He/She: Just Desserts

She: Besides cheese, we did other foody things in Berkeley for Mark's b-day. We went on the Sharffenberger tour, for starters. (and mark looked oh-so-snazzy in his paper hairnet). We tasted lots of chocolate, learned about cocao, and how they actually build their own chocolate instead of buying it. Meaning, they go straight from the bean.

He: Okay I have a point of clarification about that. They don't build the chocolate...it's not like it's a building that needs to be constructed. Cut into it's simplest terms they make a completely smooth mixture of roasted cacao beans and added cocoa butter in bar form. There's a ton more complexity to it, but heck if I really know what that is.

She: OMG. Thats incredibly picky on word choice. And you build up layers of paint in a painting, you build the complexity of an image, you build flavors in food (I've heard you say that)...I'm right, you doofus. :P

She: we also went to two dessert places. For immediate gratification, we went to Ciao Bella Gelato. I must say, I loved their selection. The colors were like a beautiful pallete. I tried quite a few flavors before succumbing to one scoop of Jasmine Cassis and one of Passionfruit sorbet. Lovely. They were both tangy, and while sweet, filled with lots of fruit flavor. The jasmine stayed on the back of my tongue for hours and is my new favorite flavor.

He: What did I have? Mocha somethingarether and pistachio. They were good...it was nice to have actual gelato(which does seem like an actual treat). Honestly it still doesn't hold a candle to the joint that we used to go to in Atlanta that Alon's owns.
She: Well...I didn't have the gelato, I had sorbet, and THAT was better than any atlanta or other sorbet I've had. But yeah, nothing beats Alon's gelato yet. sniff, sniff...

She: The other dessert place we went to was Love at First Bite. The cupcakes came in interesting flavors like ginger or pistachio chocolate, but alas, the didn't have each every day. We picked up a four-pack for home. The lady at the register was really sweet, but I have to say that if there was anything that was a tad off-putting, it was the chef. She was a tad curt...and I was overflowing with cupcake adoration (but not in a scary stalker way), so it was baffling. At home I tried to lemon pistachio, which while the lemon cake was good, the icing was almost...chalky. I dunno. I didn't dig it too much, but it was a flavor adventure. The one I truely adored was the strawberry. The cake was light and pink, and the icing was sweet and crammed full of tart strawberry flavor. It was amazing.

He: Yeah, you'd think that someone that owns a shop that is dedicated to sweet little cake pastries would be more positive. The woman was cold...distant...and rude(typical cali). The cupcakes were nice, very nicely made...but after looking at their site, and reading their menu I wasn't really all that impressed by any of it. If you're going to specialize in just one foodstuff, be great at it...not just good.