Petite Provence

Petite Provence

Quite the date spot is located at 4834 SE Division in Portland. The name of this beautiful French restaurant has one of the best set ups I have ever seen. When enter you can choose to sit and eat or go straight to the bakery counter and order a coffee and/or a pastry.

I did both… Mainly because a cute man offered to buy me lunch and I couldn’t refuse a free meal before my dessert.
My first dessert was the Chunky Monkey: an eight layered cake. Within the eight layers it contained chocolate, caramel, cream, and banana flavors, with a possible hint of cream cheese. The chocolate overwhelmed the dessert for me.

Again, I love chocolate, but when I get dessert with other flavors, I want to taste it all. The dense chocolate, although creamy and tasty, overpowered and ruined this dessert for me. It was simply too rich.

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Bonuses of this dessert were the caramel and banana creams (although they were over powered), the crunchy chocolate bottom layer that gave a crisp contrast in texture to the creams and cakes, and the slice of apricot on top of it all that added a hint of tang to the whole thing.

Over all, great experience. I would recommend Petite Provence to anyone looking for a good meal (or pastry and coffee) in Portland… Especially if a cute boy(or girl) offers to pay. They also have locations elsewhere in The Dalles, Lake Oswego, and on NE Alberta in Portland.

Part One: Pix Patisserie

Pix Patisserie

Part One: http://www.pixpatisserie.com/

What could be wrong with a patisserie, especially one that is open until midnight, and sometimes even until 2am? Located at 3402 Southeast Division, Pix Patisserie it’s a cute cozy little place. Not only do they serve desserts, but they also offer alcoholic drinks as well.

The atmosphere is perfect for a date night. I drove by around 8pm on Monday night and couldn’t find it for the life of me, and later parked and walked down Division to find it. The low lighting doesn’t make it stick out, but it gives a romantic atmosphere that I would return for.

The man at the counter was sweet and helpful with my questions with hair three times the length of mine (I guess that isn’t that hard to do, since my hair is so short, and I should be accustomed to all the hippies by now…) and a nice button down shirt. He picked me out three of his favorite desserts.  I opted to get the desserts to go and I enjoyed them at home.

The first dessert I tore into was, what they call, the “Queen of Sheba Truffle Cake”. Their description of this dessert is “moist chocolate almond cake with bittersweet chocolate center. Warmed slightly for molten chocolate center.”  Since I took the dessert to go, I used a toaster oven to warm mine up. I then topped it with some chocolate ice cream from Pix as well.

Damn.

Chocolate coma.

The cake was warm and creamy, almost like a torte, or a chocolate truffle that had been warmed by the sun, the ice cream was smooth and creamy and the contrast of cold and warm made my tummy happy. Sprinkled with coco powder, and lined in a pretty dark brown and gold paper, it was very eye pleasing.

The taste…. Good. Now, I’m a baker, so I think I’m over critical of desserts, but I wasn’t overly impressed. The textures were pleasing, the taste was nice, but the outside of the cake seemed just a little dry, and the portion was huge. Most people wouldn’t complain about a huge portion, but I’m not most people, and I don’t like my food to go to waste; and worse than food wasting is feeling like a fat-ass because you ate all of the food that was on your plate so it wouldn’t waste. Catch 22’s are fun like that.

I would suggest going to Pix though. Despite my mixed comments, it was a good dessert, made by hand, with good service, a great atmosphere, and only $6.50 for the “individual” serving ($22 for a 6inch, or $34 for an 8inch).

If you want to check them out (which you should), they are open Monday-Thursday from 2pm to midnight, Friday from 2pm to 2am, Saturday from 12pm-2am, and Sunday from 12pm to 12am. But a word of warning, the “Queen of Sheba Truffle Cake” is only for chocolate lovers.