Bread and Co.

Flair is nice, but without fundamentals, it invites disappointment. Bread and Co. is a bakery/breakfast/lunch filled with pretty reinterpretations of classic French pastry and intriguing classic Brazilian pastries. The gorgeous pastry and Brazilian touches will attract folks who would never visit Costco for a croissant. What a bummer the food isn’t very good. Excepting a few of the pastries. Eating here feels as if I won a “free boat!!” but then found out I’d have to buy magazine subscriptions and rent a timeshare to qualify, and the boat turns out to be an inflatable pool toy.

The location on Broadway was a Bickford’s for as long as I can remember, and I was happy to see that the new management is working hard to win the hearts of the old Bickford’s crew. They seem to be heavily, and successfully, courting the Bickford’s regulars by re-hiring three of the long-time staff, explaining the menu in slow detail, and encouraging seniors to stay as long as they like. They’ve also hired younger, bilingual folks who can explain the pastries in some detail. So there’s a lot to like about management.

On one visit, our waitstaff – a full-on Boston Irish Catholic woman, one of the crossovers from Bickford’s – seemed genuinely excited by the change, if confused by the new computers. At one point, she called over a co-worker to my table and they admired my campanion’s huge veggie quesadilla ($8.95) together for a good thirty seconds, agreeing they would split one for lunch (a smart idea; it’s much bigger than a meal). “All the stuff inside! It must be good. Are those mushrooms, honey? And all that cheese! Mmmm.” And we agreed the quesadilla was presented carefully – on a raised tray with three separate dishes of sour cream, guacamole and salsa. The quesadilla itself was fully an inch thick, with eggplant, zucchini, pepper, mushroom, and tomato. But though I appreciated the obvious attempts to give a little extra, somehow core ideas get lost. The base of the tray is smaller than the surface, so it’s easy to knock the condiment dishes off the platter, or worse, dump your lunch in your lap. More to the point, ingredients were under seasoned and only passably cooked, with no concentrated roasting flavor.

Other savory items I tried included French onion soup (under seasoned), a dry shaven steak and cheese sandwich ($9.95) with red peppers and candied onions (though mine had none), and a turkey club ($8.99) speared with jalapenos, olives and something I can’t remember. The multi-garnish spear is another example of almost-enough thoughtfulness– all those garnishes meant I had no eating room left on my plate, and apparently the first spear broke, because I found a sliver left behind in my sandwich. It came with not-hot fries, the battered frozen kind, seasoned too late after frying, so you could see the salt and sprinkled herbs but not taste them.

Before moving to the pastry side of the menu, I should mention that the menu is very large, so while I visited many times, I didn’t cover significant sections of the menu. I didn’t try the smoothies (available with tropical fruit and a variety of protein-related add-ins, around $5) or the pasta ($10-15). They also serve Bickford’s-style breakfasts, usually around $8.

The pastries suffer from the same lack of follow-through as the savory items, though the Brazilian offerings tend to fare better than the European. First: the pastries are usually gorgeous. There are napoleon-shaped chocolate and strawberry mousses in eye-catching brown and red, various cheesecakes, puff-pastry pinwheels and turnovers. But often, the flavors and textures don’t match the presentation. The cream horns (“quindim a baino,” I think), for example, were filled with yellow custard so thick I thought it might be Bavarian cream, but even that isn’t supposed to be rubbery.

I felt excited to try coxinha, a fried dumpling stuffed with minced chicken and, I am told by the staff, either mayonnaise or catupiry cheese. Sadly, I could hardly find the chicken in the middle of an inch-thick layer of soft, caulky dough that mushed around my mouth like gluey mashed potatoes. Pão de queijo, little cheese-filled rolls, were doughy, with good flavor but undercooked.

I’d never tried Brigadeiro before, a most popular candy in Brazil. These are little chocolate nuggets, about the size of a truffle or chokladboll, but rolled in chocolate sprinkles and made with condensed milk. These came recommended by the friendly staff, and I agree – they are mawkishly sweet in a good way, but also simple, showing off a few ingredients and some technique. I liked them and I’ll be trying them elsewhere too, so watch this space.

I also liked the “plain” quindim – a baked custard usually made from eggs, sugar and coconut, ring-shaped and hi-liter yellow – is eggy, sweet, smooth, silky, and wonderful, the kind of dessert that makes one wonder why coconut isn’t standard in custard recipes.

So: pick up Brazilian pastries, take-out, if you’re driving by and have time. Otherwise, drive on by.

N.B. No post two weeks ago due to dental surgery; those who wish a review of liquid diets may direct requests to the comments.

N.B. I have since learned that the very, very thick custard within the cream horns (quindim a baino) is traditional for Brazilian pastry, so is a matter of style which I mistook for a technical error.