One of the biggest factors that influence where I go to eat is – posts on social media!
Ha, not surprising right?
So many of my food adventures are dictated by what I see on Twitter and Instagram – photos of where people are eating, recommendations, chefs and restaurants sharing their dishes and behind-the-scenes.
Twitter is where I discovered Passion de France – this cute little bakery on 118th Avenue!
One of my co-workers tweeted some photos from her recent visit and recommended I try it out so, a few days later, I did!
Best café in #yeg I’ve found @alenarma @lindork highly recommend! #passiondefrance off 118th pic.twitter.com/oAPxOELDq6
— Kaylee Sword (@SwordKaylee) April 4, 2016
Passion de France is located just off Alberta Avenue at 11812 86 Street.
It’s tucked in a residential neighbourhood, across the street from a park, with ample parking space (always important lol).
I went to Passion de France for lunch last week with my friend Alyssa.
Passion de France located on Alberta Avenue.
There’s space outdoors for patio seating but it was empty when we went.
Inside, Passion de France is just a tiny little spot, with less than 8 seats.
Inside the cute Passion de France on Alberta Avenue.
I love the feel of Passion de France.
There’s lots of light pastel colours, mismatched vintage Victorian chairs and little chandeliers.
I also loved their playlist – featuring really catchy, acapella covers of popular songs!
Not too many seats inside Passion de France but the maybe 8 seats include these cute chairs.
Now personally, I’m not the biggest fan of desserts or pastries, that is to say, if I had the choice between a bag of chips or meat versus a cookie or a brownie, I’d go for the savoury options, though I do admit recently I’ve been more partial to sweet treats.
For a dessert lover, Passion de France has a wide selection including croissants, pies, cakes, a variety of tarts, macarons, Viennoiseries (items like pain au chocolat and pain aux raisins, and other pastries).
Options at Passion de France!
You can’t just have dessert for lunch (though some could probably argue with me on that statement), but lucky for us, Passion de France also offers a selection of savoury items including some great tasting and well-priced lunch combos!
More Passion de France options!
You can order from a variety of individual sized quiches and different types of sandwiches like tuna, three cheese, Mediterranean, chicken, and Atlantic. Quiches are around $4 and sandwiches range from $7-$9.
For a few more bucks, you can turn your quiche or sandwich into a combo – with the soup of the day, a drink, and a dessert.
Great deal!
Even more Passion de France options!
The soup of the day when we went was cream of broccoli and I got it with their chicken sandwich (grilled chicken breast, chicken strips, Swiss cheese, roasted red peppers, alfafa sprouts and ranch dressing).
My lunch combo also included tea and macarons. It was delicious!
Soup and chicken sandwich combo from Passion de France.
Alyssa opted for the soup with chicken and mushroom quiche.
Soup and chicken/mushroom quiche combo from Passion de France!
We both really enjoyed our lunch – it came out pretty quick, and our server was so nice.
In the hour that we were there, a couple came in for lunch too, along with a mother with her kids picking up some items to go.
There was a very quiet, calm kind of ambiance.
Macarons from Passion de France.
I really liked my macarons and Passion de France has a wide variety of flavours – including chocolate, Earl Grey tea, raspberry, lemon, passion fruit, vanilla, coffee, salted caramel, and orange.
It’s also reasonably priced at 95 cents for a mini and $1.75 for a larger version, though it would appear that Passion de France doesn’t make their macarons in-house, which when I found out, I was fairly disappointed.
Alyssa’s sweet treat at Passion de France!
Despite the outsourcing of macarons, I do think Passion de France is a lovely little shop along Alberta Avenue.
They’ve been open for about two years now and I think they’ve found a nice and loyal following here.
It’s not as fancy as what’s become so many Edmontonians favourite bake shop – Duchess, but Passion de France is certainly putting out some quality, affordable food in a neighbourhood that could always use more lively, local businesses.
It was also nice to see so many other bakeries in the area too – including Popular Bakery and Handy Bakery. You could do a whole bakery crawl on 118th if you wanted!
So, have you been to Passion de France? What did you think?!
Linda
2 Comments
Thanks, Linda!
That’s near my neighbourhood and we love it, but I sometimes worry that they aren’t well known enough and could use more business. So it’s great to see you liked it and are spreading the word.
Not too much, though, OK? I still want a chance at getting one of those eight seats when I drop in, lol!
Our experience was not a good one at Passion. Our soup and sandwiches were microwaved. My quiche was also microwaved and runny in the middle. They also microwaved custard filled my tarte without asking! The macarons tasted like the pre-packaged kind. We have never returned since.