The Palm: Big Chocolate Layer Cake

Bill

Chocolate cake is a steakhouse classic, so it's usually your best bet for dessert at a steakhouse.  The Palm's Big Chocolate Layer Cake meets those high expectations.

It's generously topped with a chewy fudge frosting that continues in a thinner spread down the back, where cake crumbs adorn it.  Five additional tiers of frosting slice through the cake layers.  The cake portion is impressively moist for such a large slice.  It's served with a drizzle of chocolate sauce, fresh whipped cream, and fruit, all mostly for presentation.

This cake is a unique and indulgent combination of textures.  The crumbs on the back form a cushion to flatten out the sharp chocolate taste of the fudge icing.  This dessert earns our great rating.

Washington Post (Editors' pick) 
Yelp (3.5/5)
Trip Advisor (4/5)
Open Table (4.6/5) 
Zagat (4.5/5)
Gayot (13/20)

Blue Duck Tavern: Chocolate Cake with Maker’s Mark Flambé

Bill


Our review of Blue duck Tavern's Straight-from-the-Oven Chocolate Cake with Maker’s Mark Flambé is in response to a reader's request.

This chocolate cake is made to order, so it's always fresh.  It truly is straight from the oven, and the server flambés it with Maker's Mark at your table.  This means it's served very hot.  I recommend allowing it to cool.  

Adding liquor to a dessert is a sure-fire way to increase its decadence and depth of flavor.  In this dish, the whiskey flambé adds a punch and a twist to the chocolate.  The cake is warm and moist with a gooey center.  For my taste, a small scoop of fine vanilla ice cream might have elevated this dish to divine.  As it is served, it deserves our great rating.  Because of its novelty and freshness, it's also a steal at $9.


24th & M Streets NW, Washington, D.C. 20037
(with the water fountain in the Hyatt)   
(202) 419 6755

Google map & reviews (4/5)

 Washingtonian (100 Best Restaurants 2011; 41-100; 2.5/4)

 Washington Post (2.5/4)

Yelp (4/5)

 Open Table (4.4/5)

 Tripadvisor (4/5; 10th best DC restaurant)

 Washington City Paper

Artfully Chocolate Kingsbury Confections Logan Circle: “Sinful Chocolate Cake”

Bill

This would be an excellent cake for a coffee shop or traditional café.   However, it comes just short of the expectations for the specialty chocolate café that is Artfully Chocolate Kingsbury Confections.  The cake portion is slightly dry, just noticeably stale, and a bit light on flavor.  Those small failings would still allow the cake to rank above average at most restaurants, even if paired with mediocre frosting. 

This cake’s frosting ranks better among frostings than the cake portion does in its category.  Its flavor is powerful enough to counterbalance the cake portion’s lack thereof.  The frosting strikes a tasty balance of cocoa and sugar with a chewy texture.  It’s applied to the cake in a perfect portion and presentation.  The frosting redeems the overall dish.   

I would order this cake without the whipped cream or chocolate sauce.  Both elements always add just more than zero taste to a dish.  They’re used almost purely for presentation; to create a visual impression of decadence.  DCDesserts writers and readers are too smart for such visual trickery.  The whipped cream might contaminate your cake with flat milky flavor.  The chocolate sauce, that cheap, lazy stand-in for fudge sauce that’s left after you finish the cake, only serves to remind you how great the frosting was.

1529 14th Street NW, Washington, DC 20005
(202) 387-2626

Google map & reviews (3.5/5)

Washingtonian

Washington Post (Reader: 3/4)

Washington City Paper

Examiner

Yelp (3.5/5)

D.C. Foodies

14th & You