Breakfast Sandwiches -- Touche Touchet Does Croissants; Any Other Breakfast To Recommend?

Touche Touchet's sausage, egg and cheddar croissant

The Howard County dump makes for an invigorating Saturday morning, and a trip to the dump earns an automatic breakfast sandwich.

The county landfill off I-70 is really heaven-sent if you clean out your garage and end up with a car full of old paint, lumber scraps, rusted metal and such.  I got in and out in 20 minutes, even after stopped at the various stations to unload my various stuff.  Tossing metal off a one-story drop makes me feel like a hoodlum every time.

It also made me hungry, and I ended up at Touche Touchet just off Rte 29.  The bakery does most of its business on the sweet side with cakes, sugar cookies, and pastries.  But they make savory croissants, including one with a sausage patty and a small cheddar omelet wrapped inside the dough.

I could have enjoyed a spicier sausage.  I'm getting picky about bacon, sausage and similar stuff, figuring they might as well be spectacular if I'm going to splurge.  But the croissant was nicely made, and they have worked out a system that even a reheated croissant comes out warm and nicely crisp.  The egg and cheese made a real meal, and Touche Touchet is a nice place to linger with coffee and a little to eat.

Can anyone else suggest a cool breakfast spot?  I've highlighted the Mexican egg plates at R&R Taqueria.  That chorizo was worth the splurge.  I'd love any other suggestions because I don't eat breakfast out enough to have a repertoire to recommend.

Chocolate Croissant At Touche Touchet

Touche Touchet's chocolate croissant

I always wanted the breakfast of French champions -- the chocolate croissant.

These folks know their sweet breakfast, and Touche Touchet in Columbia knows how to bake them up. The croissants are flaky and buttery without being greasy at all.  The chocolate is a thin layer, and it's delicious.  It certainly tastes like some kind of special chocolate and not just a Hershey's bar baked in the middle.

This is a short post because it's a simple breakfast.  But in a few minutes of pleasure, you'll snap down years of baking talent needed to make something so good.

Valentine's Cookies at Touche Touchet

Touche Touchet cookies

"Liquor is quicker, but a cookie means nookie."

That should be Touche Touchet's pitch to sell Valentine's Day cookies.  Beautiful, delicious cookies are individually wrapped in the displays at the Columbia bakery.

You'll pay $4 a cookie.  But they're worth it.  Hand-decorated with delicate script and a mix of slogans that run from the traditional ("I Love You") to the irreverent ("Bite Me," "Text Me") to even the anti-Valentine ("Stupid Cupid").

These are Touche Touchet's shortbread cookies with icing that is solid and lightly sweet.  It's an adult flavor and a treat that's worth the price and the special trip to Shaker Drive.  I went two years ago when the shortbread was formed into as heart-shaped lollipops.  They continue to have fun in that kitchen and let you bring the fun home.

Link: Touche Touchet On The Columbia Patch

Touche Touchet gets a business profile in the Columbia Patch.  Lisa lets the owner and the star cake decorators tell their story.  The Columbia bakery is one of the great local spots for sweets -- and a beautiful place to hole up for coffee or hot chocolate on a cold day.  Click here for all my Touche Touchet posts.

Touche Touchet's Cake Decorator Rita Llanso Wins Grand Prize In A National Contest

Rita Llanso of Touche Touchet won the grand prize at the 2010 Pillsbury Grand Championship Cake Decorating Contest, according to the Columbia bakery's Facebook page.

I'll try to find more later today.  We need a photo of the winning cake.

(Update: Photos on the Touche Touche Facebook page.)

Thanks to Kyle for the photo of the bakery.

Cookiepalooza at Touche Touchet - October 8-9

Cookiepalooza comes to Touche Touchet on October 8 and 9 with cookie sampling, voting and $1 cookies at the Columbia bakery.


This is the second year that they've sampled new recipes and celebrated the cookie.  Check out their Facebook page for more details.

Trolling: Cheese Enchiladas, Spicy Tuna Rolls And A Key Lime Cupcake The Fiancee Doesn't Share

Jessica trolls Howard County with her fiancee and talks up the good and bad.  Her inspiration for emailing me was a lunch at Frisco Grille & Cantina where she heard that the plan to move down Dobbin Road been slightly delayed.  Permit issues.  Now, they're thinking that the new location will open in late October or early November at the earliest.

