Next came the final dessert that is listed on the menu, a creative chocolate-white chocolate-pistachio-passion fruit thingamajig:


"Pave de Chocolat Blanc au the Vert": Pistachio "Pain de Genes," Passion Fruit Jelly and Bitter Chocolate Sauce

I confess that by now, I was utterly full. As a result, I probably appreciated dishes this late in the dinner a little less than I should have. That said, I still think this dessert tasted less exciting than it looked. Which is not to say that it did not taste exciting, or that my taste buds didn't enjoy it in defiance of my stomach, which was growing increasingly uncomfortable.

I think I was also plagued by a grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side-of-the-table mentality, given that everyone else had chosen something else (a substitution off the vegetarian menu) that involved far more chocolate. Real, not white, chocolate. And chocolate cake cooked in Cabernet. I tasted a bit, too, and indeed I preferred it to my own dish. Here's an oblique picture of M.'s dessert, but I won't write its bequestionmarked name underneath since I don't have a photo of the vegetarian menu:


But that wasn't all! At this point a few servers whisked away our plates and brought us a new round of sex-segregated desserts. The "ladies" each got a small lavender-infused creme brulee:


And the "gentlemen" each got this Meyer lemon pot de creme:


Of course M. and I switched at mid-dessert so we could try both. And holy shit, the creme brulee was good, but it paled in comparison to the pot de creme. This was the second undeniably perfect dish of the evening. Desserts aren't supposed to be this good, certainly not desserts as plain-looking as this one. I'm not even going to write any more about it, lest I tarnish its perfection with my words.