The Dessert Kitchen is an international transplant serving a wide menu of eye-catching Asian style sweet treats.
This includes soft serve, waffles, sundaes, Taiwan-style shaved ice and sweet kanten noodles.
The two-level space features multiple unique live moss walls throughout, one of very few places in the city to have them.
Flavours of soft serve ($5) change about every two months: when I visit it’s an earthy, woody, buttery taro that sings with the full flavour of the vegetable unlike some others where the flavour is muted underneath sweetness.
“Purple in Love” ($8.99) is the signature award-winning dessert here.
Condensed milk coats a bowl carefully piled with crushed ice topped with grape syrup and evaporated milk for a light purple colour, mochi ice cream cut into pieces, rice cake, and grapes.
The last topping is imported, grape seaweed balls that add texture and a bejewelled look.
“The Winter of Love” ($7.99) layers vanilla ice cream with mini rice balls, mango chunks, and deliciously crunchy savoury corn flakes. Homemade London Fog ice cream on top gets its flavour from finely chopped tea leaves.
Kanten jelly noodles ($7.99) get their name from kanten, the Japanese term for agar. They’re somewhat sweet, somewhat tasteless, with a very unique texture, and are served with your choice of sauce.
The white peach is very sweet and floral so care has to be taken not to add too much when dipping the noodles, and balled fruit acts as a sort of palate cleanser.
Ice Stream Ramen ($8.99) is a seasonal, limited time take on the kanten jelly noodles, dyed blue by being soaked in curacao. They’re served over a mound of crushed ice for an interplay of texture, ringed by the same balled melon as a regular order of kanten noodles.
Serradura ($7.99) comes in vanilla, mango and green tea flavours. Buttercream is layered with crushed biscuits for a texture that’s solid when presented then melty when cut into, garnished with a pop of fresh fruit.
A Japadog is the only representation of Dessert Kitchen’s full savoury menu when I visit, though it heavily incorporates the bubble waffle, molded into a bun shape. The dog is actually more flavourful than I expected, topped with mayo and grace-saving, umami nori, served with a honey mustard sauce.
Hong Kong Style Milk Tea ($5.99) here uses tea leaves imported from Hong Kong for that true Chinese milk tea flavour,garnished with a cute and Instagrammable house-made kitty marshmallow that imparts a tonof sweetness as it melts.
This marks The Dessert Kitchen’s first Canadian location.
