Birthday Dinner Part 3 - Swoon Dessert Bar

[Update - Closed as of Fall 2014 and reopened in August 2015 as Tostadas]

I think I better crank this out before I completely forget everything...

Continuing on from the 3-part dinner adventure with the Educator GF's...it was time to have dessert at a relatively new place in North Park...

After our dinner and drinks at Soda & Swine, we made the very short trek from 30th and Adams to the corner of Herman and University Ave, near the CVS.

It was still early so we were able to get street parking easily. Thank goodness D drove because I really hate parallel parking and will avoid it at all costs.

We were greeted warmly by the staff and seated at what they considered  "the best seats", which was at the very endof the dessert bar where we could see all the "action".

Since my friends are trusting and know how much of a control freak I am, they let me order. I already had a game plan in mind. There were four of us, so I ordered two Dessert Tasting Flights for us, along with two a la carte dessert items. Flights are only available on the weekends starting at 6 pm so you're out of luck if you come on a weekday. They only offer a few a la carte dessert items.

We also ordered coffee (the tea menu was on the other side) to go with our desserts. Certain coffees come from various local roasters.

Ian, one of the dessert chefs and co-owner, prepping one of the plates. The guy in the back? He seems to like to take pictures of people taking pictures of the food. If you look at their facebook page, you'll see various pix of folks playing food papparazzi). I'm not sure what his role was since he wasn't a chef or a server (Manager? The other owner?).  Our server, however, was a fabulous cool guy (he's African American with long hair and wore the coolest black and white patterned skinny jeans that night).

Prepping the sorbet trio...

This was Evan, the sous chef (super nice guy!) explaining the amuse bouche...

which was a quenelle of strawberry thyme sorbet with crystallized rhubarb (it shattered like glass candy in our mouths), with rhubarb compote.

Underneat the sorbet here were little mini spherical white chocolate covered rice krispies at the bottom! This was a neat surprise!

The other a la carte item was the Sorbet trio:

Meyer lemon with thyme and strawberry glass...

At the bottom, strawberry gelee...

Blood orange sorbet...

with dark chocolate cake crumbs at the bottom (looked like crushed Oreos but it wasn't)...

The Oro Blanco (white grapefuit) with tarragon sauce...

with feuilletine at the bottom providing a nice crunch. The tarragon's herbal flavor really stood out with the sorbet. I liked the crunchy bits. A few of us weren't really into the tarragon flavor on this.

Of the three sorbets, I favored the blood orange flavor but not the chocolate crumbs. Everyone liked the Meyer lemon with the strawberry the best.

This is me clumsily pouring cream into my coffee while trying to take a photo of it. Both TORC and I ordered the Stretta from Cafe Virtuoso. This was their darkest roast. I think I used up a lot of sugar in mine too.

Finally, the first course - Bay leaf ice cream with beets three ways (sous vide, glass, and gelee) garnished with red leaf frill mustard, and strips of preserved lemon. On the bottom was feiulletine again. The sous vide machine (if it's even called that) was near us and we saw them take things in and out of it a few times that evening.

It was so fun trying to cut beets with a spoon.   Damn, somebody give me a fkg knife, please!

The Second Course - Sweet pea gelato with bacon shortbread and bacon "snow" (made with maltodextrin, a process in which the rendered bacon fat can be chemically turned into powder), carrot and white chocolate ganache, garnised with a thinly sliced and dehydrated yellow beet, and green pea sprouts. (Food Ho, if you're reading this, I thought about you when I saw the pea shoots - "pea shoot floaters!". Is that a good or bad thing? Ha ha)

More of their meticulous prepping...

The Finale - This could be likened to a sophisticated version of "ants on a log", that childhood snack of a celery stick smeared with peanut butter and studded with raisins. Swoon's version turns it upside down and inside out.

This was a "log" of peanut btter mousse garnished with peaut butter powder, celeriac and white chocolate ganache, celeriac "dipping dots", rum soaked raisins, garnished with feuilletine (this seems to be a popular ingredient), and candied celery and "lovage" (which is the French name for "Chinese celery" which I grew up calling "kinchay"). Good gosh, my mom grows that in her backyard! When I saw the leaf garnish it looked familiar so I had to ask.  We all thought this was a neat way to make something savory into a dessert. We also debated whether our husbands would even eat this or appreciate it, ha ha.

But wait, there was actually one more dessert on its way!  We still had another a la carte item which was strategically served last since its main ingredient was a stout. The chef explained that if he served it first, the strong taste might dull our taste buds. Good call.

This was the Serpent's Stout mousse with marshmallow cream  and smoked graham crackers.

I guess this would be a fancy deconstructed "S'more".  The stout is from Lost Abbey, a local brewery which is located in San Marcos. Of all the desserts, I liked this one the most since I really like the dark and sometimes bitter flavors of stout. You could tell they torched the marshmallow cream dots. There was also sea salt on this dish. My favorite of the bunch!

As we left that evening...



We all enjoyed our desserts and coffee and chatting with the chefs about the dishes...

It was definitely an adventure trying out San Diego's newest dessert place which is also the only dessert bar of its kind not just in San Diego but in the West Coast. Their pairings of sweet and savory are quite creative. We tasted things that were familiar to us but presented in unusual forms (celery dipping dots and bacon powder to name a few). We like that they change up their menu weekly and utilize seasonal and local ingredients.

The staff is super nice, from the receptionist to the server and the chefs.  Both chefs took the time to explain each and every dish and answered our questions with patience and clarity. Evan was so very cool and friendly. One thing I didn't like was the guy trying to surreptitiously take photos of people but that's just me because I'm paranoid about that kind of stuff.

This is not the place to go to if you want to eat a slice of pie, dig into "deep fried" ice cream or get a molten lava cake. It may be a bit too frou frou and fussy (and yes, pretentious) for some, but we really wanted to try something new and different that night. There's always a first time for everything. I'm glad my GF's went out on a limb to try Swoon.  I was already planning when I'd do my return visit...

Who else went to Swoon?
Of course Kirbie went here during their opening two months ago (different menu, as it changes weekly and better photos!)

Recent articles/reviews:
San Diego Eater (1/13)
SD U-T (1/28)
SD Reader (3/13)
ChelseaRoberson (4/5)

Swoon Dessert Bar
3139 University Ave
San Diego, CA 92104
(619) 528-0875

SwoonDessertBar (this is their facebook page)

Our dinner adventure:
Part 1 - Soda & Swine
Part 2 - Polite Provisions
and this post...

[Update - Return visit will be posting shortly...]