away from home

Dubai Mall: Fauchon Cafe

Dazzling like the great pyramids of Giza in the middle of the desert, so did the stand alone boutique cafe Fauchon in the centre of a certain winglet of the enormous Dubai Mall. Be sure that sitting in the cafe would almost cause a little sense of mystification, perplexity for some, as a quick spin around on the spot would feature a gallery of glamorous outlets with the likes of Versace, Guess, Burberry and many many more.

Thank goodness for the mufffled shopaholic in me, the surrounding distractions were all but a buzzing drone in the background as I laid my eyes on the pastries gleaming from within the clear glass cabinets in Fauchon.

We settled down with our order of 6 delightful pastries. Up till this point, life was bliss.

Then I savoured the chocolate eclair; filled with a soft dark chocolate (70%) cream and dark chocolate glaze and punctated with golden globes, showered with gold dust; Life turned a notch up on the turmoil scale. Tongues in a struggle with the rich flavors experienced. Pity for the slightly dry choux pastry, the cream was revolutionary.

Shifting the plates like a merry-go-round around the gleaming reflective black table top, all of us dug into the desserts, without a tinge of reservation in tow.

Mont Blanc: yet another creation that swept me off my feet with it's tantalizing textural contrast and muted sweetness. A combination of chestnut cream, a crisp french meringue centre with blueberry jam on sable breton. Lovely.

From across the table, the black beauty dappled with crunchy tahitian vanilla meringue beckoned out to me. The Megave with it's smooth dark chocolate (66%) mousse centre was a showstopper with it's clothing of smooth chocolate globules sprayed on by a pistolet. One could certainly run smack into a chocolate ceiling with this dessert.

Not failing my expectations, the pistachio macarons were gorgeous, with a unsickly tinge of green, these beauties held an aromatic scent of nuts. Simply put; one of the best macarons yet. The other greenies to grace the table were the Carremenfraise, featuring a pistachio and orange rind sponge cake sandwiching a bourbon vanilla cream and fresh strawberries. The revelations don't stop coming.

Reaching the end of the entourage, I reached out for the 'gold-plated' carremchoc, determined to savour a bite of the sweet treat depsite my protesting innards. Smooth dark chocolate cream, again... wait a minute, digging into the centre of the dessrt, I stumbled upon the real deal. Crunchy dark chocolate sponge providing a unpredictable nutty crunch to it's rather run-of-the-mill poise.

I kid you not, Fauchon desserts were an endless line of surprises, leaving me with assaulted taste buds and a ringing buzz of euphoria. Suddenly, life emerged a little more than blissful. Almost surreal.