Dean & Deluca: Extreme Chocolate Truffle Cake

Bill

I attacked this cake with the traditional horizontal fork approach.  It repelled my  plastic fork in a glorious statement that it was a cake of more serious substance.

The cake was wonderfully dense, packed tightly with chocolatey truffley goodness.  It would only allow itself to be eaten by shaving off slices.  The cake's texture was so uniform and its flavor so deep and rich that it was like an artist captured the Victorian era in a dessert.  This cake deserves our divine rating.

3276 M Street NW, Washington, DC 20007-3624
(202) 342-2500

Google map & reviews (3.84/5.00)

Yelp (3.5/5)

TripAdvisor (5/5; #2 shopping place in DC)

Dean & Deluca: Triple Chocolate Cookie

Bill

Dean & Deluca is one of our favorite dessert places, so this is the first of several reviews.  While the store/cafe has several great and divine desserts, not everything is up to that standard.
Dean & Deluca has been missing its divine triple chocolate brownie for months.  It has recently been reincarnated as a cookie.

The basic concept mixes two darker chocolates with large chunks of white chocolate.  The brownie's intensely deep dark and white chocolate flavors and fantastic texture contrasts are largely lost in the cookie version.  The relatively flavorless crunchy edge, which the brownie completely avoids, extends way too far into the center.  This leaves precious little of the cookie to enjoy the great flavor and texture mix.  That center is also much thinner than the brownie version.  This cookie deserves our good rating.


3276 M Street NW, Washington, DC 20007-3624
(202) 342-2500

Google map & reviews (3.89/5.00)

Yelp (3.5/5)

TripAdvisor (5/5; #3 shopping place in DC)

Bourbon Steak: Black Walnut Financier

Bill


Bourbon Steak, in Georgetown's Four Seasons, is a place of wondrous culinary mastery.  That didn't carry over fully into the black walnut financier, but it still deserves our great rating.  Wikipedia provides some background on the financier.

Chef Michael Mina prepares these financiers with bulleit bourbon, maple ice cream, dollops of toffee, and figs.  The financiers truly and masterfully captured the essence of walnuts.  They had a nutty, mealy taste. The ice cream provided a nice textural contrast.  It was richly flavorful and mixed nicely with the crumbles below.  The toffee, some of which was hidden beneath other elements of this dish, was great.  The figs weren't very flavorful, which made them odd complements for financiers, which are only subtly flavored.


Four Seasons Georgetown
2800 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 944-2026

Google map & reviews (3.8/5.0)

Washington Post (Critic: 2.5/4; Reader 1/4, Editors' Pick)

Washingtonian (3/4)

Washington Times

Gayot 15/20

Yelp (4/5)

Open Table (4.3/5)

Serendipity 3: Cookie Dough Sundae

Bill


Our fourth review of a Serendipity 3 dessert will be our last for a while.  As of this writing, it only scored a 3/5 on yelp and a 62% approval on urbanspoon.  It looks like Washingtonians agreed with our assessment that this Serendipity outpost must not be as good as the NYC original. 

That overall mediocre impression also applies to Serendipity's Cookie Dough Sundae.  Three cookies and fudge top scoops of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.  The cookies varied widely in quality from below average to good, which means you run the risk of getting three disappointing cookies.  On the whole, the cookies were average.  The fudge was good, but I suspect Serendipity simply uses Smucker's fudge from jars.  In this and every Serendipity sundae, you'll find lots of extra fudge trapped between the glass and plate to allow you to customize your ice cream-to-fudge ratio.  The cookie dough ice cream also had quality variations; some cookie dough chunks were relatively flavorless.  The base ice cream also lacked a punch.  This cookie dough ice cream fell far short of Ben & Jerry's, which is the gold standard.

The nice proportions of the elements of this dish, and the availability of extra fudge earn this dish our good rating.  However, you'll find better sundaes and ice cream at other places in Georgetown.

3150 M St. NW Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-5193

Google map

Washington Post

Examiner

Revamp

Yelp 3/5

Serendipity 3: Oreo Frozen Hot Chocolate

Josh

Anyone who has frequented or even visited Serendipity once knows of their famous hot chocolate.  My affinity for Oreos led me to this choice in the face of much greater-volume choices like the sundaes, cakes and pies.  I would not say I was disappointed, as it proved to be a refreshing and tasty option on a very hot day.  The only issue for me was it didn't feel all that "desserty."

