Pop into Poppy for Thrilling Desserts

Dana Cree, the pastry chef at Poppy (and one of the Rebel Chefs from April's Best Restaurants issue) is the thinking-diner's pastry chef. She analyzes, tweeks, re-works (and Twitters about all of it @deensie) and all of her smarty-chef work really pays off. Last night I popped into Poppy on a whim to do the $15 dessert tasting for two--one dessert, one ice cream, plus 4 yummy side tastes--and it honest-to-goodness blew my mind. And I'm not even much of a sweet tooth.

The most intriguing thing I tasted was Cree's sassafrass ice cream, made with anise hyssop and sassafrass root (plus spices). I kept taking small spoonfuls and catching intriguing tastes of this, no that. It didn't quite taste like a rootbeer float, as our waiter had said, it was more like those little barrel-shaped rootbeer candies, with a strange, illusive heat somewhere that disappeared before you could nail exactly what it was. What a fantastic scoop of ice cream.

We also had an utterly perfect creme brulee flavored subtley with maple blossoms. Dessert-makers around the city would do themselves a favor by tasting this just for its gorgeous texture: smooth, light, impossibly creamy and not a bit pudding-like. Another wow.

Finally, the little tastes: a sweet pate de fruites with such condensed tart-sweet fruit flavor it was like an alarm clock to my tastebuds. But the kicker: homemade nutter butters, with the tiniest flecks of crispiness hidden inside. Almost like pop-rocks in the mouth, except peanut-buttery and delicious.

There was a long line outside of the new Capitol Hill Molly Moon's last night, and I'm a fan too. But for a dessert that'll make you think, that might leave you in awe or open your eyes to possibilities you might not have imagined, do yourself a favor and get to Poppy. Dana Cree's a serious talent.