Oh Sweet, Sweet Achilles Heel.....

Today I'm going to talk about a subject near and dear to my heart: DESSERT*!

I take food very personally and passionately. Dessert especially. Here's my top five favs:

5. California Pizza Kitchen's tiramisu. See this? With the vanilla sauce? THAT is what makes it one of the best tiramisus ever! Olive Garden has the runner up. Ask them to serve this with vanilla sauce, and it's almost like CPK's.

4. Buca di Beppo's tiramisu is the best in the world! The stuff burns because they put real Kahlua in it. It also comes in a HUGE bowl (they're made for a group of 4-6). I was at a conference in Pennsylvania one time, and took down one of these sweet babies almost entirely by myself. Unfortunately I had to stop talking because I could feel the buzz. When I get buzzed, my brain filter shuts off. :P (I'm a lightweight, I know! More bang for your buck I guess...)

3. Carolina Kitchen's red velvet cake is so good that when you take a bite, the sun shines and the angels sing. I've never had red velvet cake until moving to the east coast. What I can tell you is that I've never HAD red velvet cake until coming to Carolina Kitchen. There's something about the combination of rich sweetness and gobs of cream cheese frosting that just make you feel happy. YOW! Compared to Carolina Kitchen, everything else is just... tough oily slabs of red-dyed carbohydrate dressed in sickeningly sweet trans fatty death.

2. Passion fruit mousse cake from Ciocolat is made with alternating layers of airy, almost-there tropical mousse and sweet white cake with a smooth, creamy frosting that underscores the passion fruit flavor. You'll take a bite and want to slap someone. My GOODNESS! They also have sinfully sugary cookies, and their fruit tarts are second to none. *sighs* I miss the West Coast!

1. Imagine syrup-soaked buttery layers of moist cake coated in fluffy, barely sweet whipped cream and covered with an almondy layer of marzipan "frosting." The princess cake at Gayle's Bakery is so freakingtastically good that you have to have a moment of silence before your taste buds can fully appreciate this delicately sweet, sinfully moist, satisfyingly fattening piece of heaven. If I say more about this dessert I'd have to put an 18 and up rating on my blog. Let's just say that even thinking about this tasty cake causes my mind to stray towards the more erotically pleasurable things in life. It's THAT good. It's dayuMn good with a capital MMMmmmnnn...


Honorable mentions:

El Torito's chocolate volcano cake.

Sweet Inspiration in San Francisco, CA has the best hunking slab of strawberry shortcake on the planet. They also have a great poppyseed cake too!

The Elephant Bar's mudpie has no equal. The only reason why I don't have this listed in my top five is because I'm lactose intolerant, and this would put me over the edge without my Lactaid pills. (See my bloggy on farting and you would understand.) Unfortunately, I have ordered this mudpie despite the consequences of not having my Lactaid pills, knowing full well the repercussions. But dammit, this pie is so good!


Ruth Chris's caramelized banana cream pie is also a winner! The sugar crystals add a nice crunch which contrasts with the banana slices and pudding-like cream.





Lastly, I must mourn the loss of Fuzio's black-and-white affogato. If it weren't for the fact that they took this dessert off the menu, it would've been my number one. Scoops of chocolate and vanilla gelato topped with real whipped cream and drowned in pure expresso. *sighs* When they discontinued this dessert, a piece of me died. I will never forget you affogato. You and I had good times. Good times.


* See, I even remembered to spell "dessert" with two s's because they stand for "Strawberry Shortcake" ^.^