Catalan (Dessert)!

5555 Washington Avenue
713.426.4260

I wrote last time that Catalan's dessert was "quite a letdown." I've changed my mind: they have changed their pastry chef. Julie Hewitt, the new pastry chef has only one thing left from the old menu, the banana bread pudding. From what I've tasted of her new menu, she should get rid of that dish too and add one of her own.

We tried the peach souffle. It comes very warm on a financier and with a side of excellent icecream. The souffle is light and hot like a normal souffle, but filled with peach flavor. You don't bite into it, but let it oooze into every crevice of your mouth hoping that it lasts forever. Warm, delicate, and perfectly balanced, it melts into nothingness, seemingly never going down your throat.

We also tried the new chocolate tart made with some special delicate salt. Salt enhances chocolate flavors, so the idea is really banal, but the fact that they advertise chocolate and salt deserves kudos. it comes on a crust best described as oreo-cookie-crumble like. So crumbly and good was the crust that I sort of inhaled and had the crust go down the wrong pipe. The chocolate itself is decadent--more fudge-like than mousse-like. With the side of crème fraîche, the dessert transcended the mediocrity of chocolate tart and into some nether-world that a Parisien patisserie might achieve. Sort of like the difference between a chocolate croissant at a Holiday Inn and a pan au chocolat at Laduree.