The taste of YUMMY: Spot Dessert Bar

As a kid I was pretty deprived - deprived of sugar. My mom used to be one of those crazy Chinese ladies that would lecture us about how bad candy is for the teeth. On Halloween she would allow us to trick-or-treat, but would then confiscate our candies and give them away to the other kids in the neighborhood.

Needless to say, once I left for school and became the boss of my own diet, I decided to catch up with what I'd been missing out on. Luckily for me, New York offers a billion ways to get a sugar-fix. I'm not actually a big fan of candy, but when it comes to pastries and desserts, it's usually love at first sight.

My most recent dessert-run was with my buddy Dave who's pretty in-tune with the food scene here in the city. He suggested a place on St. Marks Pl called Spot which happens to be known for it's fantastic cupcakes but also offers seasonal "dessert tapas." Although Dave highly recommended the Matcha (Japanese green tea) cupcake, everyone at the surrounding tables were eating the tapas - and they looked insanely good.

As there were 3 of us, we decided to order 3 tapas for $20. I chose the Avocado Parfait which didn't actually end up looking like a parfait. It came on a plate rather than on a glass and there were no layers. It consisted of 3 scoops of avocado ice cream separated by 2 chili cocoa crackers, as well as a small scoop of citrus foam and 3 thin slices of avocado garnished with a small sprinkling of sea salt. The avocado ice cream was ok - avocado has a very mild flavor to begin with, so I was worried that it would be difficult to appreciate when in ice cream (the taste of sweet could easily overwhelm it). However, this wasn't a problem in our case. The citrus foam was powerful in flavor and tasted exactly like kumquat. The crackers were probably my favorite part - the spiciness was stronger than what you get from a ginger cookie, but similar in quality.

Daniella chose the Yuzu Eskimo, which consisted of a citrus mousse concoction on oreo crust accompanied by strawberries and little chocolate balls on a mound of oreo crumbs. I liked the texture of the citrus mousse, and it was less sour than the citrus foam in the avocado parfait. In all though, the dish was not anything special.

My favorite was Dave's choice: the Chocolate Marquis. This was a bar of chocolate mousse on a bed of mango tapioca , a scoop of Yakult (Japanese product that is a mix between milk and yogurt) ice cream, and several small chocolate brownie pieces. The mango tapioca was the best thing I had all night, and the chocolate was a great flavor pairing.