Kickass Cupcakes

April 17

For Marathon Monday weekend, two of our favorite girls came to visit Boston and join in the chocolate cake adventure: Lolo and Dana! Lo really wanted to have brunch, and even gave our little group a name: Bitches Who Brunch. Love it! The first meeting of BWB took place at Gargoyles on the Square, which turned out to be a really fun disco-themed fête complete with self-served coffee. Steph was a little suspicious of how we chose the place (we picked it off the Metro's list of brunch suggestions, its primary advantage being that it's listed first), but the food was great and the ambiance was fun! Definitely recommended.

On to dessert! It was really nice out, so we walked the long way to Kickass Cupcakes in Davis Square. First of all, this place obviously gets points for the name, and the cupcakes lived up to it! Among our group, we tried red velvet, carrot cake, a banana bread-like cake, and quite a few others (true fat kids). The one that looked to be most promising, of course, was the Super Chocolate!

Kickass Cupcakes are really pretty too!

Super Chocolate turned out to be more like a brownie than cake. It was awesome, but so brownie-like that we thought it wasn't really cake. So in the world of best chocolate cakes: disqualified! However, we also got the vegan chocolate cupcake, a flourless cake with a chocolate ganache center and chocolate frosting. Yum! This was a much better chocolate cake! Steph's rating: pretty bangin'. And because it's vegan, it's healthy too! (Well, relatively so...)

We spent the rest of the day reminiscing at Wellesley, which has a wonderfully elaborate retrospective at the Davis right now of the found-objects/material artist El Anatsui. We then had dinner at Lemon Thai (a Wellesley College student favorite, though I stand by my opinion that it is not good Thai food), and Lauren and Dana experienced more nostalgia by treating themselves to Truly Yogurt. What a happy day! 

Lauren's fat-kid comment of the day: "I only eat this much when I'm with you guys." We love you too!

Finale

April 2

When we first came up with this idea and were still gathering places to try, we couldn't think of any place that was really renowned for their chocolate cake, until Steph's co-worker said, "Umm...Finale!" Finale is really known for having truly indulgent desserts, and we knew we eventually had to try their Dark Chocolate Decadence. This flourless cake is so dense, it's really like solidified fudge--you actually have to put some effort into getting your spoon through it!

Steph's photo comment: "artsy!" Thanks, friend!

We enjoyed our chocolate cake with frequent guest taster Xing-Yin, as well as Hillary's sister and brother (visiting from San Francisco). This heavenly little dessert followed brunch at Hillary's, and it was actually a small post-birthday surprise for Steph! Seriously, I got her a gift card for her birthday and registered it on Finale's website. You get a free dessert for your birthday, and this was Steph's...just a little tip from your favorite chocolate cake blog!

Steph's comment when I told her this one was free for her birthday: "Sweet! No pun intended."

L'Espalier

March 20

Happy new year from the girls who never plan ahead and rarely accomplish things in a timely manner (including writing of blog posts)! We kicked off the first chocolate cake excursion of 2011 at L'Espalier, the Back Bay restaurant probably best known for its fancy French cuisine and as one of the most expensive restaurants in Boston, because you know how we roll. Thank goodness for Restaurant Week (this is our second) because L'Espalier had a $20.11 prix fixe lunch menu. Our first course was not especially memorable--endives with some foam--but everything else was yummy! We both had the arctic char with risotto. Arctic char, if you remember from our first Restaurant Week at Mare, is a most environmentally friendly choice of seafood. So delicious and sustainable!

We decided to go crazy, mix it up, and order different desserts! There were two options and we always share because we were raised so well, so this wasn't too difficult. One was a cute pairing of panna cotta and raspberry mousse cake, but the star of the show was the dark chocolate cake. It was really good--it had a lightness that was airy, but still dense enough to be darkly satisfying. Yum!

What is with French food and foam?