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Number 70: Croissants from La Farine Croissants have been debased for so long we hardly notice anymore. Squat and shapeless as walked-out loafers, weirdly sweet, and with an interior texture like damp mattress batting: It's as if American bakers were engaged in some unspoken conspiracy to gradually turn the extravagantly leaved yeast rolls into hamburger bun cognates. And even in croissants where the texture is vaguely right, the flavor is almost always blank, obliquely buttery at best. That's what makes La Farine's croissants such a marvel ― they're super buttery. Not greasy-finger buttery, but invisibly so, brittle exoskeletons giving way to pliant whorls of pale-yellow crumb, with a butter flavor you taste in your sinuses. Remarkable. La Farine 6323 College (at Alcatraz), Oakland, (510) 654-1025; 3411 Fruitvale (at MacArthur), Oakland(510) 531-7750; 1820 Solano (at Colusa), Berkeley, (510) 528-2208
