Wow. Simply incredible. Spot Dessert Bar has been around for years and focuses on reimagining traditional desserts, while adding what they call a “healthy dose of Asian flare”. Essentially, this means they add traditionally Asian flavors like Green Tea, Yuzu, Kobacha, and Black Sesame into classic desserts and then deconstruct them or rework them to present you with something innovative and only vaguely reminiscent of the classic form. While I love inventiveness in food, I don’t tend to like the flavors mentioned above, so this place went untried for years… until I got wind of “The Harvest”.
“The Harvest” frankly looked too cool not to try. It is the spitting image of a potted plant in soil, with a bit of modern flair. So we went, fairly certain it was going to be an attractive, but mediocre tasting dessert. It can easily sell on its looks alone, so it doesn’t really need to taste good.
What’s surprising is that the Harvest actually tastes as amazing as it looks. The pot is composed of seven layers of mixed berries (blueberries and strawberries), soft cheesecake (almost whipped cream texture), meringue kisses (just a few), and chocolate cookie crumbs on top. It’s paired with a black rose milk tea (literally black rose tea with a splash of milk in it) that you can pour into the pot to give it an extra dimension of flavor (not that you need it!) and a side of raspberry sorbet.
The entire dessert is just flawlessly done. Every single component is delicious itself, and they all complement each other perfectly. The combination of textures and flavors, the slight heartiness of the cake and cookie crumbs combined with the moisture of the cheesecake, sorbet and tea – it all just makes for one of the best and most well-rounded desserts you can find. It is also very restrained in its sweetness, so if you’re someone who doesn’t like very sugary desserts, this is your game. And it’s incredibly light, too. You could easily eat this and a second dessert off of their menu. And given how good this is, you probably should, particularly if you have a penchant for or willingness to try the more traditional Asian flavors.
You can take this dessert to go (along with most of their others), but it’s not served in a pot, which defeats the purpose. Or maybe it doesn’t, really, because regardless of how cool the dessert looks, it is also incredibly delicious. But I mean, if you’re going to eat it, you might as well eat it in-store so you can get both the looks and the flavor.
Perhaps their most popular dessert is chocolate “Green Tea Lava Cake,” which is a traditional lava cake (a.k.a. molten chocolate cake) filled with liquid green tea ganache instead of the traditional liquid chocolate ganache and paired with green tea ice cream.
Another big hit is the “Golden Toast,” which is a crispy honey buttered toast (think a super tall Belgian waffle) with fresh strawberries, whipped cream, and condensed milk ice cream.
They have about 9 desserts at any given time, many of which are staples, and a couple of which are just seasonal and get rotated throughout the year.
It’s a small place, so depending on when you go, you might have to wait. But do note that there are two locations and they are both on the same street (yes, literally) just a few doors apart. So if one is full, try the other! Whatever you do, though, take a risk and go. You won’t regret it.
