Photo by Tenaya HillsThere's a shiny display case inside Palace Bakery in Laguna Hills that's always empty, and I really don't know why. Have Persian families bought out its contents, gluttonously revelling in one of South County's few Persian eating establishments? Perhaps it's a new addition that will house such chilled Iranian sweets as the cold-noodle treat faloodeh or the bracing saffron-rice pudding, sholeh zard? Or maybe a monolith from businesses past, a vessel of knowledge that will float through the centuries until it sails into Jupiter and you become a fetus anew? Ah, who cares—gooey eats await your picking in Palace's other three cases.
Palace Bakery is the county's second shop to specialize in Persian desserts, a sweet-tooth tradition similar to Arabic pastries in their sumptuousness but also exhibiting bolder flavors. But you can buy baklava, zoolbia and bamia at any Middle Eastern bakery, as well as Palace's excellent clairs, cream puffs and other French pastries (the slow-roasted coffee, though, is an aromatic treasure that zaps your synapses into the next plane). Indulge, instead, in the Persian-specific snacks. Take home a loaf of barbari, a brown, crusty but fluffy bread sprinkled with sesame seeds. Whittle your way through something shaped like a maple bar but finer: honey-drenched, hollow, wonderful. Marvel at the cookies—some white and dry like meringue but crowned with black seeds that sear with a sweet zest; berenji, chickpea-flour cookies spiced with a dash of cardamom; a flat, almond-studded mass that looks like a raisin cookie but is softer and chewier than a Little Debbie Cream Cake.
You shouldn't let the yen for the new stop you from ordering the Middle Eastern pastries. Palace's baklava is sweeter than what they hawk in Anaheim's Little Arabia—splashed with more rosewater and honey, the phyllo dough tougher and rolled around a dense almond filling so it resembles a miniature cigar. There's also zoolbia and bamia—the former is a multiridged pretzel dripping with cardamom-spiked honey and fried to an Oscar-esque shine, while bamia is really just a churro nugget soaked in more of Palace's searing rosewater and honey.
And don't worry: although Palace's variety box is almost always sold out, ordering two of each Persian-specific snack will set you back but nine bucks. And you get a cool golden sticker!
PALACE BAKERY, 24751 ALICIA PKWY., STE. D, LAGUNA HILLS, (949) 768-6252.
