Maple Avenue’s sweet treats

Sometimes you gotta venture out of your comfort zone to try new things. For a belated birthday brunch, I recently took Mr. X-sXe to Maple Avenue Restaurant in Vienna, VA—that exotic state where you can still get plastic grocery bags for free.

The dining space is tiny, probably less than 10 tables with no separate foyer/entrance area. We went for the brunch tasting menu. The food was consistently good: a gooey mac and cheese with panko, a savory mushroom crepe, cauliflower with Thai sauce and a sprinkling of scallions. But there were a few hints that the menu needed more thought.

The feast launches with a charcuterie plate—something I don’t necessarily have an appetite for first thing in the morning. Also, my stomach was hoping for some respite from the parade of heavy dishes coming out back-to-back. I craved a salad or fruit dish to cut the fat in this meat-and-dairy show. (Mind you, the set menu does change regularly.)

And now we turn to the most important part of the meal: dessert.

Yuzu-lime tart (above photo)

Wow, right? This was beautiful—its marshmallow peaks perfectly torched, blanketing the citrusy filling on a thick graham crust. Perhaps this wasn’t the chef’s intent, but anytime I see “lime” on a dessert menu, I’m hoping for some mouth-puckering action. Here the sweetness of the marshmallow fluff actually overwhelmed the delicate flavor of the yuzu-lime filling. Note: we ordered this separately from the tasting menu.

Waffles with Nutella and vanilla bean ice cream (part of the brunch tasting menu)

Sure, this elevates the waffles you’d get at the breakfast bar of a Comfort Inn. But is it good enough to warrant being on the menu of a nice restaurant? I’m leaning towards no. I was curious whether the Nutella was from the jar or made in-house. The menu didn’t elaborate on this point, but it tasted like the jar stuff (which is NOT health food, despite what the ads claim. Hence the class-action lawsuit. #onlyinAmerica).

What the hell are canelés?

They’re not as fetishized as macarons, as common as croissants, or as dunkable as madeleines. But they do hail from France (the Bordeaux region, specifically). And they are worth introducing to your taste buds.

Canelés are basically baked custards that looked like they popped out of a tiny 70s jello mold.

They haven’t been on my radar for a long time. I rarely (never?) see them at DC-area French bakeries. The last time I found these was in the Trader Joe’s frozen case. Those ate like rubber. (Aside: I’m guessing that chewy texture is authentic to canelés and comes from the special baking mold they use. I just don’t like it. See my rant on mochi.)

Then last week, Smack was featured on a recent Tasting Table email. They described theirs as having a special crunch. I was willing to take a risk, ordering an assortment of 25: plain, lemon, chocolate-dipped. (They’ll deliver them to your door for an extra $6.)

When I emailed Smack about leaving the box at my front door, they were concerned about the canelés losing their crunch if exposed to the whims of the weather. This company is definitely a labor of love. Not just because of their concern with the quality, but also the presentation. The caneles come immaculately packaged in a gift box with a giant bow.

BTW, they were spot on about the importance of the crunch. That’s what made these little babies so good. They were just sweet enough, fragrant with vanilla and rum. The dark chocolate ones were the best. Tip: after refrigeration they lose their crunch around day 3, so order only what you can eat while fresh.

Barefoot Contessa’s blueberry crumb cake

Last weekend, I found myself with 2 sticks of butter that needed a home—urgently, because they’d just expired. At first I searched for chocolate cake recipes. Most of them looked too rich and involved though, such as multi-layer frosted cakes or lava cakes that need to be eaten immediately.

Then I stumbled across this blueberry-lemon crumb cake from the Barefoot Contessa. She seldom steers me wrong. Her recipes are relatively straightforward, don’t require a whole pantry’s worth of ingredients, and turn out tasty recipe after recipe.

Easier than it looks.

The tricky thing was finding fresh blueberries in the middle of winter. I thought about using the frozen ones I had on hand, but they’re relatively small in comparison. Luckily, they had fresh ones on sale at Safeway.

If you like your cake a bit more tart, I suggest adding more lemon zest and berries than the recipe specifies. Also, sifting through the comments section of the recipe should give you some helpful hints on the adjustments other people are making.

