I Heart Banoffee Pies and Miss My Appetite

My appetite has disappeared. I have no idea where it went or when it will return, but hopefully it will be soon or I will be in danger of wasting away. This is extremely bizarre. I am also aware that it is logically impossible for one to subsist on coffee and water and continue with one's life when one has not eaten for a few days but I have long since given up trying to decipher the workings of my all too complicated self. The most likely conclusion is that my heart really is in my stomach and if that is the correct conclusion, you better hope to God that you didn't break it because if I have forever lost the joy that comes with eating cake then I really will step down from my state of infinite magnanimousness and make you pay for what you've done to me.

Anyway! In memory of better, yummier, less dark and gloomy times... banoffee pies! Right now I love whipped cream more than men.

Chocolate Souffle & English Cream Puffs; Theobroma Chocolate Lounge, Pavilion KL

A vocabulary lesson for the edification of Theobroma Chocolate Lounge
(If I sound vitriolic and thus pedantic and patronizing, I apologize. It's because I AM.)

What Theobroma is guilty of committing:

(the fallacy of) misnomer \mis-NO-muhr\, noun
Any misnaming of a person or thing; also, a wrong or inapplicable name or designation.

Words that Theobroma is evidently ignorant/sadly mistaken about, which is somewhat disturbing seeing as it is not only supposed to be a highly specialized dessert place, but is also an restaurant chain originating from an English-speaking country:

souffle (dessert) \SOO-fley, soo-FLEY\, noun
A light, airy baked dish made fluffy with beaten egg whites combined with egg yolks and other ingredients, typically lemon or chocolate. Will "fall" after 20-30 minutes so should be served and eaten quickly.
Derived from the French verb souffle which means "to blow up" or puff up--which is what happens to this combination of custard and egg whites.

profiterole \pro-fit-er-OLE\, noun
A small hollow choux pastry that is typically filled with cream and covered with chocolate.

Desserts that Theobroma misnamed:

i) Chocolate Souffle with strawberries


ii) English Cream Puffs with chocolate and strawberries


What The Desserts Really Were, To Anyone With Half a Brain Or Access to Google, Which Clearly Excludes the Theobroma Management:

i) A rock hard, carved slab of chocolate, which is fine if you really feel like satisfying your craving for a chocolate brick but NOT FINE when you order a souffle! Come on, Theobroma! What is this? You can't tag fancy French names onto desserts that are pretty much the complete antithesis of what you're describing just because they sound pretentious and chocolate lounge-y! What are you, the Restaurant of Opposites and Irony?!


ii) Profiteroles. This one was just redundant. Profiteroles = tiny cream puffs with melted chocolate drizzled over them. Therefore in the interests of efficiency, economy and accuracy in general, I'm proposing a novel idea: call a spade a spade and english cream puffs with melted chocolate on them profiteroles. Revolutionary and ingenious, I know. Please try not to fall off your chair in shock.


I was too huffy to enjoy the chocolate "souffle" but in spite of that I LOVED the "cream puffs with chocolate". Even though they were tiny and you only get four and it was sort of like eating a mistaken identity. I really, really didn't want to share, but goosey kept repeating that he'd only help me eat dessert if I insisted (obviously, in hopes that I would insist). Luckily I am a generous and kind person and insisted, albeit reluctantly (also he once gave me a lot of shit after I said I wasn't going to share my Cheezels and then couldn't finish them and had to ask him to help finish them; I wasn't about to risk a repeat of that). Also X Files sucks balls, please don't watch it.

Dessert; Serendipity 3, Upper East Side, New York

I have wanted to eat at this restaurant ever since I saw it in the movie Serendipity, which was a truly shiteous product of filmmaking, but the dessert scene during which John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale share a chocolate ice cream volcano and fall in love was inspiring and simultaneously spoke to my heart and stomach (not an easy feat).

INGREDIENTS:

A pretty menu (extra points for the swirly illustrations and creative food names: they have a chicken dish called A La Garden of Allah. Piqued my interest, but I decided it was mildly blasphemous and also I was too full)


... Doled out in massive proportions (the aforementioned menu was approximately 75% of my formidable 5 foot height span... which means it was... umm... okay you can do the math)


One Ice Cream Crepe (Danny's), which was not only swimming in whipped cream and fruit sauce but somehow evoked the impression of doing so while enjoying a cold lemonade on a blistering and cloudless summer day


One Strawberry Fields Sundae (mine), a gargantuan concoction of strawberries, strawberry ice cream, cheesecake, and whipped cream, which, with the exception of the strawberry ice cream, is a combination of some of my most favourite things in the world; topped with a dash of lyrical Beatle-esque inspiration in the sundae name


Eat for an hour (cappucino optional), promptly pass out upon finding nearest available bed, and you too will dream of strawberries tap dancing on cheesecake the whole night.

Pastries; Venieros, East Village, New York

It was as though I died and went to pastry heaven. I'm not even exaggerating. I almost cried tears of happiness and sheer wonder at the beauty of all the little pastries and how cute the shop was. It took me half an hour to decide what I wanted to eat, and the waiter must have wondered if I suffered from some kind of disease that causes me to drool incessantly to the point of being unable to articulate which pastry I wanted.

Chocolate covered Cannoli and Strawberry Tart, starring in a vaguely explicit photograph

The glorious menu that I spent half an hour reading because: i) I like reading, ii) I like reading about food, and iii) the entire menu listed and described each pastry and cake.

I didn't want to leave, ever, but I was getting sleepy from all the food. Goodbye Veniero's... you will always have a special place in my heart.

Angelo's, Little Italy, New York

The Italians know how to make their desserts (they also know how to make their steaks, which is the reason we are conspicuously missing pictures of the dinner that preceded the dessert. I was too hungry to even try to take a picture)...


(My) Chocolate mousse

(Danny's) Cannoli

Sticky Date Pudding, Whipped Cream; Alexis