Kat's 9 Lives

I love caramel au beurre salé, aka salted caramel.  Not to be knocking the US, but it is just different when you are in France where they have perfected caramel and it is widely available.  It is hard to find a great caramel au beurre salé that absolutely melts your senses and melts in your mouth.  I will however admit that Oprah Winfrey was right when she dubbed Boule her favorite place for salted caramel.  As fate would have it, they closed down years ago and has left a void in my palette!
Many years ago Ms. Lin Guide and I found the gourmet confection connoisseur, Denise Acabo.  I should post about it as she is a very sweet and endearing lady.  Local Parisians can be found there and they were very gracious as well as knowledgeable.  She seeks out the best treats around and one of the caramel au beurre salé she had was from Henri Le Roux.  Years later Henri Le Roux has found its way into Paris with a beautiful store loaded with candy.
What immediately caught my eye was the yuzu and matcha display.  They offer a yuzu matcha caramel, which is a perfect mixture of Japanese flavor.  I was sold by the display!
 They have a lovely display of Japanese teapots and cups that resemble traditional Japanese tea ceremonies.  After a long day of running errands to pick up all the best gourmet foods in Paris, it is good to find a place to sit and just relax a little.
The seats face outwards toward the streets.  There is not much food traffic but it is a calming ambiance.  Before we started buying the massive amount of gourmet sweets, I wanted to try and make sure that it was just as good as I remembered.

 For the café, coffee, you can choose between Colombie, Brésil, and Décafeiné.  I chose the Colombie for a fruitier texture.  This was 5.30 euros.  I thought the coffee was quite bitter and I wish I had some sugar and milk to lighten the taste.  It went well with the chocolates as to not fight the sweet flavor.  We chose the caramel au beurre salé chocolate along with some tea and hazelnut flavors.
They offered a plethora of chocolates! It was very hard to choose and I wanted a lot more but I had to make a tough choice... chocolates vs caramels.
Don't get me wrong, I love chocolates but there is only so much I can eat in one sitting.  The sweetness tends to overwhelm after a certain point.  I feel that caramels are a bit lighter to the taste, even though they are full of butter and may be more calories.
Each piece of chocolate is 1.50 euros with the exception of the specialty chocolates and each caramel is about 1 euro.  Trying a few pieces was good enough for me as I can come back for more.  The caramels will and have lasted me quite a while.
They offer a variety of fruit geleé but I am not a big fruit fan so I didn't really bother to have any.  Everything looked very tasty but I stuck with the caramels.
What I found most interesting here was that caramel au beurre salé was called CBS.  When I first saw the acronym, I was thinking that they were featured on CBS lol.  Maybe it was because I wrote for CBS that I automatically associated the acronym but now I have to remember that it can also be a delicious caramel! =)
They offer many seasonal flavors.  For autumn they offered epices de noel, tatin, cassis, griotte cardamome, and cinq saveurs.  Their year round flavors are caramel au beurre salé (CBS), chocolat amer, chocolat et orange, framboise, blé noir, orange & gingembre, thé, yuzu macha, café noisette, black sesame, and more.  I really liked the Asian flavors and influence.  They did a great job with the black sesame.  Henri Le Roux is definitely not your ordinary confectionery.
The lady there was very sweet and we got to sample a little bit of everything.  Not surprising too because we really dropped a fortune there and happily! =) I think friendly service is the way to go because it puts the shoppers in a great mood and we happily went crazy.  My excuse was that I bought a ton to share with all my friends! I did it for them! Yup, that is my story and I am sticking to it! O=D She threw in a bunch of samples in the end and was nice enough to give us gift bags.  They were very professional and patient.  I ended up with 3 ballotins and Ms. Lin Guide with 2 ballotins.  They play videos of how the gourmet sweets are made and it is interesting to watch.  If you love caramels then you should definitely visit this location in Paris to experience Henri Le Roux's classic recipe that first started in 1977.
Henri Le Roux
La Boutique Paris Saint-Germain 
1 rue de Bourbon le Château - 75006 PARIS 
Tél. 01 82 28 49 80

