ROCQ Macarons from Whole Foods, Encinitas

Supe was nice enough to go with me to get some macs from Whole Foods across the street...

Whole Foods is a place I hardly ever go to. It's pricey and the stores are out of my way. But holy $#@&, they had macs from ROCQ, which was like a siren call to me...

As part of the mixed use development of Pacific Station, this little shopping area caters to the well heeled clientele. The beach community in Enicinitas is a little more upscale than, let's say, the beach community of IB.

Demographics aside, I made a beeline for the pastries section, passing over the whoopie pie display...

and the Jer's Chocolates (Incidentally, Jer's is a local company. I was lucky enough to receive some truffles as a gift a few years ago).

Of the no doubt dozens of macarons I've had over the years, I find the macs from ROCQ to be the best quality for the price. Earlier last summer, my SIL took me to the now defunct ROCQ Cafe in Lake Forest where I nearly went nuts over their flavor combinations.

The owner closed his cafe to concentrate on producing macs for various Whole Foods in SoCal.

Interestingly, the macs are prices a dime cheaper here than at his cafe ($1.50 each at Whole Foods).

I've seen macs priced from $1.25 (Brodard's) to $1.60 and even up to $2.50 (some places undeservedly so). The average price per piece is an unscientific guess of $2.

For the size, quality, and flavor of these macs, $1.50 is a pretty fair price. My younger nephew (#3, aka the Rubik's cube fanatic) is currently obsessed with macs and knowing him, he is the kind of teen who will teach himself how to make it so he can have it whenever he wants. My sister and I were telling the kids, "That's your next joint project...making macs!".

I bought ten macs and shared one with Superman, the Chocolate Bacon...

which had a hint of bacon flavor. We could taste the chocolate a lot more, but the bacony scent and taste were in there, just not that intense.

The remaining macs at home. The lovely rectangular plate was a Christmas gift from KD.

Blueberry

Cranberry (smashed a tiny bit due to my clumsy handling)

Apple Pie

Espresso

Cinnamon Bun

Chocolate Bacon

Peanut Butter

Chocolate Orange

Eggnog

Of the remaining macs, my favorites were the blueberry, chocolate orange and the cranberry. All of the macs were intensely flavored. I love that the size and shape of his macs are so uniform and perfect looking. Every flavor also had a different "treatment" (a brushed design, powders or toppings) which made most of them easy to distinguish from another.

Again, although I love the color purple, I could not bring myself to try the beautiful looking Earl Gray tea macarons (lavender and grey colors) because I hate the taste of tea.

Bert's favorites were the peanut butter, cinnamon bun and the apple pie. We equally disliked the eggnog the most. Ugh. Well, I had to give it a shot. I wanted to get flavors I hadn't tried before.

Who else had ROCQ macarons?
Jinxi tried them late last year, but from a different location of Whole Foods

Whole Foods Market
687 S. Coast HWY 101, Suite 101
Encinitas, CA 92024
(760) 274-1580

wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/encinitas

So, once TC and her cousin figure out how to make macs (I have no qualms about using teen labor, heh heh), I'll be laying off on these for awhile, as much as I love them!

Dessert was next on our list, so we bade farewell to Supe and went on our way.

As we headed north on the 101, we came across a pleasant surprise...