Also me: I spent an hour in traffic to drive to a bakery in Koreatown because someone I follow on Instagram posted a video of a "flat" croissant. The flat croissant looks like an optical illusion.

Alexander’s Patisserie, with locations in Mountain View and Cupertino, offers four flavors of flat croissant, including mango (above). Photo by Adrienne Mitchel. The California lottery says it ...

The croissants were huge — easily the biggest I bought or saw at any store. They were also slightly flat, with a pale golden-brown color. When I cut them open, I was unimpressed with the lamination.

But other food trends seem to fall off relatively quickly: The 2022 butter board didn’t really take off, and even the hype over this year’s flat croissant didn’t last too long. Looking back ...