Indie Spotlight on the Dessert Truck

Last night I was in Midtown and on my way home decided to hop off the 6 at Astor Place.

You see, I had the Dessert Truck on my mind.

I did think of stopping by Wafels and Dinges, which I wrote about last month. It’s in Union Square, so just one stop north of Astor Place. I even had a moment of gluttony and thought of stopping at both, but I knew my stomach would not survive that, even if I walked between the two.

More importantly, it is chilly and most definitely fall here and I really wanted to try their warm chocolate bread pudding with bacon creme anglaise. It’s good — very rich, chocolatey pudding with nice crisp bread (but not too much bread). And the bacon gives the creme anglaise a nice smokiness. Since I had skipped dinner, the dessert was actually the perfect mix of flavors because of the touch of salt to it.

As I mentioned in my Wafels and Dinges review, high-end desserts out of a truck is a recent thing. Truck food in cities like Philadelphia (as Lynne mentioned in the comments in the last post) and New York is not a new thing — but the concept of selling a very high-end item out of a truck is.

And the Dessert Truck exemplifies this very well, even more than Wafels and Dinges. The creme brulee rivals any fancy restaurant in richness and taste, while desserts like the goat cheese cheesecake with rosemary caramel and berries and pistachio crisp have the complexities and creativity one associates with a tablecloth more than a truck. The milk chocolate mousse with peanut butter (recipe featured here), is also delicious.

The Dessert Truck was founded by two Columbia graduates — the Executive Pastry Chef is also a licensed attorney, while the Managing Partner has an MBA. Their backgrounds made me think of Warren Brown of Cakelove in Washington DC. Warren Brown (who deserves a blog post all of his own) was a litigator for the government but cake making took over. Which is a good thing, because Washington was in desperate need of good dessert nine years ago. I would love to see a Cakelove truck in DC — it could bring cheer and tasty desserts to Downtown offices during the day, and park in Dupont Circle at night — but Warren already has 6 stores (the 6th one has its grand opening tomorrow) so I am thinking he may not want to go the truck route. Or he might — he’s a very nice very personable guy with lots of creativity — and the few times I spoke to him, his passion for baking and people enjoying good baked goods was evident.

But back to the Dessert Truck — it is a tiny little truck, but the desserts are big on flavor. In colder months they have rich hot chocolate, while in summer they have fruit sodas. During the day they are in Midtown (Park between 52nd and 53rd) and at night at Astor Place.

Picture from Dessert Truck website