Beard Papa on the Upper West Side

Cream puff, thy smell and taste is divine.

When Gothamist read that a Beard Papa was opening up on Broadway at 76th Street, we knew we had to check it out. So this past beautiful and sunny Sunday, we headed to the store with Paul Frankenstein. There were three ways we knew it was the Beard Papa store: (1) The line of people outside that snaked well outside the door; (2) the standing display of its mascot-like Grandpa character; and (3) the smell of cream puffs. As we waited with others in anticipation, watching the Beard Papa staff taking the puffs out of the oven, then filling them with custardy cream, a woman who lives in the same building told us that the line for Beard Papa cream puffs reached to the corner of the block. In fact, many people were ordering boxes of the cream puffs ($1.25), making Gothamist think Beard Papa treats will become the new item to bring to a brunch instead of the usual Krispy Kremes.

The cream puffs are baked, not fried, and, after being filled with the cream, are sprinkled with powdered sugar. The store will be rolling out other products, like cheesecake sticks (slender slivers of cheesecake) and a mango ice dessert.

The cream puffs are not like a French cream puff - they are sweeter and seem richer (though they are not fried). Gothamist is curious to know what the limits would be to Beard Papa cream puff consumption. The NY Times had noted that flavors of the day will be introduced once the store gets off the ground.

People checked out the menu outside, as well as the samples employees were handing out. "The best cream puff in the world," they implored.

Inside the store, there is a credo that is very Japanese.

Beard Papa, 2167 Broadway (at 76th Street)

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in Food on March 9, 2004 7:04 AM

Comments [rss]

all for it

I'm chinese and I don't hate the Japanese nor their culture. In fact, their culture is so much more advanced than the rest of the world's. They have not fallen into the technology trap. Japan has achieved perfection in terms of advancing but not losing tradition and culture. hyun kim is just drunk/suffering from a case of the sours after failing to get his share of a little box of happiness from beard papa's!

BUT THAT'S TOTALLY BESIDE THE POINT! The point is, it's worth paying SGD$2.00 for one of those little beauties anyday! I mean!~ Look at the custard cream!~ There's fucking vanilla seeds in it!~ Little pin-dots of love!~ 136 seeds per square inch!~ Quality ingredients; unparalleled flavour. Vanilla pods are certainly not cheap. I assure any disbeliever that krispy kreme's definitely uses vanilla extracts if they have any vanilla-flavoured things... If you can't see seeds, it's definitely extract/artificial flavour. and NO~ THEY COULDN'T HAVE STRAINED OR FILTERED THE SEEDS OFF... so all hail beard papa!!!

I know i'm an ardent fan, forgive me for the biased account.

Conclusion: A beard papa cream puff is perfection and joy in itself. It can and will pull you back up from deep within your ABYSS...!

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Mitch

We live in Queens and my wife's cousin brought over a 6 pack last month. The cream puffs lasted less than an hour. 5 3/4 for me and one bite for my wife.

So today when her cousin came to the office, she came equipped with a new six pack. Three for me and three for three co-workers.(A little less greedy on my part.

chris

I just bought a box of 12 today in NYC since my brother who lived there highly recommended it.

It tasted sinfully delicious. It was just awesome! It was not too sweet, it was just right. Kudos to Beard Papa's! I did not expect much for a 17-dollar dessert. But heck, money was well spent.

I really did not care if it is Japanese, French, Mexican, or whatever. It it is good, then it is good. Why not eat good stuff just because it is not "American"? It sounds pretty darn stupid. Ah, the French likes to call us "stupide Americaine"...

babs

Just tried my first Beard Pappa's and I am in Heaven. Yummmmmmmmmmm!!!

LA Boy

Beard Papa is going Hollywood. I am so happy and just can't wait. I had their cream puff in NYC and just love it. Here you go California.....

kfm

"Finally I got in after waiting a LONG time and i ordered 1 Cream puff. Mad costly... Man, all it was, was a butter biscuit with some mayo inside...all i can say is..glad i just got one.."

hahah Tyrone your killing me - mayo? u need to have ur taste buds replaced.

