When owner Ron Chen puts something new on the menu at Rattan Bistro, it's usually worth a trip to his restaurant to try it. Currently, Chen is tempting us with a selection of three new desserts: Thai Sticky Rice, Lemongrass Bread Pudding and Chocolate Pot de Crème.
If you've never had the crème brûée at Rattan, you are missing out -- it's the best version this side of the Seine. (Including the Left Bank.) Given that the regular menu desserts are of such high quality -- the Molten Chocolate Cake is for hardcore chocolate lovers -- these new desserts simply begged to be tasted. And why resist a meal of three desserts, even at two in the afternoon?
While the desserts were being prepared, we snacked on nigiri that was served alongside Rattan's Jungle Roll. Whenever we dine at Rattan, it seems, our soy sauce goes largely unused; the sushi is always just perfect on its own. We tore through the sweet-and-spicy Jungle Rolls (salmon, shrimp, mango, asparagus, cucumber, eel sauce, wasabi aioli) that marched a line through the middle of our plate, and then savored the nigiri. The salmon on the left was rich and buttery, but left room at the end for the seasoned rice and pinpoint of wasabi to pop through; the ocean trout on the right was topped with the tiniest sliver of tart-sweet lemon, and was equally smooth in both flavor and texture. The sushi here is truly excellent.
And then, dessert. Three of them, to be precise.
At Ron's suggestion, we started with the Thai Sticky Rice, then moved on to the Lemongrass Bread Pudding and finished up with the Chocolate Pot de Crème. Each dessert was of a size and richness that begged sharing it, although it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to share after his first bite.
If lighter desserts are your thing, the Thai Sticky Rice is the way to go. The rice is cooked in coconut water, topped with coconut milk, and then covered in thin, sweet slices of mango; a scoop of coconut pineapple ice cream provides the finishing touch. The coconut milk keeps things from getting too sweet, which is important in dessert -- if the sweetness builds past a certain point, a dessert becomes inedible, but the Thai Sticky Rice was perfect from the first bite to the last.
