Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Chikalicious?


Sam's birthday was last week, and we ventured to this place around the corner from where we ate dinner, "Chikalicious" for dessert. It had come highly recommended and was described to me as "just about perfect." We arrive and are quickly seated at a corner table. The website describes Chikalicious as having a "3-course Prix Fixe menu, described as American desserts, French Presentation and Japanese tasting portions, and includes an amuse, dessert of your choice, and assorted petits-fours."
For those of you who don't watch Top Chef or something similar, an amuse is like a mini-mini course, meant to be eaten in one bite. The menu items are pretty frou-frou-ey, and I feel like I am watching Sam feeling more emasculated with each passing moment. Nonetheless, we decide on the lime soup with lime sorbet and brown sugar biscuit (props to Sam for actually speaking those words aloud) and the coconut panna cotta with kiwi and passion fruit relish. Our amuse arrived first, some kind of rhubarb jell-o type situation with a dollop of "vanilla milk sorbet." It came in a dish you would normally put a couple of squirts of soy sauce in for sushi. The combination of jelly-like substance with cold-creamy sorbet was sort of weird and I didn't particularly like it. And it was so small! But this was the amuse, so ok, it's supposed to be laughably, ridiculously tiny.

Soon after we arrived, a couple who were probably related to Methuselah came in. The only empty table hadn't been cleaned off yet, and the hostess/owner told them she'd seat them as soon as she cleaned the table up. The elderly lady, we'll call her Marge, took one look at the table, rolled her eyes, and said, "Well, I should hope so." Meanwhile the husband looks like he is fighting for every breath. They sit down and order their dessert, along with two cappuccinos. The poor hostess/owner brings their drinks not a minute later, and Marge looks at her like she's insane. I hear hostess/owner say, "we always bring the drinks out first, but I'd be glad to take them back if you want them after your dessert." To which Marge waves her wrinkled purple hands and replies, "Yes, take them away, bring them at the end." Who does that?

Back at our dessert table, our "main course" arrives. The presentation was lovely, but again, this is the smallest plate of panna cotta I have ever laid eyes on. Sam and I enjoy hearing the chef bring out each course (and I use the word "course" very loosely here) and describe it to us with painstaking detail. The lime soup with lime sorbet is actually so delicious, I just wish they'd quadrupled the order. The panna cotta (all three bites of it) is very tasty as well. I can't figure out how they've made brown sugar biscuits the size of croutons. This is like dessert for teeny mice people. Or maybe they actually have mice in the back making all of this stuff, with little tweezers, kind of like Ratatouille. I'm thinking about where they might be hiding the mice chefs, when Marge pipes up again.

"What is taking so long?" she demands of the increasingly exasperated hostess/owner. It takes all of the husband's remaining might to nod his head in agreement. "How old is this dessert?" The hostess explains that everything is made fresh and that she just saw their tarts in the oven and is sure they'll be ready momentarily. Marge huffs and puffs a couple more times about what is taking so long, and her hubby taps his cane on the ground in agreement. Sam and I wonder what they are in such a extreme hurry for. A few theories we role played while waiting on petits-fours:
"I've got to get him home so I can feed him his back pill at 9:30"
"We have to go home and plug in, we're robots and our batteries are almost dead"
"We turn into pumpkins if we don't get home in time, very very old pumpkins"

Our petits-fours arrive. I know you will be shocked to learn that they were extremely small. They consisted of two sugar cube-sized marshmallows covered in seven pieces of coconut each, two chocolate truffles the size of gumdrops, and two of the tiniest pieces of pound cake ever created by humans (or rodents). A scrumptious three bites later, we were out the door, leaving Marge and co. to wait on their second attempt at cappuccino.

5 comments :

Gretchen said...

Imagine if you got those desserts at say... a steakhouse in the middle of Omaha. Like, "Here's your 96 oz. steak, and to follow a thimble of panna cotta." I'm wondering if these treats were not just tiny but also expensive?

I'm more of a hunk-of-cake kind of girl, but tiny brown sugar croutons sound delightfully playful and so full of whimsy! The concept is fabulous, and Marge I'm sure made the experience all the more... interesting?!

LouEffie said...

Yeah, definitely not the type of joint for a pregnant lady to have dessert. I would have ordered about 10 of those crouton thingies.

As far as Marge and Co. go, I vote for #2. I much prefer to think that they are robots whose batteries were dying out. Must recharge.

Cindi Burger Barrett said...

In my mind I can see the little mice making these desserts... interesting. I hope the cost was in proportion to the size of the meal.

mr. nichols said...

Hey Lindz, this is my first time stopping by but I enjoyed the post. I look forward to reading more about these tales.

LiamT said...

Sounds like quite an experience! Happy late birthday Sam. I will call ya'll soon.

Love

My word verification is "clicteec"