Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

Posted Ms Shallot

DessertOr: Is it ever possible to have too much sugar?

This weekend has been an excellent break from HK with friends from the US, Singapore and HK all descending on Bangkok. Aside from catching up, copious amounts of massages for a few of the group (I’m surprised some are able to stand given how relaxed they now are), a bit of sightseeing, it has meant an unusual quantity of food needing to be consumed.

“Needing” in the sense that there is a lot of great food in Bangkok and it’s difficult to resist trying as much as possible. This results in meals blending together with the only discernible difference between breakfast and dinner being the lack of alcohol at one (though that could have been arranged) and no dessert aside from fresh fruit.

Challenge accepted.

It was noticed at our first dinner that I have a tendency to order the unusual dessert and to experiment (assuming there is no bread and butter pudding or apple crumble, then I’m torn). The question was asked “Of all the times when you’ve taken a risk with your dessert choice, what percentage has turned out to be good?”.

This is an incredibly good question and one I had never considered. Are my dessert risks worth it? Is trying the unknown more beneficial than trying the known? I’d argue yes in any case just because I would like to know if I liked something or not but I don’t think that was what was meant by the question.

Scanning my mental 2016 Desserts Consumed Catalogue (I wasn’t quite  prepared to go back any further if I couldn’t simply quantify on one year first. Also because the green tea creme brûlée I had once would severely skew the results since it was so bad that it would negate quite a few positive experiences. It tasted like non-dissolved powdered green tea from a sushi restaurant, located outside Japan, with the top burnt. It was a Dessert Disaster), it dawned on me that I should be a little more systematic with my dessert analysis and mental cataloguing this year. I was unable to come up with a quick number. My cataloguing needs work.

Maybe if I had the back of an envelope or possibly a white board…

I have been here two nights and have had two desserts.

I am two from two.

The first dessert was a taste sensation. I have no idea what it was called but the description intrigued me:

Sweet Thai wafers with poached persimmon and golden duck egg noodles

Q – What is a golden duck egg noodle?
A –  a Taste Sensation, a mix of sweet flavours perfectly balanced and presented in little tacos. I would eat it again in a heartbeat. 

Nahm dessert
My second dessert was Strawberry in the Clouds. Now, my brother has warned me countless times about not eating anything bigger than my head and I continue to ignore him. He seems to think that’s Mum’s advice and if that’s the case, I’m ignoring her too and have relegated that advice to exactly where it belongs. Every time, this has been the right decision. It is with some sense of sisterly (daughterly?) satisfaction that I report, this trend continues.
This dessert has some fancy write up so I’ll keep it simple. It was a massive ball of multi-colored fairy floss /candy floss / cotton candy (pick whatever one suits your nationality and whenever you see fairy floss through the rest of this post, please replace it with your word that means the same) stuck into a glass holding what was called strawberry shortbread. They could call it whatever they wanted. The dessert had fairy floss, I was in. Fairy floss and I are very good friends. I even had a drink with it as the feature ingredient at lunch yesterday. 
To be fully transparent, I initially wanted the lemon mille feuille. That would have been the perfect complement to my main meal. Fortunately, many others before me thought the same thing so there was none left. I was now on track for a massive sugar high that my dining buddies were suggesting I order from the moment we saw one as we walked into the restaurant. Everyone knows my penchant for fairy floss. 
I took it as a sign since it’s very difficult to find fairy floss on a stick and not in a bag and whenever I see it in this format, I buy it anyway. Even if I’ve just eaten something else. That’s how much I like it. 
Especially if it’s bigger than my head.
* Thanks to The Beatles for the title to this post. It was the name of the drink I had at lunch today and it seemed fitting given the dessert I ended up eating as well as Lucy being the name of my fur kid who is now running pain free after crossing the Rainbow Bridge in September 2016.