I don’t know how else to say it, so I’m just going to say it: Go to Park for dessert.
Go there for dinner or brunch too, sure. Go there for the cool, relaxed atmosphere and the good date lighting. Go there for the specialty cocktails. But when you go, do not miss the desserts.
Pastry chef Keith Cedotal changes the menu every three or four months, and it just changed this week. So when my friends and I ordered the entire dessert menu for my birthday a few weeks ago, the menu was different than it is today.
Cedotal’s presentation is downright whimsical. Miniature fried pies, filled with warm lemon custard, came with raspberry sorbet served in a push-up pop — so cute! But they’re not just cute. They are euphoria-inducing.
Our server didn’t try to hide her displeasure to be bringing us cappuccino at 10:30 p.m., and she told us they were “out of coffee”, which caused a minor tantrum at our table, but nothing can ruin the mood when you’re eating these desserts. At the time, they also included strawberry soda tall cake and the most amazing version of a root-beer float, which came with a tiny pecan tart.
That’s been replaced on the new menu by a Dreamsicle float. Also on the menu: chocolate cake with banana cheesecake icing, strawberry rhubarb tart, sweet potato pie with house-made marshmallows and candied pecans, and peanut-butter pudding with grape jelly and brittle.
Go to Park, which is on Henderson near McMillan, and order any one of those. Thank me later.
