Beard Papa's Edmonton, AB - needs work to live up to its trademark name

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Rating 
Cream Puff Exterior 6/10
Cream Puff Filling 6/10
Hearing from a girlfriend that there was a Beard Papa's in Edmonton, I got really excited. I've had cream puffs from Beard Papa's in Vancouver, my boyfriend has had them both in Vancouver and Shanghai... and we were both super excited to try them out now that there was one at West Edmonton Mall, in Phase One, tucked in a slow traffic area across from McDonald's and close to Galaxyland. There was a big sign outfront saying all cream puffs on tuesdays are $2 vs being closer to $3 regular price. The unfilled cream puff pastries were arrayed on the counter under a display case, with metal cannisters that pump the cream puffs full of custardy goop in the background.



the Cream Puffs

There are a few flavors to choose from - original, mango, green tea, and a few others. We stick with the original vanilla custard, and get an eclair to round things out. The exterior of the fist sized cream puff was flaky but strangely quite dry and not tender-flaky as we expected. The filling wasn't mixed well.. our first cream puff had a nice distribution of vanilla specks and flavor, though it had an odd stripe of yellow in it. The filling was more of a custardy pudding texture than a custard cream but it was nice and cool.







the eclair
Essentially the same cream puff but covered in a thick layer of dark chocolate, with the layer of chocolate adding in a nice hit of rich chocolate as it melted on your fingertips as you bit into the cream puff. The filling in the eclair was sadly underflavored, with hardly a vanilla speck to be seen, and tasted like a very light bland pudding instead of a vanilla-y custard.


the VERDICT Though not as good as the super vanilla-y rich cream custard cream puffs I remember from Vancouver, (despite being from the same franchise chain originating from Japan) this lighter version is a lot closer than jaunting off to Vancouver.  Stop by early in the day rather than later on in the evening as the pastry puff will be fresh and not sitting out to dry out.  Main quibble was they need to mix the fillings more throughly as it did not meet the standards we usually see from other Beard Papa's elsewhere. Beard Papa's
Address  8882 170 Street Northwest, Edmonton, AB
Phone 780-761-1288
Hours Mon-Sat 10am-9pm, Sun 11am-5pm

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