Pix Patisserie - N. Williams location

After our brief visit to the Cullen house, we headed over to what they facetiously refer to as "The Fifth Quadrant", the North, which used to be an African American area which has, over the years, become increasingly gentrified.

Our destination was the second location of Pix Patisserie, a well known sweets shop in Portland. The same morning on the local news channel, we saw a feature about their Easter offerings and thought we would pay the shop a visit before returning to San Diego...

Apparently, when Pix set up shop here several years ago, the neighborhood was run down with a lot of vacant warehouses which have now been filled with restaurants and even a brewhouse.

As you can see by the photo above, it was a beautiful sunny day, much like the first day when we arrived for our trip. The other days inbetween were grey, rainy, cold, and dreary but fun nevertheless.

I spy the Cookie Monster.

Pretty red damask wallpaper and hanging toy monkeys! So random!

So cute in here!

Their chocolates were whimsical (but overpriced).


This is what was featured on the morning news segment (I tried looking for it on youtube, but couldn't find it, poo). These Pix "Surprise" eggs were owner Cheryl Wakerhouser's take on the European "Kinder Egg", a hollow chocolate egg filled with a toy surprise. In the U.S., Kinder Eggs are ILLEGAL. Apparently, the FDA says that you cannot have a non-food item in food plus some kid(s) choked on the egg's contents so these are considered hazardous, deadly, etc. Give me a break!  Somehow the owner was able to do it here without any legal repercussions. These eggs were going for nearly $5 a pop! Yikes!

We bought just one egg. Heck, we were on vacation.

They also had their version of "Peeps" here but we didn't want to get a fancified version of Peeps. I don't even like regular Peeps. I think they are gross!

I picked up a few macarons as well. A tube for us and one as a gift for Kirbie.

We wanted to enjoy our treats outside...

The mac tubes:

And two truffles. I don't even remember what flavors these were...

Bert recalls that the dark chocolate spiky truffle had some "heat" to it; it was chili spiked. The orange/red one had a fruit flavor within.

I want to say it was passionfruit but it might have been something else.

Here is the Pix Surprise Egg. Hey food police! Where are you?

The egg consisted of a thin layer of white chocolate coated with another thin layer of dark chocolate. Inside was the "toy"...

which came with this macaron chart. The toy was a plastic replica of a macaron. Man, $4.75 for a hollow chocolate egg.

Well, we knew what to expect.  I think TC has that toy macaron somewhere in her room.

One last look at the neighborhood...

At the time of our visit, this location of Pix was to last until August of 2012 before relocating.

The old address:
3901 N. Williams, St.
Portland, OR

During our vacation, I saw this article online:
Pix Patisserie consolidating operations to East Burnside building

In addition, their location at 3402 SE Division St is now GONE and has been replaced with Lauretta Jean, a pie shop and bakery. This is just a few steps down from Pok Pok and was the first time we tried a beer float.

My previous posts from the Division St. location:
March 2009
March 2012

The new location of the one and only location of Pix is now:

Pix Patisserie
2225 E. Burnside
Portland, OR
(971) 271-7166
www.pixpatisserie.com

More info about the move:
"Pix Patisserie shuts doors, leaves behind a transformed North Williams Avenue"

For really nice photos of the macarons, please see Kirbie's follow up post from last year.

Next up would be lunch!