That means that Jessica will have a few more beer and enchilada meals at the original Frisco.  She won't be going back to Cazbar.  I liked the lamb donor, but Jessica didn't like her vegetarian meal.  Thin bread, off flavors, slow service, and hummus that tasted to her just like chick peas that had been boiled and blended.  "I've made better hummus at home, and I'm not the world's best cook," she says.  Bummer for Cazbar because Jessica is learning Tukish food from her fiancee's family.  She says she'll drive to Arlington for Atilla's.  But when she wants local food, she starts out on Stanford Boulevard in Columbia:

The cheese enchilada grilled spicy at Frisco's with a good hefeweizen (or Resurrection, if there is no hefe on the menu that week).  I like to mix my genres, in this case with Mexican food and German beer.  The outside of the enchiladas are always grilled perfectly- not soggy but never overcooked and rubbery.  The inside is a warm, gooey, cheesy delight, and when grilled spicy it has just the right amount of kick.  It comes with sour cream, guacamole, salsa, and shredded lettuce, and I clean the plate every single time.  I've never had a bad meal at Frisco Grille, but once I tried the cheese enchiladas, I have never had a desire to order anything else.  And of course a refreshing hefeweizen just helps balance out the intense heat from the sriracha sauce.

Regardless of what anyone else thinks of it, Hanamura in Columbia is my favorite HoCo sushi joint mostly for one reason: the spicy tuna rolls.  I'm boring and like to go with the standard rolls, and Hanamura makes the best.  The spicy tuna roll has the perfect ratio of salty, tender fish to mildly sweet rice to icky-but-necessary seaweed, and unlike at Sushi King, it's actually SPICY.  There's definitely a theme running through this post: I like my food to be almost unbearably spicy, or as my friend puts it, unbearably awesome.  And these spicy tuna rolls qualify.  Plus the service at Hanamura is better than at Sushi King (never been to Sushi Sono), it's cheaper, and there's never a wait for a table.  Three thumbs up in my book.

And to prove that I occasionally eat somewhere other than Stanford Blvd. (and something other than spicy food), I'll talk for a moment about Touche Touchet in Columbia.  I had learned of this bakery and Oh What a Cake from HowChow.  I tried Oh What a Cake a few months ago and was completely underwhelmed.  I finally had an occasion to try Touche Touchet a few weeks ago, and the story was completely different.  The key lime cupcake (with key lime filling, no less) was light, fluffy, and moist all at the same time, with a tart flavor from the frosting and filling that gave my face just the right amount of pucker.  It was also the perfect size- big enough for multiple heavenly bites, but not so big that you're sick of eating it when you're only halfway through it.  And not so big that I would feel compelled to share one with my fiancee.  I wish I could say I would go back and try something different, but that key lime cupcake would be hard to top.

Trolling on Tuesday is my attempt at a series where readers would share three things with other HowChow readers -- favorite restaurant dishes, food to buy, food experiences, etc.  Click here for all the Trolling posts.  Click here for the explanation and the rules.  Anyone can submit.


(Update: Check out the link below that Ocelots provided to a Touche Touchet birthday cake.  That's terrific.)

Cookies at Bon Fresco and Touche Touchet

Bakeries become famous for their exotic offerings, but they make people very happy with a good cookie.

Bon Fresco makes wonderful breads and sandwiches.  Touche Touchet does amazing sweets, including pies, bear claws and cupcakes.  But my most-recent finds at both Columbia bakeries were cookies -- homey chocolate chip and exotic cayenne chocholate.

Bon Fresco goes homey and pulls off the hardest cookie -- the chocolate chip.  Most chocolate chip cookies that we eat have just come out of my oven, so you need to bake a great specimen to make us happy about paying cash.  Mrs. HowChow and I think Bon Fresco delivers.  Delicious even at room temperature with the fresh quality that makes Bon Fresco's bread so delicious.

Touche Touchet goes devilish.  The chocolate cookie comes spiked with hot pepper.  That's an adult taste, and it works beautifully.  Mostly, you taste chocolate and sweet, but the aftertaste comes with the direct sharp flavor of cayenne.  Touche Touchet and Bonaparte in Savage serve the most beautiful desserts with tables for coffee, hot chocolate or milk, and the chocolate cayenne cookies adds another reason why you should stop at either one for an afternoon treat -- either as an adult snack or a sweet kid's activity.  Just keep the cayenne for the adults.

Touche Touchet is also selling several flavors of Tommy's Naked Soda.

Valentine Cookies at Touche Touchet

It's never too early for love or cookies.

The Touche Touchet bakery in Columbia has charming -- and delicious -- lollipop cookies designed with Valentine's Day in mind.  The shortbread cookies are baked with a stick, then coated with chocolate and a variation of sprinkles, more chocolate or large-crystal sugar.

With a hot chocolate, these are a warming-snack at the bakery on Shaker Drive just off Rte 29.  Bought in pairs or more, they would be a great dessert for a Valentine's Dinner.  Or maybe part of a gift basket.

The $2 cookies are thick shortbread, and the chocolate coating is delicious.  The lollipop sticks are an amusing gimmick, but the quality baking is what really makes Touche Touchet stand out as one of the best bakeries in Howard County.  They have more-complex Valentine's Day specials, including a "jewelry box" cake and a "secret message puzzle" cookie.  Great stuff.