The massive amount of whipped cream on top was high-quality.  For the most part it tasted like an icy milkshake, which from previous posts you know is not my favorite thing.  I prefer the thicker and more substantial tastes you get in an old fashioned milkshake, and this was not it.  

Serendipity's Oreo Frozen Hot Chocolate deserves our good rating.  It's definitely worth a try, but if you want a dessert at Serendipity that you'll never forget, go with one of the unbelievable looking sundaes!  At $10 a pop for the Oreo Frozen Hot Chocolate versus $12 for a much more substantial sundae, value, mass and substance are hugely against the choice I found myself making.  Don't be an idiot; go big when it comes to desserts!

3150 M St. NW Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-5193

Google map

Washington Post

Examiner

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Yelp 3/5

Serendipity 3: Carrot Cake Sundae

Bill


We find it necessary to review multiple desserts at Serendipity 3 because it's generated so much buzz based on its long-anticipated opening, NYC pedigree, and prime location in the former Nathan's space.  Out of several Serendipity 3 desserts, the carrot cake sundae impressed me the most, and I'm not a big fan of carrot cake.

The carrot cake sundae starts simple at the bottom and increases the novelty and decadence toward the top.  Scoops of vanilla and butter-pecan ice cream start the party at the bottom of the bowl.  A piece of carrot cake slides on top of that.  Drizzles of maple-walnut and white-chocolate fudge crown this monument to humankind's search for greatness.  It is served with a pool of chocolate fudge surrounding the base of the bowl.  The end result is unique, and blends the flavors and textures masterfully, at least if you like nuts in a sundae.

The carrot cake is velvety smooth, moist and flavorful.  Its cream-cheese frosting is better than average, and the maple-walnut and white-chocolate fudge add delightful flavor and texture elements.  The added touch of fudge on the bottom provides you an opportunity to alter this mixture to your taste.  Note that the carrot cake has a large volume of nuts throughout, which is somewhat uncommon.  Overall, this dish had too many nuts for my taste.  It still deserves our divine rating, because anyone who likes this amount of nuts would surely rate it so.


3150 M St. NW Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-5193

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Washington Post

Examiner

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Yelp 3/5

Serendipity 3: Red Velvet Cake Sundae

Bill


New York City-based Serendipity 3 recently made its long-awaited DC debut.  Its arrival should satisfy those who have pushed for the elimination of "ice-cream no man's lands" of more than 1.5 blocks in Georgetown.  So far, there are lines out the door at peak times.

Serendipity 3's Red Velvet Cake Sundae is a chocolate ice cream sundae with a piece of red velvet cake on top.  The cake itself was good; very moist with strongly flavored cream-cheese frosting.  The fudge was also pleasing in quality and volume.  The ice cream was average, which is disappointing for a place that specializes in dessert. 

I ordered the Red Velvet Cake Sundae without the sprinkles and whipped cream.  I think both of those elements are primarily visual, add little taste, and dillute and disrupt the flavors and textures that should be the showcases of a dessert.  The sprinkles came anyway, and someone apparently removed most of the whipped cream after being reminded in the kitchen that it wasn't supposed to be there.

Serendipity 3's Red Velvet Cake Sundae deserves our good rating.  The cake on its own would compare better in the cake category, but the sundae doesn't come close to challenging Papa Razzi's brownie sundae for DC's sundae crown.  Based on this dish, this Serendipity 3 location is far from NYC standards, but we do salute it for being open late.  We dislike dessert places that aren't open during peak dessert time.


3150 M St. NW Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-5193

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Washington Post

Examiner

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Yelp 3/5

Bistrot Lepic: Torte Chaud au Chocolat

Bill

This dessert, in concept, marries a relatively dense, soft, warm cake-like torte packing a smooth, powerful chocolate flavor with crème anglais. It is my favorite dessert at Bistrot Lepic.

This dish could approach divinity with a thicker compliment of crème anglais surrounding the torte. It would have added more flavor and a better mix of textures. The right mixture of rich chocolate and a dairy-based sauce like crème anglais can create magic, but this dessert didn’t get the mix right.

