Brenner's Bakery - Alexandria, VA

My visit to Brenner's Bakery was unexpected. I had never heard of them before. I saw the bakery while driving into the Belle View Shopping Center parking lot for the first time, trying to find a Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream shop I had seen on my iPhone's AroundMe app (a very cool app which has proven useful on numerous occasions in the mere four months I have been using it). As it turned out, Baskin-Robbins was in the adjacent building, with a different parking lot. However, upon seeing Brenner's (and the traffic, and the annoying "traffic shaping" we would have to endure just to drive next door), we parked in Belle View's lot and walked into Brenner's first

We had just had a mediocre dinner at Arthur Treacher's nearby (reviewed on this blog), and were looking forward to the Oreo(c) Outrageous ice cream flavor my dining companions had convinced me was required eating. (That Baskin-Robbins no longer carried the Oreo(c) Outrageous flavor was disappointing but did not influence this review)

It was late in the day for a bakery, so the choices were limited, and I did not expect everything to be fresh. Freshness was not the problem.

My chocolate croissant had plenty of filling. Unfortunately, the filling tasted "off". I have to assume there was something artificial in the flavoring, or someone used Crisco blended with the chocolate. There was an unpleasant bitterness to the flavor. I am accustomed to eating very dark chocolates; 72% mostly, and occasionally 85%, so I do not believe that it was a lack of sweetness in the chocolate filling that bothered me. I even saved some of the croissant so I could try it again much later in the evening, but the flavor was similarly unpleasant.

One of my dining companions bought a chocolate "cluster" (the actual name we cannot recall now) that contained raisins and pecans. It was ball-like, and the chocolate flavor was throughout. It did not have a chocolate coating or "shell". The raisins and pecans just did not taste good together. It was overly dry (this may have partly been as a result of buying at the end of the day).

My other dining companion bought two oatmeal raisin cookies. They were OK, but a bit thick for my liking. He also bought a powdered sugar coated Linzer torte with raspberry filling. My companions report that the torte was dry and VERY hard, and the filling was very gummy.

Conclusion: The Brenner's website states they have been serving Alexandria for over 50 years. If our findings were fairly representative of Brenner's usual offerings, I do not understand their longevity. I simply cannot recommend Brenner's.