Los angeles dessert haikus

A bit of wisdom served up on Santa Monica Pier.

We’ve been on blog break because we were eating our way through LA, trying sweets from various restaurants and bakeries. While we had some good ones (the coconut bavarois from Red Medicine is now a fond memory), most were unspectacular. We also tried one patisserie (Jin in Venice) that made us all-the-more grateful for Bethesda’s Tout de Sweet. As much as I wanted to like Jin–Asian owner, picturesque outdoor seating, tempting selection of lunch options–the goods just didn’t deliver.

A rundown of the sugar tour:

 

Red Medicine:

Coconut dessert

In a tropical ant farm

Reluctant to share

Bitter chocolate

Ruined by string of butter

Pastry chef misstep

 

Gjelina:

Famous pot de creme

JELL-O pudding on steroids

It’s salty! It’s sweet!

Strawberry rhubarb

A crisp more like a pot pie

Overly soupy

 Jin Patisserie:

Macarons and cake

A feast for the eyes, not mouth

Post-dessert remorse

Lavender-almond

Sesame-peanut cookies

Jin redeems itself?

 

Tender Greens:

Caramel cupcake

Like midget banana bread

Icing overload

 

Cake Monkey:

Two kinds of cookies

Both chocolatey sandwiches

Unmemorable

Unhappy endings @ Chez Panisse & Commonwealth

Let’s say you’re out at a fancypants restaurant, the type that offers a tasting menu. You have an enjoyable meal. Then the desserts come out. And–pfffffft–your gastronomic high is deflated due to the lameness of this final course. Sound familiar?

Here are a few things that might end a nice meal on a down note:

1)      A “unique” ice cream flavor. Frankly, it’s a copout. Haven’t we learned this from Iron Chef yet? Please, no more curry/tarragon/whatever ice creams. There are plenty of gelato places where we can get inedibly exotic flavors.

2)      Overly rich chocolate desserts. I’ve seen leftovers of gorgeous chocolate mousses/tortes at Elizabeth’s Gone Raw and CityZen that met a tragic end in the trash. Don’t serve a brick of chocolate at the end of a long meal. Your patrons may explode.

3)      Something reminiscent of a Sara Lee product. See Chez Panisse almond torte below.

4)      Desserts that are heavy on concept, light on substance. See Commonwealth below.

While in San Francisco, we had a special meal planned at Chez Panisse, Alice Waters’ legendary restaurant in Berkeley. Known for founding “California Cuisine,” Chez Panisse is also famous for its desserts (thanks to the talents of Lindsey Shere, its longtime pastry chef who retired in 1998).

Needless to say, I had high expectations of what was billed on the menu as “almond torte with Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise sabayon.” Maybe I’m just easily impressed by foreign words.

Anyway, out comes this:

If it looks like a fluffier version of Sara Lee pound cake, it pretty much is. Was the sabayon sauce delicious? Yes. Was the fruit fresh? Absolutely. BUT it was clear that the restaurant was phoning this course in. Not the impression you want your guests to leave with.

Our other nice meal was at Commonwealth, a random discovery in the Mission. Initially we hesitated to try this place because I’m not a huge fan of molecular gastronomy. While I appreciate the creativity that goes into it, often the food leaves my taste buds high and dry. Bottom line is, if your foams-dirts-spheres don’t taste good, the interesting presentation doesn’t make up for it.

Let me explain. My first experience with molecular gastronomy was a business dinner at wd~50, celeb chef Wylie Dufresne’s place in NYC. The food at wd~50 was totally imaginative. Maybe too much so: my root-vegetable lasagna had no pasta in it—just thinly cut slices of veggies layered to look like lasagna. An edible work of art. But after a few bites, I was wishing I was at a red-checkered-tablecloth joint, digging into the real deal.

Back to Commonwealth. It was probably our best meal of the trip. Then came the desserts. I got a deconstructed apricot cobbler with a piece of meringue that’d been zapped with liquid nitrogen. But the combination of torched apricot, cookie crumbs, and meringue was hardly as spectacular as the presentation. In fact, it felt like I’d eaten a lot of air and sugar.

Mr. X-sXe had better luck with his peanut butter semifreddo, a peanut-butter candy bar with popcorn that’s actually frozen bits of cream. Commonwealth partially redeemed itself with this creation. It felt like a better balance of execution and creativity than my letdown of an apricot cobbler.

Miette San Francisco is the Zooey Deschanel of bakeries

Miette is a sweets shop/bakery that’s the pinnacle of adorableness. Stepping inside makes you feel like you’ve gone through the back of the wardrobe, into a pastel-colored world of adult-approved confections. This is a place where everyone walks away happy. (We went near closing time, so the fridge case was somewhat barren by then.)

We visited the location in the Ferry Building: a gourmet, touristy food court cross-bred with a farmers’ market. I imagine the freestanding Miette stores are even more of an immersive experience.

Their coconut cake was heavenly, moist cake with light layers of coconut frosting in between. My favorite dessert of the entire trip, which is saying something considering the caliber of the city’s food. Apparently the cake’s made with plenty of coconut milk, the bacon of the fruit world. I.e., anything made with it will invariably taste good, but not be good for  you.

We also sampled an array of cookies, starting with the French macarons.  They make theirs without food coloring, a “California interpretation” of the French classic. This caused some confusion over which one was what flavor (we tried everything from lavender chocolate to pistachio). While the cookie part was good, the flavors in the creme-y filling could’ve been stepped up.

