Thursday, June 23, 2011

Mini Food Review: Cirticos Chocolate Banana Tart

Chocolate Banana Tart - vanilla ice cream and caramelized bananas $9.00





This dessert has a lot of loyal fans, but I am not really one of them. Although I am a chocolate fiend, I am also bananas for bananas (sorry for that) and this sweet falls woefully short on them. This dish reminded me more of a Gianduia cake than anything else. When I ordered this I expected to get a more of a ganache filled pastry crust with caramelized bananas either inside or on top. What arrived was more of a brownie or lava cake. While being a cake of warm, gooey, chocolaty goodness is always a good way to score points with me, it was average in my opinion. Good-but predictable. Something I also did not like was the crust. It was way too hard making it difficult to get through. As in I couldn't get through it with my fork and had to break out the knife. As I stated there was a definite lacking of bananas-beyond a measly garnish. For me, if you're going to say something has bananas in it, then I want to taste banana. I didn't with this dish. Granted I am forever spoiled by California Grills' Banana & Butterscotch Buzz, but at the very least, they could have added a more ample portion of caramelized bananas. The tart was accompanied by a scoop of vanilla ice cream which I found boring. I myself would have gone for perhaps a Dulce de Leche  or maybe a praline & sea salt ice cream or gelato. Perhaps the chefs' intention was a less complex dessert, which I can appreciate, but then I feel they should market it as such. Plating & presentation was of course striking and I think helps it's reputation, but it did not make up for the desserts less complex flavors. Don't get me wrong-this is a great dessert for any chocolate lover, but compared to other desserts on property, it's a bit too predicable for me. And did I mention there weren't enough bananas?

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