12/24/17
I love lemon. I love desserts. Not a big shocker here, but I also love lemon desserts. This bigtime bite, quite simply put, is one of the best lemon desserts I've ever had. You'll have to leave the French Quarter for this spot, but it's not too far away, located in the Warehouse District, within downtown New Orleans. It was very conveniently located - a hop, skip and a jump (2 min walk) from my hotel on a recent trip. I highly recommend Meril (Emeril's fourth NOLA restaurant, for those wondering), in general: lots of tasty small plates and shareable dishes. I particularly enjoyed the shrimp tacos and their very unique take on corn bread. With all that said, the star of this show was the lemon ice box cake. It was light, yet decadent. It incorporated just the right amount of that lip-puckering tartness of the lemon, and was sweet, but not too sweet. The crust was composed of graham cracker (I live for a good graham cracker crust) and what really set this dish off for me was the topping - it was a handful of some sort of candied/sugar-coated pieces of lemon (peel? not quite sure, but it was outstanding), which basically tasted like little lemon candies. It provided great texture and accentuated the flavor of each bite. There are so many great places to eat in New Orleans, but I recommend you add this place (and this DISH!) to your list!