Dessert Bowl

The other night I went out with some friends for a hot pot (more on that later). After stuffing ourselves to the point of exhaustion, the waiter showed up with the free dessert we weren't expecting. Oh no, I thought, have I met my match? A meal I can't finish? Dessert arriving when I'm already stuffed to the gills? Luckily, the dessert bowl, as it was titled, was light and refreshing and allowed me to retain my hard-earned title of Meal Slayer.

The bowl contained some tiny pieces of lychee, pineapple and guava. The white thing in the picture that looks like half of an egg is actually a bland, mildly-sweet piece of jello (I don't care for using brand names, but calling it panna cotta, though technically correct, seems inaccurate given the Asian context). All of this is floating in a vaguely fruity simple syrup. The entire portion was gone in less than five bites.

This dessert bowl is far from groundbreaking. As one fellow diner put it, "it's not interesting enough to hold my attention," but maybe he was just trying to save face when he didn't finish his. Still, I appreciate the effort, and not just because dessert soup is a novelty to my western palate. Sometimes a meal just doesn't isn't over until something sweet has crossed my tongue. I'm sure this is a learned response after years of dessert indulgence. There are nights, however, when I over do it with the main course, especially when faced with a buffet, and the thought of ordering dessert makes me grab my gut and moan. So for the evening in question, this sweet finisher was spot-on.

Best Cookie in Town?

I took a walk down Huay Keow while waiting for my visa photos to developed and passed by a sign for Double C Coffee & Cookie. It's a very typical coffee and dessert place designed to attract Farang like myself. Most days I would have kept walking since these places charge twice as much as the more Thai-focused cafés, but then I read their claim. "The best cookie in town," they say. I take my superlatives very seriously, so I couldn't resist putting them to the test while grabbing some espresso.

First, the atmosphere. It's inside of a large modernist shopping complex that is exactly the type of building some activists don't want to see in Chiang Mai. Somewhat at odds with this is the interior of the café, which looks like my grandma found a sale on Laura Ashley's Dorm Collection at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Ottomans, wicker, and teddy bears, oh my!

I bought a chocolate almond cookie, above right, and there was a promotion that day that gave me a free caramel pecan cookie, above left, with my coffee. Were they the best in town? I haven't had many cookies in town yet, so I can't say, but I'm willing to bet not. They didn't even rank in the top 10 cookies of my life thus far. Then again, maybe these just aren't the cookies for me. I prefer a big, thick, moist, buttery cookie, and these were the dry, crumbly variety. The chocolate cookie didn't taste much like chocolate. I was happy to have the free cookie, however, because it was the better of the two. The taste harkened back to the Pecan Sandies of my youth, only with the happy addition of caramelized sugar swirls. One pro was that the cookie I did pay for was pretty cheap at only 10 Baht, compared to the 50 Baht beverage.

Will I stop by again? Probably not, unless the caffeine monkey on my back strikes again when I'm in the area. Should you stop by? If you like teddy bears and crunchy cookies, absolutely, but only if you find yourself on Huay Keow west of Canal Rd. Don't go out of your way as these places are a dime a dozen.