During my stay with Ms. Lin Guide near Universal Studios I decided to explore some tasty treats.  I happened to come across Quenelle.
They offer a variety tasty and innovative concoctions.  What really caught my eye was that they had plenty of yuzu flavored items.  I am an avid yuzu fan so whenever I see it being served, I must get some.
Ms. Lin Guide and I tried a bunch of different flavors.  He was so nice and patient with us that I really wished there was a tip jar to leave tip.  We ended up just leaving some money on the counter because he was so sweet and gave us extra service.
First we tried the different ice creams and sorbets.  There were just so many things that looked good and I was going to be very greedy and order a ton.  Luckily we just started with 2 scoops and then move onto the popsicles followed by the baked goods.  We chose to try the passion fruit kaffir lime and the jackfruit tonic.
The flavors were very vibrant and fresh.  For me, the passion fruit was quite tart.  The jackfruit complemented well as it was much sweeter and lighter.  For the topping, I chose the caramelized rice as it sounded very interesting.  They had quite a few toppings that sounded very tasty.
For the "On a Stick" flavors, I wanted to try a bunch of them but in the end we agreed upon yuzu mojito and the hibiscus watermelon.  The guy warned me that the yuzu is very tart and I thought to myself, "yuzu is always yummy."  Oh man! That was one tart popsicle! I gave it to Ms. Lin Guide as usual since she always takes the bullet for me on food I don't want.  The hibiscus watermelon was very light and not too sweet.  For me, I prefer a heavier flavor and sweeter treats.
The service there was impeccable because as I stood there eating the popsicle, he could sense I didn't like it and offered to change flavors for me.  I didn't want to be any trouble so I told him that we were good since he let us try so many flavors.  After we were done, he scooped out a generous serving on the new ice cream that he was testing.  This was also a yuzu flavor based, I believe with jasmine tea.  I really enjoyed this as it was sweet and flavorful.  This really hit the spot and it was so sweet of him to give us extra free items.
That was not the end of the friendly service.  We broke down our stay with ice cream first, then popsicles, and baked goods to finish.  After all the goodies and free goods we were offered, I was getting full but I still wanted to pick up some of the tasty baked goods they offered.  Everything looked very tasty and I wanted to get one of everything.  We debated for a long time on which items we should get because we were trying to be good about not overbuying and not finishing the treats.  There were alfajores, peanut butter and jelly cookies, brownies, blondies, red velvet cupcake, and more! I was a kid in a candy shop.  We didn't get everything but the guy was so friendly and sweet that he put a bunch of extra sweets inside for us! I felt so guilty because he was so nice and that he didn't need to.  We ended up with almost twice as much baked goods! He was just the nicest guy and wanted us to try the tasty pastries.
Man! The service here was so friendly and welcoming that we talked about the whole car ride.  I would definitely come back to try any new flavors and for the service.  It's a very small but quaint shop.  Everything was very clean and neat.

Quenelle
2214 West Magnolia Boulevard 
Burbank, CA 91506
(818) 843-1035

After a full dinner of Taiwanese hot pot, Tea4two and I looked for a late night place to grab dessert.  We found Bambu Desserts & Drinks and thought that this may be a good option.  This place seemed like it would have drinks and desserts but it is really a Vietnamese dessert place.  There isn't any real dessert like cakes or food.  It's mainly the drinks filled with lots of add ins.  I was hoping to find somewhere to sit and enjoy some sweet desserts with a drink but this was definitely not the place.  Still we decided to stay and if we wanted more desserts we will keep driving out.
The people here were very nice and it was not that packed when I first got there but the later it got, the more people came in.  It's a good place to come for late night chats and groups.  They have playing cards for people to play.  This reminded me of the old Tapioca Express that I used to hang out in when I was in high school and college.
As many know, I am actually not a huge fan of Vietnamese food and drinks where I have to chew more than actually being able to drink the drink.  Still, we were here and I wanted to explore and try something new.  Bơ dằm looked interesting to me with avocado, dark brick, combo jelly, and pearl.  I was going to order without all the chewy stuff but forgot and it was a very interesting combo.  They used a high amount of avocado and it was a big mash of avocado with different add ins mixed in.  The avocado was good but there is no sweetness and the add ins was the little boosts of sweet flavor.  I actually thought this was very weird in the beginning because I felt like I was eating a bland guacamole and then suddenly chewing on the jellies or pearls was so bizarre.  The more I ate, the more I got use to the combo of avocado and jellies.  It was not too bad but I still don't really know about this lol.
The girl working there was really nice because I was very skeptical about the other dessert/drink I had.  I have had it before at other places and there is only one place I have enjoyed the flavors.  She patiently answered my questions on what is inside.  I got the Chè trái cây with lychee, longan, red tapioca, jackfruit, palm seed, pandan jelly, jello, and young coconut.  The coconut was definitely fresh.  Everything inside seemed plentiful and pretty mixed in with the white coconut milk.  I liked how all the drinks had a shaved snowball on top.  You have to mix everything in and it started making a mess because I used the straw.  Word to the wise, use the spoon and not the straw.  =)  The drink wasn't very sweet, which I didn't like.  They told me it was because I didn't mix it all the way to the bottom but the girl was very nice and added more syrup.  I still prefer this dessert I get near my work and not here.  They definitely have more and fresher ingredients here but it wasn't for me.  Too much to chew and nothing to drink.
Tea4two got the Vietnamese iced coffee and she thought it was very strong.  She ended up going back two days later and texting me the photo of it too =).  I am glad she liked it.  For me, Bambu Desserts and Drinks was not bad but nothing that really stood out.  If I was in the area, I'd probably be willing to go back but I don't think I would really crave it.  Although there isn't a lot of places open late in Irvine, so beggars really can't be choosers lol.
Bambu Desserts & Drinks
14775 Jeffrey Rd., Suite B 
Irvine, CA 92618
Tel: (949) 232.1145