click to enlarge
-
Blue Stem Brasserie
-
Cookie "Fun Dips."
Now that we’ve entered the post-rainbow, post-fireworks, post-peak-stone-fruit stretch of summer, there’s really only one thing on everybody’s mind:
Where can I get more dessert?
If you’re too scared to open up a watermelon by
exploding it with rubber bands, and you’re too tech-incompetent to
turn it into a keg, you’re going to have to turn somewhere for sugary morsels, and we’ve got three great recommendations.
click to enlarge
-
Blue Stem Brasserie
-
Chocolate.
Bluestem Brasserie has always changed its menu in keeping with the seasons, but Pastry Chef Curtis McDonald has really done it with the newest set of slightly downhome-sounding desserts, each of them a steal at $10.50. There’s a blue ribbon pie (buttermilk-apricot pie, flaky brisee crust, lavender almonds, and honey caviar), cookie "fun dips," and a butterscotch rippled (butterscotch pudding, malted whiskey ice cream, house-made cracker jacks, and sesame brittle), but the craziest one has the simplest name of all: “Chocolate.” It’s a devil’s food cake, coca nib tuile, salted chocolate ice cream, black cherry coulis, chocolate butter cream and coffee foam. You will never find that at a church picnic.
Bluestem Brasserie,
1 Yerba Buena Lane, 415-547-1111 or bluestembrasserie.com.
Meanwhile, for the entire month of July, Embarcadero-adjacent Mexican restaurant
Rosa Mexicano has a “
Flavors of Mexico” ice cream series, crowned by none other than a guacamole sundae. The avocado ice cream comes served in a frozen molcajete (that is, a mortar and pestle) with raspberries, chocolate shavings, and mint, plus pilconcill-chocolate sauce and cinnamon-sugar tortilla chips. If that’s a little adventurous, stick with warm apple empanadas with spiced Mexican chocolate sauce, or a very-nearly-nutritious Abuelita Banana Split made with Mexican chocolate ice cream, caramelized bananas, strawberries, and cinnamon whipped cream.
Rosa Mexicano,
30 Mission, 415-874-4300 or rosamexicano.com.
Chef Yigit Pura’s
Tout Sweet Pâtisserie has new sweet and savory items, from organic cherry-apricot clafoutis tart made with choral cherries and blush apricots, hazelnut clafoutis and lavender-honey crème fraîche ($5.50 a slice, or $32 for a nine-inch tart) to a Dirty Butterscotch Trifle made with dark chocolate cremeux, chocolate crumbles, and a chocolate-coffee “caviar” ($4.75). If your stomach insists upon something without as much sugar to balance it out, why not an urfa and smoky pimento grilled tri-tip sandwich on a ciabatta bun? (Then onto the panna cotta!).
Tout Sweet Pâtisserie,
inside Macy’s Union Square, 170 O’Farrell, 415-385-1679 or toutsweetsf.com.
