Able Bakery on Deleware

To continue my culinary tour of Deleware Ave. of late, I stopped in at the newish Able Bakery (click for Steve Barnes' article). Pulling up I was kind of amused at the leatherette chairs they had set up outside, but I guess it is a nice touch.

Walking in, the space is fairly small and dominated by display cases. Here we have pastries-



and cookies-



Here is the quaint counter area-



Oh yeah, they had one of those rotating pie coolers. I am obsessed with the design of these for some unknown reason (I should write a post on my obsession with kitchen/restaurant equipment design one of these days). This was a fairly plain example, no flashy back mirrors or anything, but neat nonetheless.



OK, here we go. I am going to say it. Able Bakery's selection of pastries and cookies is the same kind of shoddy, pseudo-Italian selection that you can find at any number of local establishments. They don't even make the stuff on premises, it is all apparently (according to Steve Barnes) from the Rockland Bakery. I can take or leave this kind of stuff, but that is just my personal preference. I know a lot of people like these kinds of confetions. I bought a couple things on a lark.



Something I don't like about a lot of mid-quality Italian type pastries is the heavy hand used with the citrus. I like a delicate hint of lemon zest in a cannoli cream, but I don't want to be hit over the head with it. The taste of citrus was very strong in this selection of product (there was a chocolate thingy and a cannoli that didn't make this picture). All this said, the price is right. Able Bakery is significantly cheaper than other places wherein I have purchased a similar selection of goods.

There was also a small selection of breads and rolls. I purchased a whole wheat baguette which was actually very good, I munched a good quarter of it in the car on the way home. Also, I got 6 (only very slightly stale) Kaiser rolls for 1 dollar. When I see large amounts of discount bread product, I think excuse to make bread pudding. I really like bread pudding.

Able Bakery is good for grabbing some little, fancy looking things if you are swinging by a friend's house for dinner and don't want to show up empty handed. But I don't think it is an everyday sort of place. They didn't seem to have any "got to have" type products in my opinion. Check the place out though, these are just a couple uninformed opinions.