Spot Dessert Bar

General Notes

This restaurant serves the best desserts I've ever eaten. There are very few desserts that even come close. The desserts are so beautiful and delicious. They have a noticeable Asian influence to them, incorporating a lot of Asian flavors like miso and matcha. At the core, they're still very much western desserts in nature, though. I love this combination of western desserts and Asian flavors. For me, the most important aspect of desserts is textural contrast, and Spot Dessert bar delivers with flying colors on that front. I would absolutely recommend this place; definitely give it a try!

Positives

> The food is god-tier. It's almost like an art form. My favorites are the matcha lava, golden toast, and miso butterscotch.
> They seem to have pretty good take-out options as well - I ordered a cookie for a friend for takeout and didn't have it personally but it looked solid.

Negatives

> Pretty crowded, the seating situation is a bit weird. During peak hours (7-11pm daily), they have a requirement that you must order at least one dessert per person (pastries do not count)

Dishes Tasted

• ★★★☆ Fall For You-ffle -- cranberry souffle, light cheesecake, cranberry compote, cookie crumbs, maple cookie leaves, condensed milk ice cream. A touch too sweet in my opinion, but in every other way an excellent dessert. Love the layering of fat / sugar, and everything is just so "xiang"
• ★★★★ Chestnut Butterscotch -- warm miso chestnut cake, butterscotch drizzle, cookie crumbs, roasted chestnut, condensed milk ice cream. Part of the fall 2022 seasonal menu. Very similar in taste to the miso butterscotch -- I wasn't sure this would ever come back but I'm so glad it did ... IT'S INCREDIBLE
• ★★★☆ Milky Puff -- Warm puff pastry, brulee bananas, white chocolate honey comb, corn flakes, served with condensed milk ice cream. Many elements of this dish, particularly the puff pastry, corn flakes, condensed milk ice cream, and honey work beautifully together - great textures and flavors. I'm not the biggest fan of the white chocolate honey comb, which is a bit cloyingly sweet in an already sweet dessert, and the bananas had a slightly mushy texture that didn't go super well with the rest of the dessert.
• ★★★☆ Mango Tango -- Champagne mango, coconut sticky rice, buttered toasted bun, coconut ice cream. Looks and sounds a bit better than it tastes. The elements taste absolutely delicious individually, but it is a bit too deconstructed. The tableside plating and the banana leaf is unnecessary. The peanuts also felt a bit out of place. Although there were some flaws, as a whole the flavors were beautiful and the dessert was delicious.
• ★★★★ Cookie Camp -- Fresh half-baked marshmallow cookie, pretzels, cookie crumbs served with condensed milk ice cream. This dessert is an excellent example of how some salt can really enhance a dessert. I also love the contrast in textures and temperature; each individual component was delicious and they melded to make an excellent dessert
• ★★★★ Portuguese Egg Tart -- Served with powdered sugar and cinnamon on top. Nice, flaky, buttery crust with a delicious filling. The filling was not quite as eggy as other egg tarts I've had, but the flavor and texture were excellent. The powdered sugar and cinnamon added a nice touch as well. Be careful not to inhale as you eat, otherwise you'll be coughing out powdered sugar for a while.
• ★★★☆ The Harvest -- Layers of berries, soft cheesecake, oreo crumbs, earl grey milk tea served with raspberry sorbet. It was certainly an interesting concept. Looks cool and the earl grey is meant to be like "watering the plant". The flavors are great but not quite as spectacular as the miso butterscotch, golden toast, or matcha lava. The texture is nice, but I found the berries at the bottom to be a bit watery.
• ★★☆☆ Matcha Waterfall -- Soaked matcha cake filled with matcha custard, fresh whipped cream topped with matcha powder. I love the combination of matcha and whipped cream, but I felt that the matcha flavor was a bit too strong, without a sufficient counterbalance. The texture of the matcha cake was a bit inconsistent (dry on the outside, but good on the inside), and the "custard" was a bit too runny. Don't get me wrong though - still an excellent dessert.
• ★★★★ Golden Toast -- Warm crisp honey buttered toast, strawberries, served with condensed milk ice cream. Seems like a rather simple dessert, but they have truly perfected all aspects of it. Normally people talk about layering salt or layering acidity - this dish did an incredible job of layering sweetness (powdered sugar, honey, ice cream, whipped cream) and fat (buttered toast, ice cream, whipped cream) to create an incredible dessert. Great for sharing, since the toast can be easily pulled apart.
• ★★★★ Matcha Lava -- Warm dark chocolate cake filled with matcha ganache, served with matcha green tea ice cream. What I loved the most is that the sweetness was just right to bring out the flavors of the matcha and dark chocolate, without overwhelming them or being too bitter. Of course, the level of "lavaness" of the cake was spot-on. Don't pass up on their signature dessert!
• ★★★★ Miso Butterscotch -- Steamed miso cake, miso butterscotch drizzle, mascarpone cream served with condensed milk ice cream. This dish seems unusual (miso in a dessert?) but actually tastes so good. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was mostly butterscotch/caramel tones. Miso cake was nice and fluffy and very moist. Miso butterscotch drizzle and mascarpone cream added a tremendously deep flavor. The tuile and crumbs under the ice cream added a nice textural component. All in all, incredibly well balanced dessert!