Megan's Excellent Seattle Foodventure (Double Desserts)

picture credits to Twinkle, our fellow foodventurer...

Hiroki Bakery: Went here after going to La Carta de Oaxaca in Ballard (see post below). Hiroki Bakery is in Wallingford, which is a neighborhood of Seattle (they're all pretty close to each other to be quite honest). This bakery was opened by a Japanese guy named Hiroki, who creates baked goods that take Japanese and European influences into account.

Green Tea Tiramisu: I think that Tiramisu is probably not the best term to call this delicious cake. When I think of tiramisu, I think of coffee liqueur-soaked ladyfingers layered with creamy, decadent yet light mascarpone cream. Unlike this description, the green tea tiramisu was more of...subtly matcha-flavored sponge cake layered with green tea mascarpone cream--a bit of a reversal of a regular tiramisu because the flavor here came from the mascarpone instead of the cake layers. Still, the cake was excellent, and still very light. We split it among 4 people though, since we were stuffed from eating lunch.

White Chocolate Citrus Lavender Cake: This cake was good too--the cake was infused with lavender, which made sense when combined with the citrusy notes (and of course, the white chocolate) in the cake. I felt that the power of this cake was mostly aromatic, as opposed to appealing to mere taste--I don't think I've ever eaten anything that smelled this good. The cake itself was alright--a bit on the dry and crumbly side, I thought. I liked the green tea tiramisu better.

Old School Frozen Custard Went here after Hiroki (by this time, we were pretty full--actually, fuller than normal full), because my mom had a Livingsocial coupon for this (similar to Groupon). This place has a frozen custard flavor of the day--in that sense, it is similar to Culver's, and they have vanilla and chocolate custard every day. So, what sets custard apart from ice cream? Well, it has less air, which is compensated by the addition of more egg yolk and butterfat. The texture of frozen custard comes out to be richer, smoother and silkier than regular ice cream, which just tastes creamy and milky overall.

Interior of Old School Frozen Custard: note the blackboard where they write down their special combinations. How this place works is that they take the custard flavors and mix it up with a lot of yummy ingredients in a machine--sort of similar to DQ Blizzards, only a lot better.

The Playground (all their items were school-themed): Combined chocolate custard, oreo pieces, gummy worms, chocolate fudge and whipped cream. So goood--chocolatey and fudgy. I loved the combination of oreo chunks, chocolate fudge and chocolate custard. We split this among 4 people too because we were so full and just took 2 pints of frozen custard home--Kahlua chip and Mocha Heath Bar Crunch. I tried the Mocha Heath Bar Crunch the other day and it was delicious--just mocha-y enough to meld well with the slightly salty-sweet Heath bar pieces. It was good with Nutella too. Yumyum.