Luxee 05-15-2009

Location: 6 Clinton St.
Time: 9pm
People: RB and myself

Feelings: With a box of Lactaid in hand, we finally made it to the Japanese-French dessert cafe, Luxee in the Lower East Side. Nothing will stop me when it comes to French dessert prepared with Japanese flair such as Chikalicious and even Beard Papa's. According to their website, all of their eggs and dairy are organic as well as many of their produce. They also offer dessert classes, so it seems Luxee is more than just a cafe. It seems more of a dessert experience.

We sat at a beautifully decorated cafe looking over the delicious menu pictures. Everything at the takeout section looked so radiant and delicate I could have stared at them for hours. But within a minute, I chose a yuzu cupcake and green tea roll cake with sencha, and RB ordered a layered chocolate cake with raspberry and cherry compote with genmaicha. Our pots of sencha and genmaicha were superb and mouth-watering. My late grandmother was a tea connoisseur, and she used to often make both sencha and genmaicha. The tea I had here reminded me a lot of her tea, perhaps even better. (Sorry grandma!) The sencha was perfectly grassy and subtly bitter-sweet with beautiful light golden green color. The genmaicha was fresh and had the impeccable aroma of roasted rice, which is the same exact scent that came from my grandmother's house. I had not smelt this particular aroma of well roasted tea for more than 20 years.

After such an amazing tea experience and little nostalgia, I expected even more from the cake. The dessert looked amazing, but unfortunately everything tasted a little stale. The sponge was dry and cream was not fresh. I am sure they must have tasted beyond phenomenal when they were just made, but it seems they sat at the store all day, and we might have missed the tastiest moment. We hope to go back there earlier in the afternoon and try their macarons next time.