The peanut butter cookies, chocolate sables, and gingersnaps came home with us to DC. (You can order them online.) My favorite was the latter, which were crisp and buttery with chewy bits of candied ginger. Mmmm, Miette. How I wish I’d brought home more of your delicacies.

Rehoboth series, part 3 of 3: Annie’s Banannies performs magic with frozen bananas

We hit 3 places at Rehoboth Beach last weekend to get a sampling of the sweets scene: Cake Break, The Ice Cream Store, and Annie’s Banannies. In case you’re wondering, the famed Candy Kitchen was not one of these, because (1) I’ve got way too many fillings to be eating stuff like taffy (2) fudge is one of the worst bastardizations of chocolate I’ve ever encountered, and (3) the place is a madhouse swarming with kids who could spontaneously combust from sugar overload at any moment.

It’s funny how much junk you can justify eating while on vacation. The boardwalk is filled with double-fried fries, ice cream, funnel cakes, pizza, you name it. We walked past one lone frozen yogurt place. Tellingly, there wasn’t a single person in there that wasn’t an employee.

Luckily, offering healthy options isn’t a death knell for every business on the boardwalk. Annie’s Banannies, which makes vegan “soft serve” out of frozen bananas, has been there 2 years and is going strong. You can’t miss it—the store is decorated to resemble a jungle.

The product is simply frozen bananas run through a juicer; nothing more. You can get the works thrown on top, or just get it plain ($3.75 for a small).

We were transfixed watching them make these. They push the frozen banana in one end of the juicer while ever-so-slowly, it painstakingly poops out a smooth, creamy treat with the consistency of soft serve. No added sugar, no nothing. We felt like this was some well-kept secret among the Coven of the Frozen Banana Juicers.  I learned from their website that Annie’s mom was the one who introduced her to the concept. Apparently Annie had been kicking around the idea of opening Annie’s Banannies for a while:

“One night while folding laundry my dad came in and said, “Annie, you have to do it, Annie!” I thought, do what? “Do you need me to do some laundry for you, dad?” He laughed and said, “No. Banannies! You need to do Annie’s Banannies!”  I told him that I would, “one of these days.” The next day when I got home from work I found that he had passed away. It was the last thing he said to me. (He died September 26, 2006.)

Three weeks after we laid dad to rest, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. After surgery followed by a long 9 months of rehabilitation, it seemed she was getting better and was finally cancer free!

One night while watching TV together, mom looked up and said, “Annie, you have to do it Annie.” I said, “Do you need something mom? What can I get you?” She replied, “No. Banannies; you need to do Annie’s Banannies!” I promised I would as soon as she got better. It was the last thing she said to me; 18 hours later I found myself holding her hand as we took her off of life support. (She died July 6, 2007.)”

Annie has another location opening soon in Baltimore; I hope she successfully grows it into a nationwide franchise. As long as you don’t go overboard with the toppings, it’s so much healthier than the custard and ice cream places dotting the boardwalk. We even went back the morning after we’d first tried it to get another one–and to gawk at the employees making them.

Rehoboth series, part 2 of 3: The Ice Cream Store

We hit 3 places at Rehoboth Beach last weekend to get a sampling of the sweets scene: Cake Break, The Ice Cream Store, and Annie’s Banannies. In case you’re wondering, the famed Candy Kitchen was not one of these, because (1) I’ve got way too many fillings to be eating stuff like taffy (2) fudge is one of the worst bastardizations of chocolate I’ve ever encountered, and (3) the place is a madhouse swarming with kids who could spontaneously combust from sugar overload at any moment.

Much like Nicola Pizza (home of the famous Nic-o-boli), the Ice Cream Store has become a Rehoboth tradition. Our obsession is mostly based on morbid curiosity: what disgusting-sounding flavors will they come up with this time? Unfortunately, this past visit we didn’t see anything that intrigued us–if only because we’ve seen or sampled many of these flavors before.

So Mr. X-sXe went for the Samoas, based on the beloved Girl Scout Cookie. It had bits of the cookies in it, as well as a caramel ribbon. While it was good, it didn’t hold my interest (the only ice cream that does these days is a Drumstick or Magnum). However, if you’re a chocolate-caramel-coconut fan, you’ll probably tear into it.

Rehoboth series, part 1 of 3: Cake Break’s Guinness cupcake

We hit 3 places at Rehoboth Beach last weekend to get a sampling of the sweets scene: Cake Break, The Ice Cream Store, and Annie’s Banannies. In case you’re wondering, the famed Candy Kitchen was not one of these, because (1) I’ve got way too many fillings to be eating stuff like taffy (2) fudge is one of the worst bastardizations of chocolate I’ve ever encountered, and (3) the place is a madhouse swarming with kids who could spontaneously combust from sugar overload at any moment.

Cake Break came to our attention in Washingtonian magazine: we were intrigued by the mention of beer cupcakes, in particular. The cupcakes are $3 each, the going rate for “boutique” (non-Safeway) cupcakes these days.

Sitting in their glass counter, the cupcakes reminded me of beachgoers on a 90 degree day. The cakes looked sticky-sweaty, their icing nearly wilting in the heat. Since it was closing time, we hastily ordered a Guinness cupcake. I was expecting some hint of stout somewhere. Alas, there was none to be found. Was it because they had to make it kid-friendly? This just tasted like a chocolate cupcake with sweet buttercream icing. I was “bitterly” disappointed (wah wah). Having said that, though, it does look like a fun place to take your kids for some interactive dessert-ing.