Les croissants ordinaires vs les croissants au buerre

Ok, so yesterday I said to my cousin France That the croissants were not as good these days as they used to be.  They used to be to die for and now they are just adequate and don't taste any better than what we get in the US.  

(Personally, I prefer une ficelle for breakfast.  A ficelle is a smaller, skinnier baguette that weighs half of what a baguette weighs and it is crisp and delicious. But I digress).

Aha! Here is the reason...My cousin told me that for the most part these days, most bakeries buy their croissants frozen and bake them in the back instead of making them as they used to.  Furthermore, these croissants, which look like those below, in the familiar crescent shape you expect, are made with the dreaded margarine, which is not only cheaper and worse for you with its transfats, than butter, but tastes bad and does not give the croissant its flakiness, lovely dark color, or crisp outside.  If you see a croissant that looks like this, it is not a true croissant au buerre. Do not bother.

An authentic croissant should look like these, which are not crescent shaped at all.

Enlightened and armed with this new knowledge, I did an internet search for the best croissants in Paris. The #1 was not in central Paris but the #2 was at 134 rue de Turenne in the 3rd arrondissement.

Since that street was not far from l'As du Falafel, where we went for brunch we went on our quest de croissant. The walk was several miles but we hope it helped walk off this giant and exceptional falafel.

After at least an hour's walk, we got to the boulangerie and bought four croissant au buerre.

We shared one, which was ambrosia and tasted just as I remembered the French ones tasted like.

Here are the ones we bought, which you can see look as they should: rolled but not crescent-shaped.

And yes, they are to die for.  When I get home I will buy some French butter and go to work in the kitchen.