Since I went to school for baking and work as a baker at a restaurant, when I go out to eat I usually look at the dessert menu, both out of curiousity and just as inspiration for new ideas. In Portland, when restaurant desserts are mentioned, the name Papa Haydn invariably comes up. I’d never been there, but I’d heard that it was pretty good. We decided to go for my birthday, which was in November. I had an excellent cheeseburger and fries, and then it was time to peruse the dessert menu. The night we were there, there were about 10 different tortes, cakes, and cheesecakes, plus 4 or 5 other desserts, from which to choose. I decided on the banana cream pie, since sometimes the simplest, homiest desserts can be the most telling of a chef’s skill. And I was greatly disappointed. The bananas were rock hard, bordering on green, and the pastry cream was flavorless mush. I made much more satisfying banana cream pie at home when I was 10 years old. But I figured maybe it was a fluke, everyone has an off day once in a while.
Last night I was at a friend’s house, and she decided that she had a craving for cake, specifically coconut cake. Immediately I thought of Caprial’s Bistro since last time we were there, coconut cake was on the menu. But alas, it was Sunday, and they’re closed on Sundays and Mondays. So I thought why not give Papa Haydn another try. I know they’ll have something with coconut in it. And so off we went, hopes high, in search of coconutty goodness. When we arrived, this time at the East Location (on Milwaukie in Westmoreland) it was relatively quiet, and the kitchen didn’t seem too busy, so I decided to have dinner before getting down the the more important business of dessert. I had goat cheese and yukon gold potato ravioli in a cream sauce with bacon and caramelized onions. They were really good, especially since I’m not usually a huge goat cheese fan. Then I took my friend’s 9-year-old daughter with me up to the dessert case. After a serious debate on the relative merits of various cakes, cheesecakes, and tortes, I decided on a slice of lemon chiffon cake, my friend had a slice of german chocolate, and her daughter had chocolate mint truffle torte. After deconstructing the desserts (my friend is also a pastry chef), we were unimpressed. It should be impossible to have dry, crumbly chocolate cake layers in a german chocolate cake, due to the gooiness of the filling moistening them, but Papa Haydn managed it. The cake was hard (stale?) dry and crumbly. I had a similar problem with the lemon chiffon cake. The lemon curd filling was good, nice and tart, but the cake was really dense and crumbly. I don’t think that they use soaking syrup on the layers, and that simple (and relatively inexpensive) step would dramatically improve their cakes. The buttercream on the lemon cake was also mediocre; it had an off flavor and a slick mouthfeel, presumably due to the use of shortening along with the butter.
The main reason I’m so critical of Papa Haydn’s desserts is that there’s no excuse for those kinds of problems at that kind of establishment. They were charging $7-$8 for a slice of cake. With those kinds of prices, they should be able to use the best quality ingredients, and no skimping or shortcuts. I might go there again for a meal, but I’ll go somewhere else for dessert.
As a side note, another one of my friend’s calls Papa Haydn “Expensive Dessert,” hence the name of the entry.
