You can’t miss Paris Baguette on the corner of University and Waverley: it’s so blue. With floor-to-high-ceiling windows facing both streets and blue neon inside and out, it beckons like a beacon. It feels good to be inside and it is a good place to meet and talk. I’m just not sure I’d go there to eat or drink.

Their prepared cakes and pastries under glass look ravishing. They remind me of the artistic baking at Satura Cakes, perhaps not surprisingly because Paris Baguette reflects Asian (Korean-based) origins, too. But if you go there for something akin to breakfast it’s a million miles from Paris. You take a wooden tray, put a sheet of waxed paper on it, and pluck your own metal tongs from the rod. You then proceed around the self-serve island displaying a fairly wide choice of sweet rolls and sticky buns – you know, the ones high in saturated fats. I think there are some plain croissants (and I know there are chocolate ones) but not a baguette in sight. So much for the pain buerre that’s my staple in France. Rumor has it that at lunch you can get a sandwich on a baguette. There were a couple of salads in plastic containers but no evidence of a real kitchen on site.

I am not a coffee afficionado (I avoid caffeine) and at home my regular brew is instant decaf. But even I found the coffee unsatisfactory. One day I simply ordered a decaf and thought it was pretty yucky. The next day they said they didn’t have decaf, as if it were at item they don’t carry. When I pressed them they said they had run out of beans, but they could offer me a decaf Americano. What’s the difference? That was even worse: watery, flavorless. They can make a latte or a cappuccino but nothing at all special, and you can tell that coffee appears more as an obligation than an obsession.

The seating consists of both ordinary chairs and white, backless, sofa-like seating.  What’s odd is that the wooden trays (square with high, curved-up sides) are too large for two of them to fit facing each other at a table. So if you and a companion each get your own tray and want to face each other for a conversation at a table, one or both of you will have to empty your tray. The trays are huge and should be rectangular, not square. Did the people who chose this design ever try using them, or observing their customers?

I don’t see deal makers here, like I do at University Cafe. I’m not sure how I could justify asking someone to meet me at Paris Baguette; I feel like I would be apologizing most of the time.