here!

Here is an item of cultural icon, Beard Papa. And he’s finally here in the South Bay. Personally I have been waiting for this moment for over a year and was very excited to visit the store yesterday.

For those of you don’t know what the all fuss is about, Beard Papa is a store that sells, among many baked items, cream puff pastries. These cream puffs are legendary. They started in Japan and they took over much of Asia before coming to the US. They have had a store in San Francisco but I have never had the chance to visit. Now they are in here in Saratoga, I was very happy.

So, I walked up to the counter and noticed that there were 6 other people in the store and 4 of them spoke Japanese. They seem as excited as I was about the store. I bought two standard and two chocolate creme puffs and brought them out to my car, in a nice box.

I was going to wait until I got home but I couldn’t wait and had one of each in the car while I was driving. I know, it’s not safe, blah blah blah. I thought it was one of the better creme puffs I have tasted I do love creme puffs of any variation like eclaires. I must admit though, the anticipation from the hype left me a bit disappointed. It’s not that the food was bad, just not up to the hype.

That’s the interesting note is about the cultural food icons, much of the hype comes from few who are obsessed from the food. I think most of these people are those who are from out of town where these foods originate and when they find them here, their fond earlier memory is causing them to talk about that food as if it’s the best in the world.

I remember the first In and Out Burger store that opened here, in Milpitas. The line was 100-150 people long for weeks during lunch. The hype was outrageous. You would have thought that the burger is made of gold, the way people were scrambling to get them. I have had them when I was in Southern California, where they originated from and thought the burgers were very good but never up to the hype. However, I think the french fries are the best I have tasted so far.

Same thing happened when the first Krispy Kreme Donuts came to town. The lines were long for the first few weeks and when I got them, the donuts were good but they certainly did not give me an instant orgasm, as some claims they had.

The bottom line is that I still do visit In and Out, Krispy Kreme and other cultural food icon providers, and I will do the same with Beard Papa, but I can’t claim that they are the best food in the world, just very good. Perhaps when White Castle comes to town…. Mmmm, White Castle….