The torte wasn’t as good this time as when I’ve tried it before, so it carries a consistency risk. At its best, the torte is soft, warm, and moist throughout. Some brittleness on the edges can actually be a welcome offset to that softness. However, this time, the outer half of the torte was hard, around room temperature, and dry. The center was much better, meeting what I usually expect from this dish. Even with the consistency risk, the torte ranks well above the average DC dessert.


1736 Wisconsin Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-0111

Google map & reviews (4/5)

Washingtonian

Examiner

Washington Post (Editors' Pick; Reader 4/4)

Washington City Paper (4/5)

Yelp (3.5/5)

Tripadvisor (DC rank: 60; 4/5)

Bistrot Lepic: Mousse au Chocolat

Josh

The perfect mousse as described by David Lebovitz, a pastry chef based in San Francisco, is "a perfect slightly-gummy texture, backed up by a wallop of pure dark chocolate flavor." At Bistrot Lepic in Georgetown, they have put together something that is really close to that description. I very much enjoyed what came off as a light dessert to me, with both a great whipped texture as well as a strong chocolate flavor. Hidden inside were a few pieces of milk chocolate that added a nice crunch to the very smooth and satisfying treat. Not to mention the light cookie/wafer on top that could be used as a dipping tool and an edible fork.

While not a typical order of mine, I have always enjoyed mousse, although, I never truly understood the distinction between it and pudding. I'm sure Mr. Lebovitz would be highly offended by my previous assumption that a classic French delicacy was as commonplace and simple as something bought on grocery shelves and served in cafeterias. Nonetheless, I learned of my error, and now have a true appreciation for the smooth creamy flavor that a well prepared mousse inevitably possesses. Mousse must be moist, but appear and taste light and airy. A great pastry chef can make that difficult task a reality. 


I will continue to seek out other places throughout DC that serve this dessert well, but if you are in the mood, you will not be disappointed by Bistrot Lepic. Both a restaurant and wine bar, it provides a dual atmosphere for an evening of culinary delight. Make sure you stop by, sample some of the large selection of wine, and grab a little mousse before you leave... You won't be upset that you did!


1736 Wisconsin Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-0111

Google map & reviews (4/5)

Washingtonian

Examiner

Washington Post (Editors' Pick; Reader 4/4)

Washington City Paper (4/5)

Yelp (3.5/5)

Tripadvisor (DC rank: 60; 4/5)

Papa Razzi: Brownie Sundae

Bill

The Papa Razzi brownie sundae is not just one of my DC favorites; it’s the best I’ve found in the world. 

Each of the four individual elements is perfect, and the flavor, temperature, and texture combination is even better than the sum of its parts.  The candied walnuts are flavored so thoroughly that the taste is strong nearly through to their centers.  The vanilla gelato is among the best you’ll find, especially in the U.S.  It provides a surprisingly smoother texture than would the traditional ice cream.  The brownies consistently strike the rare mix of balanced physical composition (neither cakey nor oily), and powerful chocolate flavor, at which perfection is found.  The world-beater in this divine dish, however, is the unique chewy not-exactly-fudge sauce that fills the role of traditional fudge sauce.  This sauce has an amazing taste and unique texture that’s smoother than fudge sauce, but still thick and chewy enough to fabulously compliment the gelato and brownies.

As a bonus, this dish is presented in an inviting choose-your-own-adventure manner.  The brownies and nuts can easily be separated from the rest of the dish to facilitate the dish’s painstakingly equal distribution among multiple diners.  If you choose to go the distance and enjoy this dish yourself, you’re free to mix these elements to create your customized tonic to cure what ails you.

I order the brownie sundae with extra sauce and no whipped cream.  Because the sauce is the most divine element of this dish, you should get plenty of it.  As usual with whipped cream, the relatively flavorless and superfluous cream can dull the flavor of the other spectacular elements of this dessert.

1064 Wisconsin Avenue
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 298-8000

Google map and reviews (3.5/5)

Washington Post (Critic: 4/4; Reader: 4/4)

Urban Spoon (86% like it)

Yelp (3/5)