American menus are stuck on caramel desserts

Nation's Restaurant News, Nov 12, 1990 by Florence Fabricant

American menus are stuck on caramel desserts

Chocolate has not disappeared, but it's no longer the dominant dessert flavor. Fruit desserts, which began to have an impact nearly three years ago, are still going strong. The trend, which began with elaborate and delicate fruit pastries and sorbet combinations, has recently been fueled by the return to a homier style, calling for cobblers, crisps and the like.

But the latest in sweets is caramel. Syrupy, honeyed creations, once the exclusive domain of caramel custard in French operations, pecan pie in American ones and honey bananas in Chinese restaurants, are everywhere now.

Puddings involving caramel have become very important. The ever-popular creme brulee shows no sign of disappearing, and the newly stylish bread puddings are everywhere, in every possible guise. Even rice pudding, once strictly cafeteria fare, has taken on new luster.

Rice pudding has long been a staple in New York-style Jewish delis. But the one served at the new Broadway Deli in Los Angeles bears no resemblance to the typically starchy, raisin-studded standby. It's served with caramel sauce. What else would you expect in a deli that serves dishes like choucroute garni?

At Wolfgang Puck's Eureka Brewery, the sweet finales include cheesecake with caramel sauce and rice pudding with caramel. The new 798 Main in Cambridge, Mass., serves a maple corn bread pudding with dried cherries. Is it a successful play on bread pudding or on the classic New England Indian pudding? Probably both.

Merchant's in Nashville, Tenn., has come up with a butter pecan cheesecake in bourbon sauce. The TriBeCa Grill in New York brings to thrilling new heights caramel rice pudding -- a dish that might have first been tried uptown at La Cite, as creme brulee with rice in it. Meanwhile, La Cite is doing just fine with its monumental floating island mined with praline and drizzled with caramel.

Similarly, the caramel sampler dessert remains a fixture at Le Bernardin. The plate offers caramel mousse, caramel ice cream, floating island and caramel custard.

Trumps in Los Angeles features a peanut brittle sundae for dessert, and Tulipe has a praline sandwich served with an espresso sauce. Montrachet in lower Manhattan serves a spectacularly delicious hot banana tart with praline ice cream and also a creme brulee.

Honey and caramel have begun to figure importantly in the desserts at operations that specialize in Mediterranean, Mexican and South American cooking. Here is where some real imagination is at work.

At New York's Union Square Care there is a dessert called seadas al miele, consisting of Sardinian cheese and lemon fritters drizzled with warm, herbed honey; another called panna cotta, a Piedmontese custard made with cream and flavored with caramel and oranges; an arborio rice pudding in cornmeal pastry with a cinnamon-fruit compote and a warm banana tart with vanilla ice cream and macadamia nut brittle.

I Matti in Washington serves caramel custard called creme di caramela, Cafe Crocodile in Manhattan has a Provencal honey and walnut cake and Sandro's offers struffi, made of fried dumplings drenched in honey.

At Rick and Deann Bayliss' new Topolobampo in Chicago one of the desserts is a plate of crepes with goat milk caramel, pecans and platains. Goat milk caramel may sound strange, but it's a traditional Mexican concoction called cajeta. It has been a favorite of some chefs in the Southwest, notably Mark Miller, for years. Cajeta is made by cooking evaporated goats' milk, which is available from some goat farms, with regular milk and caramel, resulting in a mixture that has a somewhat less intensely sweet character than does regular caramel.

Churrasco's in Houston serves a custardy cream cake called tres leches and a cream cheese flan, flan de queso. Saint Estephe's fried sopaipilla crullers traced with honey are another example of the Latin-American input in this category of dessert.

In San Francisco Square One serves a dessert, called the Aurora tart, combining caramel custard, chocolate and praline creams in a sweet pastry crust, right on target for contemporary tastes.