Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Discovering SaMo's Mexican Bakery La Monarca

I was excited to hear about a new bakery in town since the recent demise of my favorite croissant go-to place, Bite Bar & Bakery. La Monarca is a Mexican bakery located in Santa Monica, with two other locations in Huntington Park and Commerce. They must be a very successful company to secure a spot down the street from Rustic Canyon and Melisse.

La Monarca has a rather large selection of goods, ranging from sweet breads, croissants, cream rolls, cookies, cakes, bocadillos (pastries with ham, cheese and jalapeno) and ice cream. The best way to tackle the selection is to grab a tray and start dumping items on top.

How can you not love a place that has a variety of croissants including plain, dulce de leche, guava, chocolate and cream cheese.

If you can't decide between their wide selection of baked goods, they offer some samples at the counter.

I went crazy and picked up a few items including croissants (plain, dulce de leche, and guava & cream cheese), tres leche cake, tiramisu and sweet roll.

The lady that rang me up also included a complimentary slice of chocolate cake that was freshly baked.

I've noticed that the croissants that I sampled were flaky but less buttery than the French ones that I'm used to. That's actually not a bad thing. It's more of a preference. I do miss the oily fingers that I get from merely holding a croissant, but on the other hand, I feel that at Lar Monarca, I'll be able to have more than one croissant without running off to the gym to burn off the guilt. Personally, I thought La Monarca excelled more in their sweets than in the savory pastries. Their dulce de leche croissant and tiramisu were my favorites. With such a large offering, it'll take me many more weekends to put a dent on the menu, but I'll definitely try my best.

La Monarca Bakery
1300 Wilshire Blvd.,
Santa Monica, CA 90403
(310) 451-1114
lamonarcabakery.com

2 comments:

Diana said...

Haha I think not as buttery is a good thing! I'm a fan of clean hands. ;)

Will definitely have to check this place out soon! Do they serve any savories?

bagnatic said...

oh man i love carbs.