I want to love every pastry I eat. Yet, the more excellent pieces I’ve enjoyed, the higher the bar’s been set. When I’d only had a few dozen Parisian patisseries, they were almost all the greatest thing I’d ever eaten. I literally used to tell people that Gerard Mulot’s Cascia was probably the best dessert in the history of time. When I moved to Paris this past April and started downing as many as 5 pastries every day, I began to get a sense of the bad, the good, and the great. Mulot’s Cascia was still a pastry I thought of fondly, but it was no longer on a pedestal. And by the end of July, having become intimately familiar with several hundred pastries, I had an appreciation that, for some works, went beyond “great” and into the realm of the unbelievable. It was at that point that Mulot’s Cascia simply looked like a bumbling attempt at fine patisserie – one I’d never bother eating again. It was like being side-by-side with Pelé at the height of his football prowess and then watching a 10-year-old attempt to dominate the field in the same way. No matter how hard the little guy would try, he’d still look silly in comparison to the master. When it comes to pastry, Sadaharu Aoki is one of the geniuses who helped nurture those unrealistic expectations of others. But if you’ve read my past Aoki entries, you know he’s also one of the patisiers who’ve helped define the absolute depths of inedible crap. So how does this all relate to the Duomo Mâcha Azuki? Well . . .

Had I had the Duomo Mâcha Azuki early-on in my pastry adventures, I likely would have given it pretty good marks. But, having way too much experience with his other work and that of other chefs, I know it falls too short of what it could be. Breaking it down, we have a matcha outer macaron, matcha pastry cream covering a mound of sweet red bean paste atop some feuilletine, and a matcha macaron base. The satellite macaron was a wee bit dry, but the biggest issue was that it was bland – and not bland in the subtle or nuanced way, which would be annoying enough for a macaron – just bland. The macaron base suffered from the same issue, but its size and chewiness made it a welcome contributor to the overall texture of the piece. The matcha pastry cream was pretty solid – great texture and, unlike the macarons, it did have a truly nuanced green tea flavor. The feuilletine, like the base, did an admirable job of mixing up the textures, though its flavor was pretty much lost in the midst of all the matcha. And then there was that red bean paste. It was like eating mildly sweetened lifelessness. I needed a more concentrated flavor. I think the solution would just be two preparations of the bean paste in that area – the current one combined with a moderately denser, more concentrated complement in a smaller proportion. That would be interesting.

Flavors and textures aside, the satellite macaron as a garnish just got on my ******* nerves. The macaron is so heavy that the main pastry can’t support it clinging to the side. When you buy the Duomo, it’s in this little fluted “cup” whose edges turn up just enough to rest under the bottom of the macaron. It bears most of the weight. In order to do these photos, I had to remove the little cup from beneath the already-loosening macaron, jam several 3” long slivers of heavy card stock into the macaron and then into the pastry, hoping that would let it last through all the shots. Even if I weren’t taking photos, a precariously affixed garnish does often fall off when people are taking it from the shop to their homes or hotels, which is clearly just . . . whack, if may bring 1991 back for a second. I’d just like to see it smaller and/or repositioned so that it isn’t so obviously for show, spicing up what’s otherwise just a fuzzy green dome.

But I don’t mean to entirely rip this piece, even though I just did. There are two standout features of the Duomo. The first is that it has one of the most beautiful interiors of any pastry I’ve seen. The cross-section is a delight to stare at. The second distinction is that this is one of the few Aoki pastries that neither sucks **** nor blows my mind with its awesomeness. It just falls right in the middle. I’m not sure how he did it, but Aoki finally pulled off a totally average pastry for us!

Just look at all those colors and those succulent chunks of bean . . .

If you’re excited by the idea of matcha and red bean paste together, this is for you, but it’s unlikely to amuse the average pastry lover. And, if you’re a spoiled prick like me, this is an almost guaranteed letdown – though by no means a train wreck. But no worries, Aoki has plenty of other pieces that show off his immense skill and which should leave just about anyone thrilled.

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