Beard Papa's Grand Opening

This past weekend, Papa Beard's and The Coffee Bean had their grand openings in Salt Lake Shopping Center which is about a 5 minute walk from where I live.

I've read about the Beard Papa's cream puffs in the paper in the past and have seen the lines at Shirokiya so I was curious if they were really that good since I've heard that people waited up to 2 hours in line at Shirokiya for these sweet goodies.

I entered the store and there were about 5 people in line.
I discovered that the pastry parts of it are already pre-baked and they just stuff the pastries with the appropriate cream filling when you make your order. Those 2 metallic cylinders contain the cream and they puncture the pastry and squeeze the cream in.

The vanilla flavor is always available and the "premium" flavor changes every week. This week, the "premium" flavor was strawberry. Future offerings will be chocolate, green tea, and caramel. The vanilla cream puff is $1.50 each or $8.50 for a half dozen. The premium puff is $1.65 each or $9.50 for a half dozen.

Okay, so how did they taste? I have to say that they were very good! Not too overly sweet and the pastry part was light and flaky like how I was hoping. And they didn't skimp on the cream fillings. I did like the vanilla better than the strawberry however. The green tea should be interesting....

But at that price, I probably won't be visiting the store too often. I'll probably be buying it more as a gift for others rather than to eat at home myself.