Ottawa Foodies

We want to try their "Crazy Good" Warm Chocolate Cake originally. However, we were told that this will take about 20 minutes preparation time.

So, we changed our mind and tried their Carrot Cake ($10) instead. Delicious as it looks!

I'm still thinking about this chocolate truffle cake.

Sure. I posted it in the Forum.

Care to share that recipe with us? :)

I remeber being in charge of the desserts the first night I was there, and I must say that the Creme Brulee was hands-down the most popular item. It's almost as good as my Chocolate Banana Strawberry Creme Brulee ;)

Desserts here are made-to-order, as should be expected from a restaurant of this caliber. I ordered the vanilla creme brule, and my husband ordered a cranberry and white chocolate tarte. My creme brule had the perfect amount of 'crust' on top. His tarte had a lovely, flaky crust. Both were wonderful and beautifully presented.

Try their fried banana with ice cream (aka FBI). Very yummy dessert. Suggest that you ask for Lichee Ice cream instead of vanilla.

This is the Candy cane creme brulee (egg nog + mint ice cream) that was included in my set menu. Delicious!

This is their creme brulee ($8).

This is the Fruit Alignment ($8) - raspberry tiarmisu + jackfruit and ginger gelato + chocolate hazelnut florentine.

This is the mandarin cheese cake ($9) that my husband ordered. Isn't this cute?

This is the double deck ($9) which is passion fruit + milk chocolate + Irish cream + jivara gelato. This is definitely for chocolate lovers.

Who doesn’t have room for dessert? This is the Crème brulee terrine – spice vanilla anglaise with ginger bread crust. My meal was complemented by this delicious treat – mildly sweet, not too rich, melt in my mouth. Honestly, I can eat another one in a row.

You can see that we had so much fun just eating dessert!

Another yummy dessert!

The pastry chef is full of imagination.

How about their in-house ice cream?

I'll end it with a dessert since I'm not sure if I'm spamming. :)

Cloudberry Pudding

I feel bad since I can't remember the name of the ice dessert we had here but, it was almost like a sweet bubblegum flavor poured over ice with chunks of jelly candy in it and nuts (pistachios??). It's quite sweet but went well with our coffee.

The other dessert was the fried plantains which were the best I've had here in Ottawa so far. Nice and moist on the inside and not greasy or too crispily fried! Yum.

My friend recommended me to try their pistachio tart. So I tried it. But the taste was okay. I preferred the chocolate mousse cake that my husband had (can't find the photo).

This was the crepes with banana and chocolate that my friend ordered.

After the disappointing and overpriced spring rolls, and the decent but not spectacular steak, I was thrilled to discover how great the desserts were!

First, some background. We were out for lunch because my parents were visiting and were willing to babysit. My Mom had reminded me just the day before how the sorbets in Switzerland are often served with a shot of schnapps or liqueur. So when I saw the Sherbotka on Café Paradiso's menu, I had no choice but to order it.

This was an extremely generous portion of Pure Gelato lime sherbert. Really top notch and refreshing stuff! The cookie tasted like a macaroon and melted in my mouth. The big shot glass of vodka just made it more exciting. I poured about 2/3 of it onto my sherbert and slurped the last bit straight. Fire and Ice baby!

Highly recommended.

Wifey had the Le Chocolate dessert (quote from menu: "Espresso cream center surrounded by a sweet chocolate mousse, on a shortbread base & covered in bitter-sweet chocolate, served with marinated berries and raspberry gelato").

She absolutely loved it! I tried some and it was awesome. Fairly priced at $8.

This was the chocolate ganache torte. Very rich, but not bad at all. The crust was very delicious. If you like dark chocolate and a cookie crumb crust, then you’ll love this.

For my birthday this year, since there's only myself and my husband, I didn't want a whole birthday cake so we stopped at Louise's to take a look. They have beautiful cakes that are made in Montreal, and they come in the regular size for a group, or as individual servings. We each chose a different one (sorry, I can't remember the exact names) - mine was a passion fruit mousse concoction, and my husband's was chocolate cake and mousse. Both were wonderful and less than $4 each!

Wifey's Pot de Crème (dark chocolate custard with sweetened crème fraîche) was sensational. Smooth, chocolatey, and satisfying without being sickly.

Oh my goodness, I wished I had taken my camera with me! We came here for dessert after a somewhat disappointing dinner elsewhere (vendor 403).

They were almost empty when we arrived at 9:20pm and were happy to seat us for dessert (they close at 10pm). Servers here excel at striking the perfect balance of friendliness and efficiency without snobbiness. I've noticed that this approach is the hallmark of all the best restaurants.

They had about six dessert choices. We opted for the Maple Pecan Tart and the Lemon Blueberry Cream Tart (exact names not remembered), a chamomile tea and an espresso. When the desserts arrived, we both said, "Wow!" They were beautifully presented and garnished with really good strawberries and blackberries, the likes of which we haven't had since summer. Other garnishes included a delicious strawberry/raspberry sauce and various semisweet chocolate creations. I declared the Maple Pecan Tart to be the best "pecan pie" I've ever had. Wifey's Lemon Blueberry thing was so delicious too, with just the right balance of tartness and sweetness.

Each of these dessert choices was just $7 -- great value considering the presentation! It's been some time since we had truly excellent food at a restaurant so we were really happy to discover that perfection still exists.

My strawberry and blueberries tulip with tarragon wasn’t impressive. My husband’s mango and dark chocolate cake was okay, nothing to blow me away though after I tried one bite. The crème brulee was excellent according to two gentlemen (actually it did look very good).

This is the dessert table. Pick as many as you want, but watch out for your calories!

This was the dessert I shared with my hubby - Mignardises plate with chocolate truffle,
pure fruit jelly, nuts & biscuits ($8.50) according to the menu.

It was my fault that I didn't read the menu carefully. I only read chocolate truffle and thought that it was a chocolate cake with some truffle thing (my imaginary dessert for a fancy restaurant!). I personally never expect a dessert of this sort in a restaurant (especially this highly rated one). When I order dessert, I expect something that I can't easily bake/make. If I know this is what I would get, I would definitely order something else. (The almonds nuts and biscuits were good though.)

From now on, I learn to read menu carefully so that I don't make the same mistake twice.

P.S. The cappuccino I got was only luke warm. I hate drinking non-hot coffee. Another disappointment!

This was the lemon cheesecake with ladyfingers and fruit compote ($9.50) that my friend ordered. Taste was okay. But nothing special though.

This was the Sweet Red Bean Soup with purple rice. A typical dessert in a Chinese restaurant. The chef added purple rice to the sweet red bean soup. We all like it!

Note: Somehow all my Canadian friends do not like this dessert so much.

This was the Strawberry Tiramisu ($7.50) we ordered. Taste was okay. Nothing to blow me away though.

I love the food at The Village Cafe, but their desserts are hit-or-miss. Like many places, they bring in their desserts from a local baker. I've found they are generally either too sweet or too dry (or both!). One specific warning: the icing on the carrot cake we had (June 2006) is really gross, like eating crisco!