Artisanal Goods by CAR is a delightful bakery in Pasadena, known for its flaky croissants and inventive pastries, always drawing a crowd eager to indulge.
"Chef Haris Car spent 10 months testing and refining the recipe to create his pain au chocolat and, arguably, LA’s ultimate chocolate croissant. Each ingredient in the croissant is specially chosen, from the high-gluten Central Milling flour to the Normandy butter and the 60-percent dark milk chocolate from Nicaragua. CAR’s best seller is served warm and has the perfect dough-to-chocolate ratio." - Rebecca Roland
"CAR in Old Town Pasadena is best known for chocolate croissants, but the butter croissants are worth refilling your statin prescription, too. Here they’ve mastered the art of visually stimulating, lighter-than-air pastries that don’t make you feel like butter is seeping out your pores. The golden-brown shell offers 1/100th of a second of crunchy resistance, then gives way with a shower of crumbs. The wispy white innards look like a Fibonacci spiral and have a slight tang that’s delicious on its own, and even better set against their housemade dark chocolate." - sylvio martins, garrett snyder, brant cox
"The name may be deceiving, but Pasadena-based chocolatier Haris Car makes what might be the best chocolate croissant in the city. Car took close to a year to meticulously develop the pastry, which is served warm, with a glossy, shatteringly crisp exterior. Inside each baked wonder is a trio of chocolate batons, sourced thoughtfully and ethically by Car himself." - Eater Staff
"On weekdays, this quiet, brick-walled cafe in Pasadena is somewhere to disconnect from the craziness of suburban life (read: scheduling carpools). But on Saturday mornings, CAR is buzzing with lines of people seeking the same thing: their excellent chocolate croissant. These pillowy croissants come filled with a thick band of good-quality chocolate, have layers upon layers of buttery dough that you can count like the rings in a tree trunk, and instantly shatter when you bite in (do not eat these in your car.) And since you'll probably wait 20 minutes in line for a coffee and pastry, might as well double up and get the flaky almond maple danish that tastes like a warm pancake breakfast." - Sylvio Martins
"While a chocolate manufacturer at heart, Haris Car’s outlet for his confections is a no-joke chance to caffeinate and rejuvenate any depleted laptop batteries. (Read: there are many, many outlets.) Plus, fleur de sel chocolate chip cookies are brain food, right?" - Farley Elliott, Paolo Bicchieri
