Something Sweet Dessert Lounge is a fun, casual dessert eatery and the ideal place to catch up with friends. As its name suggests, this restaurant offers sweet treats as well as coffees, teas, hot chocolate and soda fountain beverages.
The menu is a sweet-aholic’s dream with pages of pies, ice cream, shakes and cakes. From raspberry swirl cheesecake to apple pie to an espresso torte, Something Sweet’s selection is diverse. The restaurant offers savory foods like soups, salads, sandwiches and melts as well, and with a whole shelf full of games like chess and Jenga, it’s easy to hang around with friends for a while.
On the surface, this laid-back lounge seems like a perfect place for everyone, from the dessert connoisseur to the average student with a sweet tooth.
But if you think it sounds too good to be true, you’re right. Three of the four times I visited Something Sweet, I was completely disappointed with my dessert.
The idea of an eatery centered entirely on desserts always made me want to give it another chance, but no longer. In nearly all of my experiences, the food was mediocre and tasted like prepackaged freezer fare.
The peanut butter cake, simply a chocolate cake topped with peanut butter frosting, was dry and bland. I found myself just nibbling at the frosting, which was the only thing this dessert had going for it.
However, Something Sweet staff said that over 40 of the desserts are, in fact, made from scratch in-house with ingredients from various local farms, Shamrock Farms and Costco.
Recently, I ordered a blueberry pie, one of the special pies that is not normally offered. I was anticipating a warm pastry with flaky crust and fresh, gooey blueberries oozing from the sides. But the pie I received had an oddly chewy crust filled with dry blueberries in a hard, gelatinous blueberry substance that looked like it came from a preserves jar.
The Boston cream pie is a better bet. The fudge frosting was rich and decadent, the cake was fairly moist and the custardy cream filling was a nice addition that gave the cake a soft, melt-in-your-mouth texture.
The mixed berry cobbler, on the other hand, was the most disappointing of all. Cobblers should be a pleasing concoction of warm, soft fruit in thick compote with a cake or pie-like crust. The crust can be on both the top and bottom or just on the top, whether it’s cake-like or pie-like is a matter of personal preference. Either way, this baked dessert should be warm when you receive it, ready to fall apart as soon as you dig your fork in.
The mixed berry cobbler I received, however, was a meager dish of berries with a thin sauce and a bit of powdered mixture sprinkled over the top. The powdered mixture was likely a typical streusel topping: flour, sugar and maybe a tiny bit of butter and cinnamon. The berries themselves may have been cooked, but this was far from a cobbler. I had to ask for some extra streusel topping just to add a little more substance to the dish.
This is not to say that you shouldn’t ever go to Something Sweet. It’s a great place to have a get-together with friends and the restaurant offers some fun treats — just bear in mind that it’s no top-tier bakery.