Here’s how I adjusted the original:

1)      zest from 2 lemons

2)      1 tsp lemon extract (don’t bother buying it if you don’t have any handy)

3)      nearly doubled the number of blueberries

4)      didn’t use all of the crumb topping the recipe calls for, only about 2/3

5)      I used a glass baking pan. It took about 50 minutes to bake. Many people commented that it took them a lot longer, though. (Glass retains heat better than metal—which seems somewhat counterintuitive).

The crumb turned out perfectly browned. The cake, fluffy and tart. As some commenters noted, it’s more of a breakfast cake than a dessert, an accompaniment for your morning coffee.

A test run of Pioneer Woman’s lemon-blueberry pancakes

Maybe a couple times a year, I’ll get a mad craving for pancakes. But it doesn’t strike often, because pancakes are like matzoh balls: eat too many, soon it feels like you’re packing a musket. [Aside: I usually go for the blueberry pancakes from Silver Diner. They’re good without being overly heavy.]

A food stylist once told me the secret to making pancakes look good in ads: dark corn syrup, which is gooey-er so it doesn't soak into the pancakes as quickly. (That's maple syrup pictured here.)

When I saw Pioneer Woman’s recipe for lemon-blueberry pancakes in People magazine (the Steve Jobs issue), I thought I’d give it a go. For one, I wanted to see if she of the wildly popular blog—now a Food Network show—knows what she’s doing in the kitchen.

Two, looking at the ingredients, these aren’t your run-of-the-mill starch bricks. The recipe calls for cake flour, which is lighter than all-purpose. The lemon juice doesn’t just add flavor, it creates a “buttermilk” for fluffier pancakes. Brilliant, because I hate buying buttermilk. I seldom end up using the whole container, and freezing it turns it into smeg. (Another fluffy-pancake secret is egg whites, like at Clinton St. Bakery. But do you really want to spend your Saturday morning separating eggs and whipping them?) I also liked that the recipe uses almost exactly 1 can of evaporated milk. Unlike the fresh kind, it lasts for eons.

Don't over-stir the batter or your pancakes could get tough.

Verdict: Worth adding to your recipe files. The brightness of the lemon, along with bursts of blueberries, make you feel like you’re eating a food-pyramid-approved version of the classic. Also, there’s just a few tablespoons of sugar in the batter to balance the lemon juice. So you’re in control as far as tweaking the sweetness later with your maple syrup.

Recipe notes:

• Don’t buy cake flour: I substituted pastry flour for cake flour, because that’s what I had in the pantry. If you only have all-purpose flour, you can simulate cake flour by cutting it with corn starch.

• Don’t overmix: The batter doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth. Otherwise, the pancakes could get tough. I mixed the ingredients by hand.

• Fold gently: Be careful to fold in the blueberries gently as a last step, or you’ll get purple batter, along with battered blueberries.

• Use frozen blueberries, if you can’t find fresh: By the time I made these pancakes last weekend, I couldn’t find fresh blueberries at prices I’d actually pay.

• Zest as many lemons as you want: I used the zest of 2 lemons. Might even go with 3 next time.

• Use a nonstick pan in addition to greasing the pan with a pat of butter.

• Go small: Smaller pancakes = easier to flip and eat.

A taste of La Boulange & Samovar, before the mad dash to the airport

One day on our San Francisco trip, we got off from an overcrowded cable car sweaty and ravenously hungry. I needed to get some food down my gullet, and quick. There was a Taco Bell nearby. Tempted as I was (yeah, I know I’m in in the minority as far as being a Taco Smell fan. But I’d still consider eating their taco supremes even if I found out they were made with Alpo. I said consider.), we were in the city of tasty foodstuffs, so we felt obligated to try harder. That’s how we ended up at La Boulange.

While I was in line, a glass case of pastries and macarons stared me in the face. Since I couldn’t get it out of my mind for days, we made a point to stop by again on the last day of our trip.

The almond croissant–while topped with lovely roasted almonds–was stingy with the filling. The pastry, not as flaky as we’d hoped. Solid showing, but not a stunner.

As for the macarons, the poor things endured a 12-hour trip back to the East Coast, including a layover in Dallas. They were in a dilapidated, soggy state by then. Luckily, we took these photos while they were still presentable.

