"Life is short and unpredictable. Eat the dessert first!" -Helen Keller
While Helen Keller made a great point, I am not talking about eating dessert first. I’m speaking of deciding which dessert first. In most restaurants selecting the delicious ending comes after you finish your meal.
Most likely, you’ll choose and eat three courses, including a shared appetizer, soup or salad, and a complete entrée. THEN, the server presents you with the dessert menu. But you’re too full to order it.
Call me crazy, but dessert requires some planning. When cooking at home, it isn’t an afterthought, and it shouldn’t be in a restaurant. I ask to see the dessert menu right upfront.
Even more daring is requesting the server to bring the dessert tray before ordering. Why risk what others might think is crazy behavior?
I often selected a restaurant because they had a chocolate raspberry dessert, sometimes calling ahead to ask. So, knowing if I need to save room for dessert is at the top of the list.
Dessert menus traditionally have fewer selections than the entrée menu, so it’s more challenging to choose a sweet ending if you’ve already selected an entrée.
Choose the dessert and then figure out what entrée will go with it. An example might be the delicious looking apple crostata. That will pair better with a pork entrée than perhaps a main beef dish.