Chikalicous

Chickalicous is a dessert bar in the East Village. I have wanted to go since it opened. The concept of having a price fixe three course meal of desserts only is a clever idea. The desserts are paired with wines. You are given a starter to taste, the dessert that you have chosen accompanied with your glass of wine and a small plate of petit fours to complete your meal.

Great concept, poor execution. Nothing is that interesting. Everything we tasted last night was just ok at best. When I have dessert, it has to be worth the calories. It should explode inside your mouth and your reaction should be “omigod, this is incredible”. That is not what we said last night.

The decor is clever. Bright and white. The counter, like a diner, seats about 15 people. There are also a few cozy booths with tables behind the counter.

We sat at the counter which is entertaining. All the desserts have already been prepared. It is just a matter of putting them together. The presentation is key. As a person who makes dessert, watching the small already prepared tupperware pieces the staff takes out to scoop out each essential ingredient is fun. They use so little of each that they must be making a decent profit.

We started with their opening of the day. It was a large slice of kiwi that had a lavendar sauce poured over it with a small scoop of vanilla yogurt sorbet on the top. 3 bites. The dish was sour and not that interesting. Not too much depth. We each ordered a different dessert so we could taste. We had a brown sugar panna cotta with meyer lemon sorbet and prosecco poured over the top. The panna cotta had the consistency of sea urchin. The meyer lemon sorbet was very sour and the prosecco sort of mushed the whole thing up. This was paired with a Muscat wine which was fine. The other dessert we had was mint ice cream, chocolate wafers, chocolate ice cream and diced bananas. You could taste the herb mint in the ice cream which was nice but too subtle. The whole dish was too subtle. I guess that was my problem with everything we ate. This was paired with a port which was again, ok.

Lastly, we get the petit fours. coconut marshmallows which were very clever and tasty. They were my favorite thing. Biscotti, again not that interesting. Also, 2 small chocolate puffs put together with a chocolate cream. They were put together right before serving. The chocolate cream was not as rich and sweet as it should be. Also, it should have been more at room temperature. It was so cold that the depth of the flavor, if there was any, was probably lost.

All and all, a huge disappointment. I thought about stopping into one of the local pastry shops and getting a big yummy eclair for the walk home. I was still dying for something good and sweet. My desires were not fulfilled and I had just consumed god knows how many calories. The good news is that when we got home, our son was in the kitchen with our fantastic babysitter/house manager/everything and they were pulling a coffee cake out of the oven. We quickly sliced it up, ate a piece and said “now that hit the spot”.