Recommend (and, later, eat!) dessert to help out the Seattle Youth Symphony!
  • Recommend (and, later, eat!) dessert to help out the Seattle Youth Symphony!

Sometimes people email me for restaurant recommendations. I always answer, and Slog commenters always have good suggestions too. Josef writes...

Dear Bethany,

Please help me! This is for Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras benefit—SYSO Sweet Suite—on May 3. We are looking for the very best desserts from cuisines that reflect the wide diversity of our students and families. In particular, we are looking for bite-sized authentic desserts from the following cuisines:

• Chinese
• Japanese
• Korean
• Vietnamese
• Thai
• Indian
• African
• Middle Eastern
• Latin American

Do you know the best places that make desserts from these cultures? Do you have specific dishes to recommend?

Thanks so much!
Josef

Dear Josef,

I want so much to help you and Seattle's musical prodigies, but here is my secret shame: I don't really like dessert. No, not even chocolate. I mean, I'll eat it—I'd just prefer a cheese course or a nice cognac (or both). (I see that SYSO Sweet Suite will also have local cheeses and good wine, for people like me...)

But! To get you started, I can tell you that the Chinese egg tarts at Jade Garden are awesome even to those who would normally eschew dessert. You should consider Fuji Bakery and Hiroki in the Japanese category. For Korean desserts, you might consult Rachel Yang and Seif Chirchi of Joule and Revel—their desserts aren't traditional Korean, but they are great people who could point you in the right direction... I could give you some more recommendations like that—restaurants that are excellent at the various cuisines above, which probably have excellent desserts or could help you find them—but maybe the normal dessert-enjoying people of Slog can take a shot first.

But first, a little plug for SYSO Sweet Suite: The Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra will play Wagner and Tchaikovsky, and the special guest will be the awesome cellist Joshua Roman, and it's at the new(ish) MOHAI on May 3. It should be great, and you should go!

Now, help a Josef out, Slog? It's for the children!

Yours as always,
Bethany