Tiramisù at Barcibo

The first time I had this I didn't know that I wanted it.  In fact, I don't really have a sweet tooth, so I turned it down.  But Dana, a real tiramisù snob, told me to shut up and eat it.  I thank her for that to this day.

At Barcibo on the UWS they take quite an un-Italian stance on an old Italian standard dessert.  Most Italians I know like to do things "the old way, the right way" when it comes to food.  This is the first deconstruction of a dessert served to me in an Italian restaurant that I've come across so far.

You're given a plate with a cup of espresso, some ladyfingers, a ramekin of zabaione and a spoon.  It really should come with a glass of dessert wine, but that's just peripheral to the zabaione.  You dip the ladyfingers in coffee or into the ramekin filled with what can only be described as the food Helen of Troy was reincarnated as.  It is smooth and cold like custard but with the weight of a mousse, like the soft cleft between perfect breasts.  It isn't frothy or airy like mousse, though.  It is as if air has been replaced by promises of dark delights whispered to you by a beautiful woman in a bright room...She touches your shoulder in a way that sears through your clothes, her lips all but pressed against your ear and you don't so much as hear her say what she's going to do to you as feel like she's already started.  A bite of the dry sweet cookie covered in this parfait parfait is a contrast in texture that only tantalizes you more.  The burnt bitterness of the coffee lingers on your tongue as the savoiardi cookie dissolves and the zabaione makes love to your mouth.  The comparison to other kinds of cream is not out of place, and you think, "if people actually tasted like this, I'd never leave the bedroom".  You continue to ladyfinger the stuff until you're just unable to hold back and go straight in with the spoon, and it's as if you're racing to "finish" before you finish. 

Finally the person next to you comes back into focus as they pry the ramekin from your face before the waitress throws you out.  Every other patron in the restaurant now knows that they should be having what you just had.  You've just had a wild ride with a tiramisù that you hardly know, in public, which is something you never do, and it was unlike anything you've ever thought you would do.  The next time you have really good tiramisù it will be delicious, but it won't feel as forbidden as this.  It'll be like going back to your regular sex life after a night with this mysterious, unearthly woman - it won't make you unhappy with reality, you won't change your life and your tastes for her, you won't even think of her that often, only sometimes when you're alone or after an uninteresting fling.

But you will find yourself finding reasons to be on the UWS.