Charlie

My friend used to live in Japan, so we 'had' to stop by and visit the place. I was really surprised, they were much better than I expected!

I liked the coffee filled ones better than the vanilla ones.

But why no tee-shirts?!!

marvylous

We passed by the store this past Monday and there was no line...since it was 10:30 in the morning. The puffs were awesome! I HAD to try their coffee one and those were delish as well! We were there visiting and I'm really glad we got the chance to try it out! Any chance that they'll open a store here in the SF Bay Area???

Jack

I've just tried the cream puffs today. They were delicious. Who cares what country this product originated from...does it matter? The product is tasty. That's all you need to know! If you don't like it, shop else where. Kim - you're ignorant and Cooking, you're even more ignorant. If you both can't appreciate the diversity this world has to offer, please do us all a favor and drop dead. Stop with your stupid racist comments. What makes you think you're better then anyone else.

Linda

Hey MaxForza, It's Beard Papa, not "Beard's Papa" and it's a beloved character in Japanese folklore.

P.S. there is a cultural thing at work too, since the Japanese love their products to be cute, cute, cute!!! (Hello Kitty, Pokemon, the cuter the better). Close your mouth and open your mind, yokel. It's a great product, and obviously launched in the right city -- where provincial attitudes like yours are so wierdly out of place and totally irrelevant!!

sixi

It was ok.

The bag that contained the cream puffs has

"piping hot", written on it.

The ones we got were cold and a bit stale. They had what looked like hundreds of the cream puff shells out on the counter. When we went up and asked for a hot one they refused to take it out of the oven for us.

MaxForza

If you like this creampuff, you'd adore the cream puffs made at the Wisconsin state fair every year. Maybe a Japanese company will adopt Wisconsin's recipe and go toe-to-toe with Beard's Papa......(jeez, even the name "Beard's Papa" makes me queasy....sweet, cloying, fake, even deceptive)

Unfortunately, you'd have to journey to Wisconsin during the 11 day state fair to try the real thing...nobody with the state fair has attempted to market their fine product more broadly. Wisconsin has never been known for it's global business outlook.

Pinkcrush

Wow~ One cream puff store gone into a political debate. Amazed. I just wonder why they named the store "Beard Papa"? Does anyone know?

Ginger & Carlo

We just had them yesterday before heading our way back to New England. They were sooo super delicious & worth a wait for just 5 minutes!!

Just amazing! Friendly staff & simplicity!

Ginger & Carlo

We just had them yesterday before heading our way back to New England. They were sooo super delicious & worth a wait for just 5 minutes!!

Just amazing! Friendly staff & simplicity!

cb

F*** Cindy Lee.

another korean american

Zaiya's cream puffs do taste the same as the BP in UWS, at least to my taste buds. The main difference for me is that the UWS often has chocolate, green tea, and other flavors, but I've never seen the Zaiya branch with anything other than vanilla. But I can't pass by either of those shops without going in for a few.

And a response to Cooking, without condoning what Hyun Kim has said: only a very small minority of Chinese and Koreans refuses to give credit to or to enjoy anything made by the Japanese. The Chinese, Japanese and Koreans freely mix their cultures today (as they have for several millennia, both high-brow and low-brow); this is evident to anyone who spends a bit of time in any one of the three countries.

Having said that, it's difficult for anyone with a sense of history (often personal) to forget what had happened during Japanese the colonial era. While it's destructive for Chinese and Koreans to brood over what happened couple generations ago, it's cruel for people to tell Chinese and Koreans to "get over it" (as I've often heard). Imagine that the German government insisted that the Holocaust never happened, and that only a few "rogue" Jews were killed during WWII. And then telling a Jewish kid whose grandmother was gang-raped then murdered by the Nazis to "get over it."