Les Madeleine revisited

Before class in the afternoon, my mom and I went grocery shopping--there was no way I'll be able to go with her for the next few days since I'll be recovering from wisdom teeth extraction. So we went to our favorite grocery store--Sunflower Market--and on the way home, stopped at Les Madeleine. I liked the Meyer lemon tart here. The only thing that I makes me hesistant to come here is the price. Compared to other pastry shops, the stuff here are pretty pricey. Granted, they use quality ingredients, but I'm not sure if I want to pay $2 for a teeny-tiny macaron about the size of a half-dollar coin. But I figured I should at least try their other pastries.
I looked at their display case--boy were they pricey! Four dollars for a medium-sized cookie, $2.25 for a mini-cupcake... But if the the quality was outstanding, then price was something I was willing to overlook. So I bought an "Oriental Express" and a New York Cupcake. The saleslady put them in the cutest box and handed it to me.

Love the cute box!

And here they are....Oriental Express is basically a Paris-Brest with pistachio buttercream filling. I'm guessing the "Oriental" part comes from the fact that Turkey and Iran (and several other Middle Eastern countries are the producers of the highest quality pistachios. The New York (mini) cupcake is Valrhona chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting. The only reason I got it was because this was the only flavor available. So how were they? Well...

A bit disappointing unfortunately. The choux pastry was a bit tough, like it's been sitting there for a while. The pistachio buttercream was absolutely delicious though. Smooth, rich, creamy, and good pistachio flavor. Very nice!
The cupcake was definitely not worth the $2.25 price tag. The cake was pretty good, rich with bits of chocolate, but not too sweet. The frosting however, was a bit gritty, and too sweet with not much chocolate flavoring. Definitely better than the average grocery store cupcakes, but fades in comparison to the ones at pastry shops in San Diego.
If I was to go back here again, I would get the kouing-aman. This is apparently the only place that produces these flaky pastries, and I've never had them myself.

Hmmm...if I was to open a shop...I'm hoping to make pastries that would make people want to come back again and again.