Roti Mediterranean Grill: Baklava

Bill


Great desserts don't usually come in a plastic bag folded and partially sealed with a sticker.  Roti's baklava joins Potbelly's sugar cookies and oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies as exceptions to this general rule.

Honey infuses most of this baklava, but does not overpower it or drip profusely from it.  Each element takes its fair share of the stage.  The honey soaked through layers of light but tightly packed phyllo dough and ground nuts.  The nuts are ground so finely that they can truly merge with the honey to become an elegantly smooth and sweet nut meal.  The design and execution are masterful.  This is the best baklava I've ever tasted, and it earns our divine rating.


1275 First Street NE, Washington DC 20002
(202) 618-6969

Google map and reviews (4/5)

Other DC locations (open and planned)

Capital Spice

Watershed: Cookies

Bill


Watershed gave the NoMa area its only table-service restaurant when it opened on April 22nd.  Chef Todd Gray is known for Equinox near the White House, and Watershed is his big bet on NoMa's potential.  For gourmet desserts, it's the only game in town right now.  

Watershed normally serves these three cookies with a glass of local milk.  I ordered it with a scoop of ice cream instead.  The ice cream was smooth and better than average.  The cookies were all you can ask of cookies. They were warm and soft with thin crispy layers spotting the tops and edges.  Two kinds of chocolate chunks play off of each other within the cookies. The chunks are generously proportioned, and melt into the cookies to grace their inner layers with delightful gooeyness and flavor. 

Watershed's cookies deserve our great rating.  However, my group found the entrees merely average.  That's particularly disappointing given the pricing.


Hilton Garden Inn
1225 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002
(202) 534-1350

Google map

Capital Spice

One Vanilla Bean

Open Table

Brasserie Beck: Bread Pudding

Bill


Brasserie Beck's bread pudding is very unique.  Instead of the traditional rasins, it's dotted with chocolate and cherries.  It's topped with ice cream and swims in a pool of excellent creme anglais.

 

This dish creates a good combination of textures, most of which contrast only subtly.  With all those elements mixing in a tight dish, this dessert is changing while you watch.  The melted chocolate bursts and cherries punch through the soft, chewy, mildly-flavored bread.  The ice cream adds even more sweetness and a cold splash to tame the heat emanating from the chocolate.  This is the best bread pudding I've tried in DC, but its creativity may offend purists.  It deserves a great rating.

1101 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20005
(202) 408-1717 ‎

Google map & reviews (4/5)

Washington Post (Critic 2.5/4; Reader 1.5/4)

Washingtonian (2/4)

Yelp (4/5)

Open Table (4/5; Diners' Choice)

Trip Advisor (4/5; ranked 41 in DC)

ABC News Good Morning America (video)

Matchbox: Ice Cream Sandwich

Josh


A divine dessert can be found right in the heart of Rockville, MD on the pike at Matchbox.  A very trendy and popular pick at the moment, Matchbox is huge with a large outdoor seating area for the summer months. While perhaps a good dessert choice for that time, I chose to jump the gun a little a sample the ice cream sandwich mid-winter, and I was not disappointed.

First and foremost, the cookies were tremendous.  Whether they were freshly baked in house or not, they certainly tasted it.  Large, with ample chocolate chip rations, they maintained their warm softness despite the coffee ice cream's valiant effort to expose that wondrous element.  Chocolate sauce lined the plate in a very ornate and fancy way, but didn't really affect the taste too drastically. Fairly substantial in size, one could certainly share this delight with a significant other, however, I will warn you, it is good enough to incite hoarding. 

In addition to the cookie sandwich, we also got lucky in that on Tuesdays at Matchbox, they offer you a taste of their donut dessert as a thank you for your patronage. I found them to be quite tasty, but certainly no comparison to the cookie sandwich to my palate.  The donuts are part of the regular menu, so don't fret if you can't stop in on a Tuesday. All in all, Matchbox is a great place to grab a quality dessert.

