Less Chocolate Sauce at The Wallflower Modern Diner

The Wallflower Modern Diner still makes the best chocolate cake ever -- rich, dense, moist, and you get a large portion for your money. But what happened to the chocolate sauce?!

I'd been to the Wallflower a few times over the last couple of years, and even dragged some of my friends there. Good eats other than their wonderful vegan chocolate cake included hummus melt, blackened halibut. Just this Thursday morning I went for a late breakfast with a friend.

The Wallflower opens at 9am, and by 9.30 am it was still completely empty when I walked in. Things got busy shortly after that, though, and closer to 10am, the restaurant was at least half full, with the buzz of conversation competing with the loud music.

Although it was breakfast, I wanted to save room for the chocolate cake, so I went with just an appy -- $11 Crab and Apple Cakes (crab, curry, onion, apple, peach, cumin mayo). This came as three cakes, each about 2/3rds the size of a hockey puck. It was topped with slices of grilled apple and peach, and there was a token salad on the side.
The cumin mayo tasted remarkably like peanut sauce used for satay, but without any crushed peanuts and not as spicy. The curry in the crab cakes I felt competed too successfully with the crab meat and the fruit, so much so that I could only just get a hint of crab and no sign of fruitiness. The cakes were also remarkably dry and I had an awful feeling they'd been overcooked to dryness.

The cake part of the chocolate cake was still a solid, yummy, rich, cake. The shape has changed somewhat since I was last there -- it's taller than I remembered, but the portion isn't as long. There was also only a drizzle of chocolate sauce compared to the generous pour that used to be on it. Maybe there was too much waste from before, but I definitely missed the decadence.

$11 crab cakes, $6 chocolate cake, and $3 mint tea from Mighty Leaf made for a pricey $20 (before tax and tip) breakfast/brunch. Sadly my dining partner, who ordered the meatloaf benny (a slice of meatloaf in lieu of crumpets), was too full to have more than a bite of chocolate cake, which I had dearly wanted her to try.

Comments

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 3

A picture from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. I can't remember why I had this couple in the picture, but I do vaguely remember this to be in London, on the first official day of the tour group getting together. Their insistence on my helping them take a picture caused the three of us to be late getting back to the bus. The local tour guide had a "rule" about lateness, that we had to buy chocolate to share with everyone. As it turned out, later in the trip, on at least two occasions, we were stuck on the highway on either a long commute or a traffic jam, and I had chocolate and chocolate-covered marzipan to share. About the chocolate-covered marzipan -- Apparently we were in Austria just as they were celebrating Mozart's birthday with special marzipans wrapped in foil with the famous composer's picture. I'm pretty sure it was Mirabell Mozartkugeln . Anyway, there were enough to go around the en...

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 10

The last of my pictures (at least the ones that survived the cheesy disposable cameras) from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. Below is the obligatory group photo. Not sure everyone's in it, actually. I'm pretty sure this one was taken by the tour director, Mike Scrimshire as I'm in the back row, on the right side.

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 9

More assorted couples on my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. An American couple who joked about being from "the land of the giants" -- and with good reason, because both of them were really tall! A cute Jewish mother-daughter pair who ducked out part-way to divert to Israel. I vaguely remember the issue of the daughter being an orthodox Jew was highlighted in France when, to make things easy, she just declared herself vegetarian for the wait staff. I also remember there was some logistics error in France because our party size was way underestimated or simply relayed incorrectly, and there was a shortage of food at dinner. Dessert came as an unopened can of yogurt. It did not seem like they tried to make it up to us later, either. Plus there was smoking every which way in France, and I had a helluva time with that. We were also in a hotel that seemed tucked away in the burbs, and not walking distance from anythin...

Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

Search This Blog