Dessert Karma

Last week I went out to dinner to Del Posto with two of my friends to bid adieu to one of them who is moving to San Francisco. We actually selected the enoteca part of Del Posto, which appeared to have a smaller, less expensive menu, but still looked wonderful. We were kind of expecting to be seated in a dungeonous basement or something, but we had a great table, near the front of the restaurant (I guess they consider the dungeon the front).

Our waiter appeared almost immediately to take our drink order, one of my friends (the one moving, I'll call her SF) had a glass of prosecco so my other friend (I'll call her NY) and I ordered one as well. The waiter inquired whether or not we were celebrating something (all the prosecco being ordered I suspect was the reason why he was inquiring), and NY indicated that SF was moving away, so not really a celebration of sorts, but a fun evening nonetheless. The waiter returned with the bottle and filled up a glass for myself, NY, and then topped off SF's glass. At that point we knew that we'd be in for a great evening.

We decided that we would go for the tasting menu, which included five courses: appetizer, two pastas, a secondo plate and dessert. Each individual ordered her own appetizer, secondo and dessert while the table selected two pasta dishes and everyone got the two same pasta courses. I had announced that I was happy to share (it was a special occasion afterall), so we all ordered different things and selected the pastas. We did not, however, have to select the dessert options when we ordered the rest of the food. Which was good because selected the four other options was tough enough at that point.

Our food began arriving at the table, course after course of wonderful morsels of all sorts of things, steak, pork, pasta, fish, calamari, asparagus...it was all wonderful. We wondered why the restaurant wasn't busier, the food was great, and while the selection wasn't as large as the main restaurant, there was still plenty to choose from, and it was cheaper too. The service was impeccable, and we had no trouble making a reservation (they only take same day reservations). Reviews of the main part of the restaurant often indicate overpriced and poor service for what you're paying..clearly this would be the answer to all of those complaints. Perhaps now that I'm writing about it, the word is out...then again, definitely not (as much as I'd like to believe more than 2 people read this, somehow I doubt that enoteca will be mobbed anytime soon because of my post).

Once we started getting closer to dessert, the conversation slowly turned to what our dessert selections were going to be. Both NY and SF are very well aware of both my dessert infatuation and my unwillingness to share. I however, committed to sharing my dessert like a normal nice person would (it was either the alcohol talking at that point or perhaps I'm actually learning to share...maybe I'll graduate to 1st grade at some point soon...we could only hope). Once I had committed to sharing we agreed to all get different things. This was a much tougher negotiation, there were a couple of stand out items, but after a short round table discussion we came away with our dessert agenda:

SF was to get a chocolate almond cake thing
NY was getting a sorbet/prosecco
I was getting the chocolate pudding

I was excited and ready to order (and I'd have to say that I was most excited for the chocolate almond cake). The waiter came back and SF ordered first, and to my great dismay, after she ordered he instructed her to pick something else. but, but, the chocolate almond cake! How could they be out?! After my loud groan of disappointment the waiter replied that he was planning on bring one of those for the table! Happy with our stroke of good luck, SF quickly selected a blueberry cake thing. Next up to order was NY, and once she completed her order, the waiter told her that her selection was more of a palate cleanser, and he recommended that she too pick something else. She actually kind of was interesting in the palate cleansing dessert (we had afterall, just consumed four other courses), so she indicated that was ok with her, and the waiter replied, with what was now becoming a pattern, that he'd bring one for the table and she should pick something else. Shocked yet again, she selected a lemon thing (I don't remember it exactly, whether it was more of a cake/bar type thing or a custard/brulee type thing, or perhaps neither of those). I went to order my pudding, kind of expecting at this point to be ordered to select something different, but at that point we had pretty much everything off the dessert menu ordered for our table, so my chocolate pudding was accepted by the waiter.

And then the flow of desserts started, five in all were delivered to our table. It was dessert heaven for me (just in shear volume of sugar treats covering our table). My friends agreed that I must have dessert karma of some sort, as neither of them had ever been to a restaurant and been offered so many extra free desserts. I think that my experience at per se was perhaps on their mind, but per se wasn't even the first time that I received extra dessert (although the other places I can think of were either very high end, or I had poor service or something and requested a free dessert...like the time I was in Toronto with SF and some of our other friends and I got a MASSIVE banana split with SPARKLERS coming out of it, just to name one other time).

I'd like to believe I have dessert karma, what a great thing! Of course, my mom would tell me, like she always used to, that I'm going to give myself diabetes (which, I didn't actually ever believe was possible, I thought she was just trying to scare me...turns out she was right, you can get diabetes from eating too much sugar). It's really not a bad thing to have going for you, dessert karma, despite the sugar infestation that will most likely one day take over me. I'm going to ride it out as long as I can!