Stay Warm: Hot Soup, Hot Chocolate, Hot Pot

It's too cold this winter, so you need to warm yourself with food.  A cozy kitchen is a wonderful place to escape -- for example with the water dumplings from Andrea Nguyen's Asian Dumplings cookbook.  But Howard County has a bunch of nice places to warm you up as well with hot soup, hot chocolate and more.  My two inspirations:

• If you want a daytime snack, check out the hot chocolate at Touche Touchet Bakery in Columbia.  It's a mix, but a creamy thick mix.  The hot chocolate and maybe a cupcake make for a perfect escape from winter.
• If you want a meal, check out the soup at An Loi Pho in Columbia.  Pho is actually a breakfast food in Vietnam, although we tend to eat it as a winter speciality.  Actually, Mrs. HowChow likes the lemongrass chicken noodle dish.  I tend to order a large pho with brisket and maybe another meat.  The real attraction is the enormous bowl of broth filled with noodles and doctored with bean sprouts, Thai basil, hot sauce and lime.   It's an inexpensive meal, and I leave warm, stuffed but not overly full.  You can even get a second round of heat from the sweet "French" coffee.
• If you want a new adventure, check out the tea tree mushroom casserole at Hunan Taste.  This is a new restaurant in the H Mart shopping center in Catonsville.  Delicious Chinese food cooked in an authentic Hunan style.  The dish comes out as thin, chewy mushrooms, flavored with pork, and served in a hot broth.  I'll write more about Hunan Taste, but it will warm you up in many ways.

What else do you eat when you want something warm?  The bread at Maiwand Kabob?  Is there somewhere cozy that you like to curl up to get out of the cold?

Touche Touchet Bakery in Columbia

The B More Sweet blog loves Touche Touchet Bakery. Seriously loves the Columbia bakery. Loves it with all her heart.

I note this because I have delayed for months a post about Touche Touchet. The bakery is off Rte 29 so close to my house, and I just thought that I was missing something. I visited after people commented about its absence on my post about bakeries in Howard County. I liked my cupcake. I liked my croissant. The pastries were pretty, but I just wasn't inspired enough to rave or sure enough of myself to write something lukewarm.

Now, I know that I was missing something. You should read all of B More Sweet's review, but this is the money quote:

[I]t was Touche Touchet's cupcakes that really won first place in my baker's heart. I had been suffering of late from a serious case of cupcake fatigue, where everything seemed too cutesy-pie and nothing tasted like anything other than a big cloud of cloying fluffiness. You know the kinds of cupcakes I'm talking about - you can buy them all over the place in Baltimore, I'm afraid, and I blame Sex and the City for that. It only took a step inside Touche Touchet for me to get the heck over my cupcake boycott. Here the cupcakes are ethereal, dense and beautiful, appropriately-sized, and not cloyingly sweet. Each cupcake is its own work of art, , and each is fun to eat. These are truly the cupcakes that all the other bakeries want to bake, and these are the cupcakes that grown adult people want to eat.

B More Sweet is a pretty, thoughtful blog by a former Howard County resident who both shows her own confections and comments about bakeries, mostly in Baltimore but sometimes into Catonsville. She knows her baking, so I took her opinion and went back to Touche Touchet last week. (B M S is also a lawyer, nicknamed her spouse in the blog, and denounced Facebook. This makes her very big at HowChow.)

Touche Touchet is a sweets bakery except for some savory croissants. I think that's why I missed the point. My cravings run salty so I'll plan my errands around the tastiest taco truck, but I have been jaded by desserts that were nothing but sugar and empty calories. With B M S's prodding, I paid attention at Touche Touchet, and I liked everything that I saw and tasted. The coffee cake is moist and slightly sweet. The coffee is delicious. The tarts are beautiful. And the cupcake was everything that B M S promised. I chose lemon drop. Moist cake. A dense lemon filling hidden inside. A hard frosting that was artistically swirled and added something more than the tooth-shocking sweet of a cheap dessert. They were head-and-shoulder better than the dinner party dessert that Mrs. HowChow had picked up a few weeks ago at one of Baltimore's cupcake specialists.

This should be a casual pilgrimage for anyone who wants to try the best in Howard County cupcakes, muffins, brownies and more. You can buy beautiful pastries to serve at home. You can stop for a snack at either the few indoor seats or the tables outdoors. (A few outdoor chairs look on the woods next door, but you can get the Columbia special -- seats where you can watch your car.) This would be a magical place to bring a child for an afternoon break of cupcakes and milk.

Check out my post about bakeries in Howard County. Touche Touchet does not bake bread like Bonaparte in Savage.

Touché Touchet Bakery and Pastry Shoppe
Atholton Shopping Center
10400 Shaker Drive
Columbia, MD 21046
410-99SWEET (410-997-9338)

NEAR: This is right off Rte 29 in Columbia. Trust me. You get off at the Seneca Drive / Shaker Drive exit (Exit 17). Go east and turn right immediately onto Shaker Drive. The Atholton Shopping Center is a few blocks down on the left. Shaker then continues down and hits Rte 32. You could come from that direction as well, although it's semi-residential so don't drive too fast.