The other place we tried on our last day was Samovar, a “tea lounge.” Because the online reviews of this local chain were mixed, we were on the fence about making the effort. But I’m glad we did.

The Yerba Buena Gardens location is in a serene spot overlooking the gardens. On a nice day, it’s probably a prime place for getting cozy with a kettle of tea. We sat inside, where the air was heady with incense–the smell actually turned my stomach a little.

This rosewater-tinged Greek yogurt combined some things I’m not crazy about: dates and walnuts. Yet it was so, so good: spoonfuls of Middle-Eastern flavors perfectly melding together.

Mr. X-sXe had the quinoa waffles, which are described as “pillowy” on the menu. That, they were. The syrup that came with it almost tasted of molasses, but our waitress said it was made of palm sugar. Either way, it had a caramelized flavor that made us want to do shots of it.

The tea at Samovar is pricey, but we shared a pot of pu-erh that the nice waitress kept refilling with hot water. The earthiness of the tea was a nice complement to our treacly breakfast dishes.

It’d be pretty accurate to say we left our palates in SF. All our food choices after we got home to DC seemed just blah. *Sigh*

Now this is a breakfast: Farm Table, San Francisco

San Francisco’s a city that enables gastronomic excess. When we visited in September, it definitely lived up to its reputation as a food city. You can literally eat yourself sick there by overindulging in the all-too-many options (Mr. X-sXe did, in fact, which resulted in a 3-day GI situation that I won’t elaborate on.)

The temptations start with breakfast: super fresh fruits, homemade yogurts made with local milk, simple-yet-creative preparations. That’s the strawberry-fig mascapone toast from Farm Table above, a tiny hole-in-the-wall that we ended up going to 3x. (They Tweet their daily menus, which offer 4 options each for breakfast and lunch.)

Here’s their take on yogurt: just barely tart, a drizzle of honey, the softness of the pears playing off the crunch of the almonds/cereal. Sigh. I could probably eat breakfast at Farm Table every morning and never get bored.

Ode to a croissant

It’s normal for me to become obsessed with a new dessert find, only to get sick of it a few weeks later. However, I’m not expecting a more long-term fascination with the almond croissant from Tout De Sweet.

The pastry chef at this place is clearly a genius, because I’ve never tasted a croissant like this before. Yes, I recently sang the praises of the pastry selection at Praline, but I daresay that Tout De Sweet has eclipsed that level of deliciousness.

What makes this almond croissant so amazing? Let’s analyze.

• The texture. It’s crunchy on the outside, with tender pastry and gooey filling inside.
• Filling: The all-important almond filling isn’t heavy like marzipan, and lacks the gritty texture you sometimes encounter.
• Fresh-roasted almonds: They taste like something recently pulled from the oven, rather than prepackaged.
• Right amount of powdered sugar: It’s applied with a light hand. You don’t want to be choking on the sugar, or getting it up your nose.
• Mysterious crust: There’s a mysterious caramelized layer on top that adds extra flavor and texture. (Look closely at the photo, between the sliced almonds.)

If you have the slightest hankering for pastries, it’s worth schlepping to Bethesda–even if you’re allergic to yuppies–to try this. An added plus, the chef and his wife who run the shop are exceptionally nice people.

Food Network’s The Best Thing I Ever Ate: For Brunch

This episode was particularly awesome because (1) only the most curmudgeonly of curmudgeons doesn’t love brunch, and (2) Alex Guarnaschelli namechecked Norma’s, the Grand Poobah of indulgent brunch food in NYC. Specifically, she mentioned the chocolate decadence French toast (below), made of slices of cake. Which is just crazy genius or suicide, depending how you look at it.

Photo thanks to http://www.thegothampalate.com/

Face it, brunch menus tend to be underwhelming. There’s the standard egg-based fare (hollandaise, omelets, huevos rancheros). Then there’s the starchy stuff—if you’re lucky, tricked out with a variation on the theme (stout waffles, challah French toast, or ricotta pancakes, let’s say). Lastly, there’s a couple nods to the health-conscious: yogurt & fruit, Irish oatmeal, tofu scramble. Yawn.

The Waz-Za is what happens when a fairy throws up on your waffle. Cheers to http://gracenotesnyc.com/ for the photo.

