Monplaisir Delicacies Macaron Tasting
We were invited to a media tasting event in Vancouver by Monplaisir, a Calgary bakery specialising in macarons. They hope to expand to the Vancouver market by finding local partners such as tea cafes, coffee shops, and grocery markets to stock their macarons.
Instead of selling us on a sales pitch about how good their product is, they invited local bloggers, social media influencers, coffee / tea shops, bakeries, pastry shops and grocery markets to try their product and let it speak for itself.
They use 100% gluten free, local & natural. No additives, no preservatives, no trans fat and no animal gelatin. Usually I'm not a macaron person but these were surprisingly good compared to what's offered locally. We noticed these macarons were much larger than the ones we're use to seeing in Vancouver.
The colours look a little faded but that's because they don't use chemical food colourings. They offer a 100% natural product free of any chemical additive. Personally I prefer the pastel like colours than the super saturated looking macarons I see around town.
Above are the rotational seasonal flavours where they let the chef create have freedom to be creative. From left to right is the banana flambee, champagne, margarita and rum raisin. At the moment there is not plan to send the rotational flavours here as they costs more and can only be bought at the shop in Calgary.
After tasting so many macarons, I was surprised when they told us it was frozen for 3 months! I did not realize they could last for so long and still taste so great! I guess if shops order it they could just leave it in the freezer and thaw the amount they need per day!
MACARON FLAVOURS:
Pistachio
Black Currant & Chocolate
Salted Caramel
Dulce de Lecce
Strawberry
Nutella
Dark Chocolate
Lemon
Tiramisu
White Chocolate
Coconut
Creme Brulee
Cookies and Cream
Grapefruit
Passion Fruit
Rose Lychee
French Vanilla
Red Velvet
Raspberry
Matcha
Earl Grey
Honey Lavender
SEASONAL FLAVOURS:
La Parisenne | Champagne with Valehona White & Dark Chocolate with a hint of Ginger Lemon Tea
Banane Fambee | Banana Flambeed wih Rum and house made caramel with almond flavour shell. (Contains traces of alcohol)
Margarita
Rum Raisin Roll
Facebook: /monplaisiryyc
Instagram: @monplaisirdelicacies
Twitter: @monplaisir6
Website: monplaisir
OVERALL IMPRESSION OF MONPLAISIR DELICACIES
For someone who usually doesn't like macarons, these were some of the rare ones that actually tasted good. The macaron market is pretty saturated by the locals and Laduree but I think there is always room for quality products. The ones with the best product should survive! We wish Monplaisir the best of luck finding partners in Vancouver as we would love to eat them more regularly. If any shops missed this media tasting event they could reach out to Jean at Monplaisir to try some samples for themselves. Once you taste it I'm sure you'll consider changing your product too.