The Best Thing I Ever Ate - Deserts

Welcome to my second installment of “The Best Thing I Ever Ate”! In an earlier post I shared some of my favorite main courses from the many restaurants Laurie and I have visited over the years. This time, I’ll share some of my favorite deserts from our favorite restaurants!

Laurie and I love eating out, as most of you know! But honestly, we rarely order desert at restaurants. In fact, usually the only time we do is when we are dining out with friends or celebrating a special occasion like an anniversary or birthday. On those occasions when we do order desert, we venture out a bit to try new and different things. Yes, we love all things chocolate and crème brulé is a perennial favorite, along with homemade sorbet, but some of the best deserts we have had are ones that stray far from our traditional choices. Need proof? Just take a look at some of the best deserts I ever ate!  

The Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake at Sweet Basil (Vail, CO)

To celebrate my parent’s 60th anniversary many years ago now, my mom and dad treated the entire family (kids and grandkids) to a week in Vail, CO. We had a wonderful time together and enjoyed some great food as well. But the best was their anniversary celebration dinner at Sweet Basil, an iconic restaurant in the Rockies that has been around since 1977. In addition to fantastic modern American cuisine, they are famous for their sticky toffee pudding cake. Now, I’m not a fan of dates but the buzz about this dish was too much to ignore. It was absolutely fantastic – soft moist cake courtesy of the dates, topped with Meyer’s rum sauce, brown sugar rum ice cream, and peanut brittle. I even got the recipe from the restaurant and made it once – it definitely was worth the effort although not quite as good as the original at Sweet Basil!

Malasadas from Leonard’s Bakery (Honolulu, HI)

 Back in the early 1990’s I was lucky enough to live in Hawaii for two years. I was assigned as the CNA field rep to Marine Forces Pacific at Camp Smith, HI up on a hill above Pearl Harbor. In addition to visiting different beaches every weekend, one of the things I looked forward to most every week was picking up malasadas from Leonards’ Malasada Mobile that was always parked at the mall near my apartment on Saturday mornings. For those of you who don’t know, malasadas are Portuguese doughnuts without a hole. They are fried to a golden brown and then topped with either plain sugar or cinnamon sugar. Fresh from the fryer and steaming hot, there’s nothing better than this crunchy and fluffy sweet fried dough! You haven’t lived until you’ve had this delectable treat!

Profiteroles from Mr. B’s Bistro (New Orleans, LA)

I absolutely love the French Quarter in New Orleans! There is nothing else like it, and the food you get there ain’t half bad either. In fact, it’s fantastic! One of my favorite restaurants is Mr. B’s Bistro in the heart of the French Quarter. It has all the classic New Orleans’ offerings like jumbo fried frog legs, gumbo ya ya, jambalaya, and shrimp and grits to name a few. But their deserts are to die for, especially their profiteroles! What’s a profiterole you ask? They are vanilla ice cream-filled cream puffs, topped with homemade chocolate sauce. They are light and airy, but also incredibly decadent – make sure to save room for these after dinner if you are lucky enough to find yourself in New Orleans someday!

Strawberry Banana Cake from Leo’s BBQ (Oklahoma City, OK)

Leo’s is a hole-in-the-wall barbeque joint in a shady part of Oklahoma City. You can smell the smoke from the BBQ about a mile away, which is a really good thing! The walls are dark from the smoke in the pit, and the “dining” room is filled with picnic tables with paper towels as napkins. The BBQ is fantastic – they make some of the best smoked brisket I’ve ever tasted. In fact, it’s so good that the joint was featured on an episode of the Food Network’s Diner’s, Drive-In’s and Dives. But they are actually most famous for their strawberry-banana cake, and for good reason! Now those of you who know me know I absolutely HATE bananas, but for some reason I love banana bread. And this cake! The base is an incredibly moist vanilla pound cake, topped with fresh strawberries, banana’s and a sweet creamy icing. It’s a simple but fantastically delicious desert! A don’t miss culinary destination if you are in the OKC area!

In my next “Best Things I Ever Ate” blog, I’ll review some of the best appetizers I ever ate. But for now, what are some of the best deserts you have ever had in restaurants or at home?!