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| - In spite of being as meaningless as Spinal Tap's amp volume knobs going up to 11, and knowing that it would only reassign the meaning the 5th star now holds, I still sometimes wish I could award a business 6 stars. This is one of those times.
So good is Amelie's, that the idea of existence without their flaky pastry crust, fresh fruit toppings, expertly prepared cafe au lait and mind altering soups and sandwiches begins to lose all illusion of objective meaning. It becomes the raison d'être.* Life outside Amelie's warm, maternal embrace is quickly overwhelmed with a nagging sense of ennui. Why continue to carry on, if not for more of this ambrosial confectionery? Had Albert Camus been familiar with Amelie's I'm convinced he would not have suggested stoic revolt against the absurdity of existence as the only alternative to suicide. It's not so hard to imagine Sisyphus happy, as Camus suggested we must, if he gets a lovely little pastry each time he rolls his stone to the top of the hill.
This conviction was reaffirmed in me again this weekend with probably the best pastry I've ever had. It was a raspberry cream cheese danish and it was like some sweet, illicit drug. If you've ever seen Requiem for a Dream and remember the quick montage of shots of dilating pupils and blood rushing through capillaries the moment the characters shoot up, you'll get a sense of what the first bite was like. I thought I saw God.
All exaggeration aside, the raspberry cream cheese danish really was the best I've ever had. If they happen to be out of raspberry, get the blackberry. It's not quite as good but that's just my personal preference for raspberries. Both have whole, fresh berries on top and are as pretty as they are delicious.
*Please forgive all the overbearing and pretentious French phrases. It seemed apropos for an Amelie's review to revert to French in search of le mot juste.
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