Not everyone has the same idea of what a great beguette is, but for me it is shatteringly crisp on the outside, and easy to chew on the inside. The serious bakers here tend to make a tough version. You tire of it before you can finish it.
My ideal is at Tous Les Jours, a Korean bakery in Annandale and Centreville locally, but with 40 outlets nationwide. Just like most Korean bakeries, they try to reproduce French style pastries using Korean ingredients and to Korean tastes. Most of what they serve is sweet, with a few savory items (like breads stuffed with bacon and eggs) thrown in to the mix.
Here the baguette is firm, yet nice and crispy on the outside and light on the inside. My family polished this off in record time.
As long as I'm on the subject of Korean bakeries, the best for pastries is Shilla on weekends. They are constantly coming out with a parade of still warm and fesh goods you can grab before they even have time to put it in a bag. Their Portuguese egg tarts are ideal this way.
My favorite bakery in Annandale for savories is actually O Bread over by the H-Mart on Heritage. Their bread bread is quite good, but I am unhealthily addicted to their rusk (which isn't like the dry rusk I'm used to but like a big ol' wedge of bread with a bit of crust).
Actually, I really like some of their sweets as well but they tend to use a bit less sugar than this American likes, but I appreciate that they tend to have more samples available than the other Korean bakeries around. I've discovered a few different flavors that way.
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