My love for desserts is a large part of who I am. Desserts are not only about flavour, but also presentation, textures and storytelling. A recent addition to Vancouver's sweet scene is Diner Desserts. Based out of Vancouver's beloved Red Wagon, Diner Desserts has amassed a cult following for his wonderful creations. After work on Sunday, August 15th, I headed over to the Red Wagon to give his Fresh & Fruity menu a try.
Sam, the man behind Diner Desserts is an absolute sweetheart and his passion for his work speaks for itself. The Fresh & Fruity menu is a collection of 6 desserts that pays homage to BC's fruit farms. I have only dined at Red Wagon's original location, so I had no idea that they now had a patio. We took our seats at a sage green-painted picnic bench surrounded by a smattering of plants.
Seeing that it was dinner time, I told myself to be good and put some vegetables in my body first. I went with the roasted zucchini which was part of their daily specials. Beautifully roasted green and yellow zucchini sit atop of a tangy goat cheese spread with herbed oil, garnished with chopped nuts. Red Wagon basically made a plate of zucchini sexy!
After thoroughly analyzing the menu, I settled on the Black Forest Cake and the Blackberry Tart. To my complete and utter astonishment, Sam surprised me with his ENTIRE Fresh & Fruity Diner Desserts menu.
One bit of the black forest cake and I instantly knew it was my favourite because nothing beats liquor soaked BC cherries with fresh whipped cream and chocolate cake. I appreciate the OCD level layers and lines and was massively choked that Sam covered the perfection with a piped whip! Those clean lines deserve to be admired! Second favourite was the Fruity Pebbles Pavlova. A rich passionfruit curd is cradled in the center of the chewy marshmallowy meringue. Topped off with fresh whip and fresh BC fruit! Fruity Pebbles cereal dots the exterior of the pavlova giving it a fun colour appearance.
The Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta is dotted with real vanilla bean specs and garnished with fresh strawberries, a strawberry gel and vanilla crumble. I appreciated the fact that the panna cotta was not sweet, but instead highlighted the natural milk flavour. The Blackberry Tart was beautifully presented with gold leaf. Filling the tart shell was a blackberry curd topped with a a ring of fresh blackberries around a blackberry gel. I feel like blackberry is an underrated berry and really does deserve the same amount of love as raspberries and strawberries! Needless to say, the blackberry was done justice by Diner Desserts in this wonderful fruit tart.
The dessert I really tried to love, but just could not was the Five Alive Sorbet. Afterall, Five Alive is the juice of my childhood! The citrus zest was a nice touch as it gave the sobert a nice bitterness, but overall, it was just too sweet for me. What I did love was the little glass that the Five Alive Sorbet was served in. In pictures it seems large, but in real life it is much smaller and fits the perfect portion to share.
Like I mentioned earlier, Sam truly lives and breathes desserts. The little glass in which the sorbets are served in are vintage jelly cups from his personal collection. In fact, a number of the desserts were presented on vintage plates/bowls/glasses from Diner Dessert's personal collection! The panna cotta bowls feature a glaze air brushing technique that was once very popular. The blackberry tart is a vintage diner plate which really brought this whole experience full circle!
I am determined to get one more slice of the Black Forest Cake before the menu changes to something new. So if you head to Red Wagon on Wednesday evening, you might just bump into me!
BYES
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