Editor’s note: In this column writer James Heflin indulges his sweet tooth by sampling desserts made at area restaurants.
If, like me, you drive a time-mellowed Prius, you might want to park in the back lot at the Blue Heron in Sunderland, lest you risk scratching the door of a Tesla or a Range Rover. This is no fast food joint. That means, of course, that you can expect high-end flavors from co-owners Deborah Snow and Barbara White.
Their reputation is well-deserved: A Blue Heron meal is usually a memorable thing. So it required little courage for your intrepid dessert taster to head into the restaurant, which resides in the old Sunderland Town Hall on North Main Street. And less courage yet to jump right into the dessert menu, with its lineup of standards given a particularly Blue Heron twist.
Unable to choose just one, I decided to order three.
They arrived without too much of that fine dining mucking-about — you know, the sort that means the artfully drizzled sauce has to spell out in cuneiform the names of exotic ingredients. True, the dollop of sauce accompanying the Key Lime Pie had a touch of Abstract Expressionism in its delivery, but it was tastefully done.
This time of year, you can enjoy outdoor dining at the Blue Heron, and the relaxed atmosphere of dining beneath umbrellas with a backdrop of Mount Sugarloaf’s cliffs seems to call for just such needle-threading in the food presentation. It’s relaxed, but has enough of the high-end air to remind you that you’ll never do this in your own kitchen.
The Key Lime Pie, had it arrived alone, would have satisfied. Its crumb crust is satisfyingly thick, offering a textural contrast to the softness of the filling. The filling itself is rich, not too sweet, with but one potentially detracting element: The chief note of lime is extremely prominent, offering a citrusy tartness that sometimes overwhelms the other flavors.
The accompanying sauce was hard to taste in the wake of the limey blast. For some Key Lime fans, this will be perfection. For me, the prominent citrus sent me toward the other desserts, though plenty happy.
The second entrant was the Seasonal Crumble — in this case, rhubarb. It arrived piled high in a big ramekin, topped with vanilla ice cream with a partial caramel shell. Because I’m helplessly attracted to anything containing the word “chocolate,” I rarely try crumble. I was glad to step outside the usual at the Blue Heron.
Crumble can pull off a good trick, particularly with a tart base like rhubarb: It’s dessert-y, but doesn’t have to smack you in the face with cloying sweetness. Ideally, that sweetness arrives courtesy of melting ice cream, and that’s just what happened. Though the resulting mix-up of dairy and crumble wasn’t going to win any beauty contests, it tasted mighty fine. The rhubarb kept a hint of its tartness, and the crumble topping and ice cream provided a combo that worked on several levels, injecting buttery crunch and creamy mouth feel.
It might be said that my estimation of the evening’s treats was prey to my chocolate addiction. Mea culpa, perhaps. But for me, the star of the show was the Valrhona Chocolate Pot de Crème.
Valrhona is not a character in a Wagner opera, but rather the usual cocoa choice of pastry chefs, renowned for its sophisticated flavor.
The crème was satisfying without over-much richness, and the chocolate wasn’t overwhelmed by sugar. It was straightforward, simple, but simply good.
The Pot de Crème was dressed up with whipped cream, and in a stroke of genius, arrived with two mini-doughnuts. These spherical wonders had everything a doughnut needs. Well, except for the hole.
Their outer, sugar-encrusted shells offered crunch, their interiors a cakey toothsomeness. They got along well with the chocolate.
If there’s improvement to be had in the Blue Heron Pot de Crème, it could use but one tweak, predictably enough: more of that fine chocolate. It ain’t over, as they say, ‘til Valrhona sings.