re: The 10 best king cakes in the NOLA Metro

Coffee & ,Westbank Expressway, Marrero, LA (Grade B)
Cream Cheese ($17)
Large size, very fresh and light but lacking in moisture and much flavor other than the sugar and cream cheese. Also, I'm not sure if this was true for the whole king cake but there was no cream cheese INSIDE the cake but rather dollups around it on the top. I was not impressed but I enjoyed my slice.

Haydels Bakery, Jefferson Highway (Grade B)
Lacking in complexity and lack of flavor in the cake.

Sucre, Uptown NOLA (Grade B+)
Bread could have been more moist

Manny Randazzos, Metairie (Grade A)
Moist and full of cinnamon. Have had better icing.

Maurice's, Metairie (Grade C-)
DRY DRY DRY

La Boulangerie, Magazine St., Uptown (Grade A)
New winner on best king cake tasted! They sold the French and the traditional NOLA style. I am only tasting NOLA style and this one was top notch. It was $13 for a small Sucre sized king cake (pretty small). Instead of a baby it had a porcelain musical instrument (the one Steve Urkel always played on Family Matters). It looked like I wasn't going to enjoy it because it had limited icing and sugar on the outside but when you cut into it you see a thin layer of cinnamony sugary goodness running throughout. It was very moist with good cinnamon flavor!

Rouses, Tchopitoulas (Grade B)
Good cinnamon flavor in the cake but slightly dry and a very heavy cake. They put extra icing to cover up the slightly dry cake.

Angelo's Baker (Grade B)
Good cinnamon flavor but a little dry. Nothing spectacular.

Rankings:

La Boulangerie
Randazzos
Sucre
Coffee &
Haydels
Angelo's
Rouses
Hubig's
Maurice's