My cardamom bun was uncooked in the center!
Also, the part I ate tasted only vaguely of cardamom. I ended up throwing most of the bun out. It didn't seem safe to eat. And even if it had been safe to eat, it wasn't remotely worth eating.
I'd gotten the pastries to go, and didn't end up eating them until I was far enough away that it wasn't worth going back to complain.
I also tried their cinnamon bun, which featured a buttery, laminated, croissant-like pastry, but had only the mildest hint of cinnamon. It was almost as if the bakers thought about cinnamon while making the pastry, rather than actually adding cinnamon to the dough. As a pastry, it was quite good, but as a cinnamon bun, it was disappointing.
If I had stopped here, I'd be giving Lillebrors 1 star.
But I also tried one more thing - some yeast-risen donut type of pastry that was filled with cardamom cream. This was great. (Well, the cardamom flavor was still less pronounced than I would have liked, but the cream was airy and not too-sweet and the pastry made me understand that this bakery is capable of producing great pastries that are much better than the ones they served me.)
The bakery looked amazing, the service was friendly, and I have no problem believing that I was there on a very off day. But consistency is important, and no pastry should be raw in the center.
I struggled between giving Lillebrors 2 stars or 3. But I ultimately decided that the promise they showed with their cardamom cream pastry was worthy of that extra star.
Still, I was enormously disappointed with the buns, and am sad not to have had the five star experience that I had hoped for. read more