After our blogger lunch at Que Huong, we all had dessert at a second spot – Hanna’s Gourmet off Adams Ave. in Normal Heights. I had read about this place a few times and I had been wanting to stop by to try some carrot cake pancakes I spied on the menu. But, we were only here for dessert that day and we shared 5 desserts between the seven on us so we all got to have a little tastes of the selection of desserts (picked out by CC and Cathy).
It was a nice day and we sat outside in the alleyway next to the restaurant. The inside seats were all taken and our group wouldn’t have fit inside anyway. It’s small and charming in there though!
A little overview of the desserts we had that day.
[persimmon raspberry parfait – $5.50]
This parfait was a mixture of persimmon on top, cream and raspberry pudding (maybe it had a fancier name, but it looked like pudding to me).
It looked like there was a little bit of cake in there, kind of trifle like rather than a parfait. There were raspberries dotted on top with some kind of cream. Everyone took a little scoop out. I found this to be … kind of tart. And that made me not really like it.
[berry rum cake – $6.00]
This berry rum cake on the other hand was definitely not tart at all (yaaaay). The cake itself was incredibly moist but without the strange texture that, say, comes from a tres leches cake. Maybe the rum was what played a roll in keeping the cake very moist, though I didn’t really taste any rum at all. The cake was light and airy and the mixture of berries helped keep it nice and refreshing. This was one of my favorites!
[lemon blackberry cake – $5.50]
This lemon blackberry cake reminded me a bit of the rum cake, but not as moist. It had a nice refreshing flavor as well from the lemon.
[chocolate peanut butter mousse – $5.50]
Normally I’d pick peanut butter anything to be my favorite, but the cake part here wasn’t my favorite. The peanut butter mousse was good, but the chocolate cake was just “okay”. It wasn’t quite as luscious as I was excepting it to be and it was similar texture to the other rum cake/lemon cake – but with a slight chocolate flavor. I thought it should be more pronounced that it was.
[rosemary apricot cookies – $1.75 each]
This was like those thumbprint cookies with the jelly in it, but the cookie itself was more on the savory side with the addition of rosemary. There was a little too much rosemary in this which overpowered the cookie. If they had scaled it back just a bit I would have liked it more since I did like the flavor of the cookie dough. It was like a shortbread cookie – but too much rosemary. Oh well.
You can also read CC’s post about our dessert for a different point of view.
It was fun having little bites of dessert and trying out a few new things with these lovely blogger ladies. I’m definitely coming back here to try some of their regular menu items – and hopefully those carrot cake pancakes!
Hanna’s Gourmet
2864 Adams Avenue
San Diego CA, 92116
619-280-5600
Oh you have the most beautiful pictures. They’re seriously so ‘cheerful’. Not sure how to explain it. I’m not a fan of parfait but the one here looks yummy. How come you don’t like tart desserts? Does that include key lime too?
I detest rosemary. I cannot imagine it in a dessert. I associate rosemary with lamb so I think that’s why I always shy away from this herb.
Nice post!
Hi Faye – I don’t generally like tart things, except for lemon/lime – so I do like key lime! But everything else just makes me pull a sour face and that’s not pleasant to me. Thanks for the nice comments! I never thought of my photos as cheerful, haha.
Mmm carrot cake pancakes 😀
Hi Jinxi – Seriously, I am going back for those. Soon. 😀
hi mary – your photos are beautiful!!!! i don’t like tart stuff either but i really liked that lemon blackberry cake. glad you liked the desserts here (the majority of them at least). 🙂
Thank you CC! Thanks for helping on all of the ordering 🙂