Sweets for the Sweet at Perry's

Perry's has introduced some new dessert items that took over a year to conceptualize, tweak, taste, tweak again and, finally, present to the public just in time for Valentine's Day - although, ironically, these desserts will NOT be available today, because Perry's is only offering a pre-fixe menu for Valentine's.

The four new items are inspired by old-fashioned favorites that most of us ate as children...and some of us continue to eat as adults.

Deconstructed lemon meringue pie was my personal favorite. It's a bowl of lemon pie filling with the softer texture of pudding, topped with gingered blueberries, shortbread crumbles and a tuft of toasted meringue that was nearly as good and gooey as the giant homemade marshmallow that came on one of the other desserts. It's simple and satisfying, with a textural, fresh element courtesy of the blueberries.

Coming in at a very, very close second was the milk chocolate peanut butter candy bar. The best part about this one is that Perry's will be offering it FREE when you order any entrée between February 15 - March 8. All you have to do is ask for it.

It's a milk chocolate peanut butter mousse sitting on top of a chocolate cookie crust, topped with some slap-ya-mama-it's-so-good hot fudge and served with candied peanuts. The filling is so rich, dense, chocolaty and peanut buttery that it sticks to the roof of your mouth. It's found its way onto my favorite chocolate desserts list and is hovering near the top.

Next up was the rocky road bread pudding, a steakhouse-size portion of butterscotch bread pudding studded with chocolate chips, drizzled in caramel sauce, topped with a toasted, house-made marshmallow that's nearly as big as the bread pudding itself, and served with candied walnuts. It is entirely too sweet for my tastes. The giant marshmallow is fantastic, the bread pudding is fantastic, and all the other elements on the dish are fantastic, but wow, all together, they're a blast of sugar - in a huge portion. Perhaps if I'd had a cup of coffee to cut through the cloying nature of the dessert, I would have enjoyed it more.

Lastly, and least impressively, were the grown-up milk and cookies. Least impressive not because they aren't crazy-good chocolate chip cookies or a super-tasty Maker's Mark milkshake, but because this is just chocolate chip cookies served with a spiked milkshake. If I'm going to eat dessert at a nice steakhouse, I want something I can't make at home.
If you want to try out Perry's new dessert items, remember, they're not available today, although it would still be a good Valentine's Day destination.

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