1699 Rockville Pike at Congressional Plaza
Rockville, MD 20852
(301) 816-0369

Also:

Chinatown                             

713 H St. NW
Washington, DC  20001

(202) 289-4441 

521 8th St. SE

Washington, DC 20003

(202) 548-0369

Yelp (3.5/5)

Open Table (4/5)

metromix (4/5)

Washington Post

Gazette

Washington Business Journal

Dolcezza Bethesda

Josh


The smooth and succulent taste of gelato has long been a savory treat for Washingtonians on hot summer days.  It just seems more apropos and dare I say classier than a giant waffle cone filled with cookie dough.  Not to be missed is Dolcezza, located in Georgetown, Dupont Circle, and Bethesda. 

Emitting all the pomp and circumstance of a true Argentinian creamery, Dolcezza possesses the flair and talent needed to produce a fine dulche de leche.  The soft and cool caramel-infused treat must be savored while dreaming of long-lost days along the cobble stone streets of Buenos Aires.  A small cup is plenty to satiate a hearty sugar craving without the lingering effects like those of a bigger sundae or milkshake.  For this particular shop, on this particular day, DCDesserts awards its divine rating, and urges you to stop by and try it soon.


7111 Bethesda Avenue
Bethesda, MD 20814
(301) 215-9226 ‎

Google map & reviews

Yelp (4.5/5)

Washington Post (Reader 4/4)

Washingtonian

Washington Life

Crumbs Bake Shop Union Station: Heart-shaped marble brownie

Bill


Crumbs Bake Shop is a NYC-based chain that mainly competes in the DC cupcake war, with multiple local stores.  We'll cover its ranking in the cupcake craze in a later post.  For now, with Valentine's Day almost here, you should know about he heart-shaped marble brownie, which is one of Crumbs Bake Shop's many Valentine's gifts to the DC dessert scene. 

It's a brownie tooped with a layer of cheesecake with marbled ribbons of fudge.  The mix of cheesecake and brownie is often attempted, but rarely perfected.  The two elements are
difficult to combine without accidentally creating a disruptive citrus flavor.  Avoiding that is extremely rare, and the mark of a masterful pastry chef.  This dish complicated the task even more by marbling the cheescake with ribbons of fudge. The chef executed this plan with perfection.

The brownie is not too crunchy on edges.  The cheescake is soft and its texture closely matches that of the brownie.  The just slightly crispy edges of the brownie provide the only texture contrast.  The brownie's taste did not pop much because the flavor of the fudge marbling was so strong.   That's not a bad thing, because the fudge marbling communicated that old-fashioned mix of cocoa and better well.  As a Valentine's treat, this will not disappoint.  It deserves our great rating.


Union Station Train Concourse
(202) 408-1001      

Also: 
2839 Clarendon Blvd.
Arlington, VA 22201
(703) 524-4001

604 11th St. NW
Washington D.C. 20004
(202) 737-4001      

Yelp (2.5/5)

City's Best

Washington Examiner

Washington Business Journal

Cuba Libre: Rum Cake

Bill

The “Torta Mentirita” is a riff on Cuba Libre’s namesake rum-and-Coke drink.  The cake is soaked in Cuba Libre 15-year rum, topped with lime sorbet, and Coca-Cola sauce.  The rum cake flavor changes daily.  The one I tried was peanut butter.

The cake was a little course and dry for a rum cake.  Its gooey peanut butter parts were great, and I usually don't even like in desserts.  The Coca-Cola sauce was tasty and unique, and the lime sorbet was pleasantly sharp but hindered by ice chips.  This dish had some great elements, but fell victim to some easily correctable mistakes.  As it was, it deserves a good rating.

801 9th St NW Washington, DC 20001
(202) 408-1600

Google map and reviews (3.32/5)

Washington Post (Critic 1/4; Readers 2/4)

Washingtonian

Washington Life 

Wonkette

Yelp (3/5)