Crème de la Crumb

Crème de la Crumb
466 Granville Street
Vancouver, BC

Whenever there are high notes and/or excitement when a new place opens, I approach it with certain skepticism. More often than not, it is hype; others, the “free” food factor. However, as I mentioned in my Bella Gelateria post, there are people I trust, like Mijune and Sherman. When Mijune wrote about Crème de la Crumb in her Granville Foodie Tour post, I knew I had to visit it, despite sweets are not my first option and a lot of what is sold here are pastries…

So, given my lack of sweets experience, why I choose to come anyway? How about sandwiches? Yes, when Mijune wrote about it, this was the one item that actually caught my attention. So, what does this little shop has to offer? How about this?

Here, Grilled Steak and Blue Cheese Mayo w/ Balsamic Caramelized Red Onion, Arugula, Mushrooms, which was grilled just before it was served. Now, here is something I must mention right away: These are not prepared to order; as their menu states: ” Our gourmet sandwiches are hand-prepared each morning…“. So, if you are those who like to customize your sandwiches, sorry, what you see wrapped in the cool display is what you get.

One thing that really surprised me when I took the first couple of bites is the bread. While I think the cut was a bit too thick, one thing you could notice almost right away is that it is not your run off the mill bread. It wasn’t necessarily a sweet type bread not complete neutral type. But it was the fact there were pieces of walnuts in it. It is quite an interesting departure from the usual ones, indeed.

As for the filling itself, that’s where things were… Interesting. On one side, there was a balance, in the sense you had some greens plus the savoury part and then there is the mushroom. On each bite you could taste a bit of all. However, how the meat was cut was what confused me. Each piece was almost a chunk rather than thin slices. If that was the intent, well, it worked; however, I would have preferred it differently, more on the lines of longer slices (think Philly cheesesteak). In the end it worked though…

Now, a really odd note about my selection: it seems that I should have ordered the turkey one; however, I wasn’t that enthusiastic about the turkey for some reason. Probably because, given the option, I prefer beef over some fowl in a sandwich? (Not that I haven’t had that before but…) Or because I am biased against turkey? Regardless, here is the big question: how does it compare to nearby places? Compared to, say, Bread Garden, I think we have a winner. However, if we compare it to made to order places, like Finch’s or Brioche, well, it is a case of comparing apple to oranges, specially in the case you are looking for something quick (if you are short on time, going to Finch’s is almost madness)

OK, OK, I am not THAT crazy about pastries but, given I was in one, shouldn’t I have tried some as well? Here we have their lemon poppy seed loaf. Just for kicks, I asked for my colleagues to give this one a try and, for the most part, they were quite enthusiastic about it. They found it was moist but without getting really oily (compared to say, some muffins from other places). One thing they liked a lot was the fact there was that contrast between the moist centre and there was a crusty exterior. As for the lemon taste, actually, I find it was lemon-y, though I wished it was more of a “natural” taste but, I guess, it being baked there will be some transformation from that natural taste. And, oh, the poppy seeds… Let’s just say that we were joking about triggering a false positive in drug tests!

For myself, I also got a vanilla bean + pear scone. There was a particular note about this: I wasn’t planning to eat it right away so I asked if there would be any special instructions if I wanted to eat it later. Lydia, the owner, suggested me to put it in a toaster oven until the exterior was getting crunchy (while, in this case, the interior was kept soft and, I dare to say, sweet!). I did exactly that later that day and… Well, my perception of a scone is something neutral, in this case, it was sweet. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised given it has vanilla and pear. However, I didn’t really taste much of the vanilla. Probably if I tried really hard… Or I had things mixed up with the sweetness (it had some level of)? And there were actual pieces of pear but, once again, it was somewhat muted. Now you knew there were there, as you could “feel” it but somehow lost in that sea of sweetness.

On another day, I decided to drop by really early hopefully to get that turkey sandwich to have it as breakfast. Alas, they weren’t available yet so, instead, I went for something “sweet”. Sigh, pushing my limit on sweets…

Here, their banana chocolate chip loaf. Alas, I didn’t eat it right away but later in the afternoon as a “snack” later that day. In a way, it shared a lot of characteristics to the lemon poppy seed bar, i.e., it wasn’t really that oily and moist. However, there was something lost in translation here: I can’t say I could taste the banana. Could it be they weren’t that ripe when they made this batch (considering that gap between green to ripe before spoiling is really narrow). I mean, I knew it was there because I could see the strands/specks but couldn’t taste it that much. In the end, it felt more like a chocolate chips loaf – and there is nothing wrong with that!

Finally, what seems to be something that almost shouldn’t be missed was their cinnamon bun. And that’s what I had for breakfast in the end. When I was growing up, I could eat a couple of these; however, after that desire for sweets wane, so did my tolerance. However, I will admit, despite it looked as a sugar overload (OK, technically it is), they weren’t as sweet as it could be. And, true to its name, the cinnamon was there. Alas, one thing I didn’t quite enjoy was the frosting on top. For some reason, there was something that bugged me and I couldn’t really find out what. So, pieces with frosting were fine, those with, I ended up scrapping it off. I guess it is more on the lines of personal preference.

Overall, the fact I was able to eat some of the sweets despite my low tolerance tells me something. Alas. if it wasn’t because it is somewhat far from my workplace prevents me from coming back for a quick lunch. And, for some pastries, if it wasn’t because of their hours (then again, this is Downtown, a lot of places aren’t open on some days/after certain times). Otherwise, I think Crème de la Crumb is a good option.

Tagged under: Downtown • Pastry • Sandwich • Vancouver