A Little Bit About a Lot of Things

Located in Southborough, Panzano is an upscale specialty market that sells fine Italian goods. We went there to pick up some lunch at their prepared food counter and also some staples for later. We went on a Thursday around 11am and it was packed! (but maybe this was due to the fact that their Buywithme.com coupon was expiring that day.) They have wines, a dessert case, fresh pastas and sauces, breads, pizza, arancini, side salads, sandwiches and more. They have some long tables if you want to have your lunch there, but most people were taking out.

I’m drawn to the bakery case where you can buy cookies by the pound. I get a little bit of everything. They also have baked goods from Tatte bakery in Brookline.

Let’s start with the nut box from Tatte. Toasted nuts with a caramelized filling in a buttery cookie box. The ‘box’ literally melts in your mouth-it has such a rich buttery taste. The filling is by far the sweetest part of the dessert, but it is well balanced with the crust and the nuts. I just love these!

Moving on the to the nutella sandwich cookie. Yum! Nutella sandwiched between two buttery soft cookies. Simple and yet perfect.

When I saw this cookie, my mind went to peanut butter thumb print cookies with the chocolate kiss on top. These a way better. A butter cookie of sorts (although I believe that this had some mascarpone cheese in it), rolled in sugar with a dallop of raspberry jam on top.

I think they called this one the lady kiss. An almond cookie rolled in almonds. By far my favorite cookie of the bunch-it had a wonderful taste of almond paste and I loved the texture the nuts brought to the cookie.

The pistachio cookie: I thought was good but it was soft. I thought that it would have made a better cookie if it were a bit harder.

An orange flavored cookie with nutella and nuts on top. I love nuts in a cookie. The dough had just the faintest taste of orange, very subtle which made it blend nicely with the other flavors in the cookie.

This cookie reminded me of those cookies that come in the blue aluminum tin, the danish cookies. This one had the description saying something with cream cheese. While I couldn’t taste any of that, it was a great cookie, airy and crunchy in texture with a light sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar on top.

The chocolate chip cookie with walnuts. While the cookie looked like a brick, it was light and crumbly on the inside. The chocolate chips and the nuts are a classic combination.

The other chocolate chip variety of cookie they offered-yum. The dough tasted like it was shortbread dough.

A little on the expensive side was the truffle at $3.50 per piece. This however was like a grown up snickers bar-see cross section below.

Sea salt and chocolate seem to be all the range these days, I’m seeing it everywhere. This was a wonderful combination of peanuts, caramel, dark chocolate with a hint of sea salt on top. Truly indulgent.

We also picked up some arancini, rice balls ($3.50 each), that we heated up for lunch/lunch the next day. These things weight a ton! I happen to love arancini-pair them with a great tomato sauce and you could have a meal.

Here’s the best part-the arancini had a nugget of cheese on the inside, so when warmed up, you cut into all that warm gooey cheese.

While Southborough is a little out of the way-it’s worth it to stop by for a look around, I know that I certainly will be back. As I was writing this post, Buywithme.com offered another coupon for a discount meal. $50 gets you a 3 course meal (at Tomasso)  and 20% off at Panzano-so there will definitely be more cookies in my future! Keep your eyes open for a follow up post when I use my coupon!

Panzano

154 Turnpike Road, Southborough

www.panzanomarket.com