Where to Eat: New York City
Sometimes restaurant dessert menus can be lacking. Luckily, there’s always a better option not too far away.
If you’ve read this newsletter or column (hello print readers!) long enough then you know that I write about dessert in an almost obsessive way. If you’re the type of person who craves something sweet after dinner or a 3 p.m. pickup in the form of a warm cookie, then you’re my type of person.
No matter how full I am after a meal, I never, ever turn down an offer to check out the dessert menu. (I like to think that my stomach has an ancient, vestigial pocket just for sweet treats.) But sometimes absolutely nothing on the menu appeals to me — panna cotta, I’m talking about you — and I have to go home unfulfilled.
Or do I?
Sometimes the best dessert is somewhere else
I keep in my mental possession a small list of emergency dessert destinations. A few summers ago, I had just finished up dinner in Bed-Stuy and found the restaurant’s dessert menu lacking. Earlier in the night, my dining companion waxed poetic about a slice of rhubarb and strawberry pie she’d had at Leland Eating and Drinking House. So, we walked to Prospect Heights and had a slice of that pie at the bar, no reservation needed. Currently, there’s a crème brûlée pie on the menu with my name on it though the sweet corn ube ice cream has also caught my eye.
Some might ask, why don’t you just go to restaurants with great pastry programs? The truth is that the number of restaurants with pastry chefs has been dwindling for years — it’s easier and cheaper to offer one or two desserts that any chef can make — and I’d rather not hold a lack of appealing dessert options against an otherwise fine establishment.
755 Dean Street (Underhill Avenue)
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