A couple years ago a friend and I hit Norma’s on a whim, and I’ve been meaning to go back ever since. Even the most jaded bruncher can find something to like on their menu.

Me, I went straight for the Waz-Za waffle, which was as close as you’ll get to dessert for brunch (apart from cake for toast). Waz-Za! perfectly sums up how you feel when you set eyes on this dish. A pile of blueberries sits on a layer of brulee. As you stick your fork in, the brulee gives way to a pool of lighter-than-it-looks berry cream atop sliced bananas, lounging on one perfectly formed waffle. I’m getting a bit wistful at the memory, as this was one of the most luscious breakfast dishes to have ever graced my taste buds.

My friend had a savory cheesy toast that she didn’t end up finishing; she had a slight case of food envy. Moral is, the sweet options are a safer bet. Just plan on a lazy weekend, because crashing after the sugar high is inevitable.

Where to get it:

Norma’s at Le Parker Meridien

119 W. 56th St.

New York, NY 10019

(212) 708-7460

My version of heaven is stuffed with desserts, not virgins

For Mr. X-sXe’s birthday, we went to the all-you-can-eat brunch at the Roof Terrace Restaurant at the Kennedy Center. The reviews I’d seen were mixed, but a friend mentioned she was pleasantly surprised when she went last year, so we took our chances.

If you look to your left as you enter the restaurant, you’ll notice an entire room of desserts. Let me repeat: an entire roomful. Not just that, but the mirrored walls and dim lighting create the illusion that the spread is larger than it actually is.

Side note: The curious thing about this brunch buffet overall is that none of the food is in the dining room, apart from the omelette station. The main buffet was also off in a separate area–the restaurant kitchen, which was cool to see. As far as whether the brunch is worth trying, you’ll definitely get your money’s worth if you like seafood. There are raw oysters (tasted pretty fresh to me), crab legs (didn’t try), smoked salmon (very good), etc. The antipastis were also tasty, running the gamut from grilled artichokes to cured meats. If you like fresh fruit, there was a great selection of berries to go with your pancakes/French toast/waffles.

What wasn’t so great was their breads and roasted meats. After one bite of a biscuit, I decided the other bite wasn’t worth eating; the roast beef required some serious gnawing to get it down. The tiny muffins were pretty sad-looking. I was also disappointed that the eggs in the eggs benedict were fully cooked, though I suppose there are food safety reasons for that.

But back to our main topic of conversation, the desserts. The smaller bite-sized ones included:

• cheesecake lollipops
• cheesecakes
• fruit tarts
• soggy eclairs
• cupcakes

The larger ones were:

• 2 types of chocolate cake. One was a dense dark chocolate, probably my favorite of everything I tried. The other was disgustingly sweet, with a frosting-like consistency.
• bread pudding
• flan
• creme brulee, Mr. X-sXe’s pick. (Our theory is that they just took the flan and put a caramelized sugar crust on it, since the two tasted so similar.)
• pecan pie

There were also wine glasses of chocolate pudding, which tasted too strongly of cocoa powder. And a couple other options that escape my memory.

Surprisingly, the most thrilling part of the dessert room was just being in it, taking in the beautiful presentation. Apart from the chocolate cake and creme brulee, we didn’t have any reason to go back for seconds. But such is the nature of these all-you-can-eat things. By the time you get around to dessert, you’re already feeling sick. So strategize accordingly, and pace yourself.

Pastries from Praline Bethesda, Part 2

This here is the raspberry-almond pastry and hazelnut-chocolate bear claw. The filling in the bear claw is Nutella but better, encased in a super crunchy pastry. Mr. x-sXe thought it was as good as the pistachio-chocolate pastry we tried earlier. (I beg to differ. Nothing can touch that.)

Meanwhile, the raspberry-almond left us high and dry–maybe because the filling/pastry balance was off, it was simply a bore. I’ve had Entenmann’s pastries that were more exciting.

So, in summary: go to Praline Bakery. Go early or risk disappointment. Get the bear claw, chocolate-pistachio, and pear-caramel pastries. Wash them down with a mug of bitter coffee or tea, and enjoy the sugar/butter/chocolate high. And marvel at the fact that some French people start every day like this.