Mr. Holmes Bakehouse

Mr. Holmes Bakehouse
1042 Larkin St
San Francisco, CA 94109
mrholmesbakehouse.com 
Yelp


Being a true hardcore foodie entails dedication.  That could play out in any number of ways.  Trekking hundreds of miles for food.  Standing in long lines for food.  Waking up really early for food.  Basically, doing something that most people probably wouldn't be willing to do, just to eat something delicious, earns you the foodie badge of commitment in my book.  The friends I can deeply relate to on a food level will all go to the same great lengths as I would to satisfy the fat kid that lives within us all.  Fishing Zebra Man is such a friend.  He has been talking about the signature cruffin and California croissants from Mr. Holmes for some time now, but I was not looking forward to the early morning wait and long line.  

The Twin Tornadoes caused a bit of a travel delay, and I ended up arriving 30 minutes later than our agreed meet time of 8am.  I had just missed out on the "golden tickets," or in this case, the "pink sticker."  These were passed out to the first"x" amount of customers waiting in line prior to the bakeshop opening.  A pink sticker guaranteed you 2 cruffins.   Fishing Zebra Man being the generous and gracious friend that he is, gave me his sticker.  He is crazy for the California croissant and could care less about cruffins anymore.

California Croissant smoked salmon, avocado, seaweed

I definitely give it to the pastry chef for coming up with this one.  Who would have thought that the contents of a California roll would ever end up on the inside of a croissant?  I went in thinking it was going to be the weirdest thing ever, but it was good.  I'm not a huge fan of smoked cooked fish, so that was my main ding.  

Savory Danishes

french onion soup

bacon

Both were quite tasty.  The French onion soup did a marvelous job mimicking the cheesey and sweet oniony flavor of its soup inspiration.

Chocolate Chip Cookie
I'm a total chocolate chip cookie snob because I can make a pretty amazing one.  I thought their version was too sweet because they used milk chocolate chips.

Cruffins
As its name suggests, a cruffin is a hybrid of a croissant and a muffin.  My caveman culinary assessment concludes that a cruffin is just croissant dough baked in a muffin pan.  Maybe I'm wrong.  In any case, the flavors change daily.  Today's flavor was chocolate coconut topped with a coconut macaroon.

My conclusion is that the cruffin is tasty, but not worth the wait.  Maybe I just didn't get a good flavor because coconut isn't always my thing.  The croissant aspect is flakey and buttery.  The muffin shape honestly makes it hard to it because the filling just oozes all over the place.  I was unhappy with the hot mess it made.

While I didn't have to wait as long as Fishing Zebra Man, I still had to pay my dues to get my grubby mits on the elusive cruffin.  CNN dubbed it the "unicorn of pastries."  And it's not like I had to wake up at the butt crack of dawn or wait more than 1 hour.  So it was an experience I am glad I shared with a good friend.  I probably would not do it again because I was not overly impressed with the darn thing.  I would choose B. Patisserie over Mr. Holmes in a heartbeat.  Fishing Zebra Man agrees.

10 - You NEED to eat here
9 - Awesome! 

8 - Very good
7 - Good 

6 - OK (factoring wait/line)

5 - Average
4 - Not bad

3 - Not good

2 - Terrible

1 - Do NOT eat here