Why this chocolate mocha mousse cake went to waste

A few weeks back, Ms. Pie and I headed to Elizabeth’s Gone Raw for an all-raw, vegan meal. It’s a set menu every Friday, varying weekly. We started with spicy kale chips and watermelon gazpacho, followed by a mushroom salad. All delicious and light enough. Then out came the faux olive cannelloni, the size of 2 small eggrolls. I had a fleeting thought that they would never fill us up.

But somewhere between the cannelloni and this nice chocolate mousse cake, the food seemed to expand in our stomachs. Literally. My guess is that the dehydrated kale, and the cannelloni wrapper (made of dehydrated coconut) grew like sponges in our systems. By the time dessert rolled around, it felt like I had a 5-pound food baby pressing down on my bladder.

As we waited for dessert, I found it curious that most of the diners weren’t finishing their cakes. Especially since this was the cake that The Washington Post’s Tom Sietsema called a showstopper: “Chocolate mocha mousse cake is a fetching little tower crafted from cacao, dates, coconut and more, ringed with a creamy-tasting sauce of espresso – decaf and cold-press, naturally.”

Just a few bites into the rich concoction, we could venture no further. Pity, because it was really delicious. The only thing that could’ve been better was the gratuitously thick layer of cocoa powder up top. Between me choking and Ms. Pie’s throat burning, we felt like we’d been maced.

Like the other diners, we were too full to finish the dense, chocolatey dessert. So we doggie-bagged our leftovers. Big mistake. The mousse was rendered into a sad puddle by the time I got home.