Last night I tuned into Food Network’sThrowdown With Bobby Flay to watch chef Flay challenge Dessert Truck to a bread pudding bakeoff, and I sorta expected to see the truck vanquished. I’ve dissed Dessert Truck’s chocolate bread pudding with bacon anglaise in the past, for while it is definitely smooth and chocolatey, and its charms have grown on me, real bread pudding is NOT about smooth. Bread pudding is about spongy layers soaking up egg and butter, like having your favorite french toast for crumbled up dessert. The version chef Flay made (or rather, that his two assistants made while he yammered in the background), was a chocolate-coconut bread pudding with passion-fruit sauce. It looked fantastic, if a bit busy (I wonder if you could taste the bread pudding under all those flavors), next to the relatively homespun pudding cups from the truck. The crowd taste-tasting on the street seemed split, but the two gals they plucked from the audience to judge the winner went with Dessert Truck! One of them had never had bread pudding before though, so there you are. Maybe Dessert Truck is really great, unless bread pudding happens to be your favorite dessert.

Interestingly, this episode showed the Truck’s chef making the bacon anglaise with real chunks of bacon that are subsequently strained out. I could not taste the bacon at all when I tried it, but the crowd claimed they tasted… something. All I can say is, if you promise me bacon, there better be bacon in there!

While we’re on the subject of bread pudding, Whole Foods on the Bowery sells a classic, plain bread pudding by the pound at their dessert bar. Although I usually stretch my arm muscles reaching for the unbroken bits in the back and cringe when I have to skim the skin off the neighboring caramel sauce, this is a decently delicious bread pudding when I can’t find it anywhere else.

Dessert Truck
Day – Park Ave and 52nd St. Monday – Friday: 12:00PM – 4PM
Night – St. Marks Place and 3rd Ave. Monday – Sunday: 6PM until about midnight