By Koray Hussein

Before I get going with this one I feel there are two points that you guys need to know:

1. I have an almost non-existent sweet tooth. My idea of dessert is another plateful of dinner with less pepper on it. I’m like the eunuch of sweet fancying… actually scratch that. That was an awful comparison.

2. I was in a really bad mood. I’d been walking all day (My fault), I’d packed too much into my camera bag (Also my fault) and it was extremely hot (Not my fault).


So taking both those points into consideration, you would have thought that walking into Rinkoff’s (The Vallance Road branch, not the better known Jubilee Street branch) and ordering £14 worth of various pastries and a mahoosive chocolate crodough would be a bad idea.

It was not.

I hadn’t really researched what kind of pastries were available at Rinkoff’s (apart from the aforementioned crodough) so I pretty much went in blind. I told them that I was having a small get together and wanted roughly £10 worth of pastries for us all to share after dinner.

A chocolate crodough was the first in the box, followed by a hunger inducing mix of smaller pastries topped with raisins, jams and chocolate. When filled and weighed the entire box actually came close to £15 but they generously offered to give me the box for £10.

I left the shop, took a few shots from the outside and hurried home as the smell of the crodough alone was tempting me to rip open the box in the middle of the street and devour it right then and there.

Once I got home though, I quickly forgot about the guests who were on their way over, opened the box and gazed in at all the fluffy, flakey goodness.

For some reason I can’t explain however, once I took my first bite of one of the smaller chocolate filled pastries I was rather underwhelmed. It didn’t hit the right spot and I was genuinely upset that Rinkoff’s had been built up in my mind to such an extent that it wasn’t able to deliver… I took another bite, finishing off the piece (It was small! I wasn’t taking massive caveman bites) wondering if there was any point in eating another.

I am so glad I did.

I went right back into the box, pulled out an apricot filled piece which smelled absolutely beautiful and took a cautious bite.

Oh my God.

I almost instantly forgot about the first chocolate pastry I’d eaten and reached straight back into the box to fish out another.

I’d love to sit here and compare each different type of pastry that was in the box for you but it would be rather pointless. Apart from that very first piece, they were all delicious.

I will however describe one more to you: The crodough… Not only was it substantially bigger than I had thought; it was way sweeter too. Now I did go for the chocolate one, which admittedly was slathered in the stuff but as I had gotten to the store in the early afternoon there wasn’t much choice and I went for the chocolate as it seemed like a nice classic flavour to test out. Had there been less chocolate I could definitely see myself enjoying the crodough a hell of a lot more than I did. Not to say I didn’t enjoy it, but as I said before, I haven’t got much of a sweet tooth. For a chocolate fanatic this could quite possibly be the dream dessert.

I fully intend to go back and pick out three or four more crodoughs and sample each but until then all I can say is that the fruit pastries that are on offer at Rinkoff’s are outstanding and a must for any pastry fan. The chocolate ones on the other hand? I wasn’t entirely sold.

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