One does not simply stroll into a vietnamese restaurant looking for dessert

In which we discover a delightful dessert in a most unusual place

Between assorted appointments on Tuesday, Victoria and I had a gap of a little over an hour, so stopped to try a new spot for lunch. "Vietnamese Roll Restaurant," is a pretty unassuming, if descriptive, title for an eatery, so our expectations were fairly level. The restaurant is clean and nicely laid out, with a variety of booths, tables, and a high seating bar at the windows. It is not very wheelchair friendly, since the tables have large bases, and are tightly placed, nevertheless, the owner quickly sprang to make room, and Victoria soon had a comfortable spot.

The menu was pretty standard for such restaurants, with the exception of "and homemade desserts" tacked on after "Special vietnamese foods." Victoria ordered a bun with vietnamese roll and I a stir fry of mixed vegetables in black bean sauce on rice noodles. The food came quickly and was fresh and good quality with generous portions. The one oddity in my meal was that the plate (which could have been a "second", or could have been designed to make the plate look more full) was convex in the centre, so that everything had a tendency to slide towards the outer rim. Hardly an inconvenience, but curious. The restaurant was dotted with photos of homemade cakes, and we had recently had the final in a series of disappointments at Traeger's that caused us to decide to stop going there, we decided we had an obligation to check out the deserts.

Fortune was smiling on us. Those who had the luck to have had Traeger's desserts in the 80s, 90s, or even a few years into the 21st century, will recall desserts made with care and attention. Thick butter creams and precisely layered confections that were worth a premium because of their beauty, as well as their taste. Here we'd discovered a worthy replacement. While the offerings at Tragers have slowly gotten more and more average while retaining, and even increasing, their premium cost, the desserts at "Vietnamese Roll Restaurant" have retained the appearance of having been prepared by someone who cares, and prices that would not have been out of place a decade ago.

Victoria had an orange Vanilla cake, and I a triple chocolate, buth were multi layer with a dense butter cream filling and were made with a precision and cleanliness-of-line that is notably lacking in a lot of cakes these days. Also, they were under $4.00 on the menu, a price that's hard to find in a restaurant brownie, let-alone a well prepared cake.

Final verdict, excellent, and a pleasure to discover. We'll be back.

Vietnamese Roll Restaurant
#6 - 215 Stonebridge Blvd