Beard Papa Sweets Cafe at Hollywood & Highland

Beard Papa Sweets Cafe at the Hollywood & Highland Center.

I decided to publish this post since the Beard Papa brand of creme puffs aren't as well known as I thought. Despite 300 locations worldwide, 250 of which are in Japan, Beard Papa is still a growing name in the United States with less than 30 locations most which are located in California and Hawaii.

Beard Papa began in Japan in 1999 and is known for their trademark choux pastry specialties filled with vanilla, chocolate and other specialty flavors that vary by location. In Hawaii, filling choices offered have included haupia and lilikoi. These cream puffs are likely to be among the best you've tasted and will satisfy an appetite for some instant gratification.

Here is how L.A. weekly described these delights at the Beard Papa Sweets Cafe, Hollywood:  "You have undoubtedly had other cream puffs in your day — damp, irregular spheroids of pastry split and filled with shelf-stabilized whipped cream — but the Beard Papa model is a different object altogether: crunchy where the standard cream puff tends to be elastic, round where the others are squat, injected to order with amplified doughnut custard flecked with tiny seeds, and dusted with powdered sugar. There is a distinct aftertaste of browned pie crust in a Papa puff where you usually encounter a vague, sweet smack. But as with a proper bagel, there is a tempered chaw under its thin, friable skin, and a subtly rich jolt of egginess that seems to rush straight to the pleasure center of the brain. 

A vanilla cream puff, green tea drink with tapioca
pearls & the remains of a fondant au chocolate.

Papa puffs are undoubtedly delivery systems for astronomical quantities of saturated fat, but the only thing it is possible to do after inhaling one is to immediately start in on another, until the box is empty, your stomach is full, and your sugar crash can be felt clear to the other side of the Tehachapis. If Papa puffs were any more addictive, they would be illegal in 38 states, the bearded, pipe-smoking mascot would be as suggestive as the Zig-Zag man, and puff-dumping codicils would be the subject of G7 trade negotiation."

The cream puffs are priced at about $2.50 each and specialty puffs slightly more. Other sweets such as thin stick cheescake, fondant au chocolate, mont-blanc and mochi ice cream are offered; selections may vary by location. Combine it with a coffee or a cool drink and lounge at one the tables outside at the entrance to the Hollywood & Highland Center. Eatery is open from 10am. More info at .muginohointl.com.