U:Dessert Story

U:Dessert Story has been on my radar since it opened.  As I am a huge dessert eater, you can probably guess just from the name that it appeals to me.  They opened in SF in 2018, a spinoff from Sweet Maple (that was also on my list of places to try, a brunch place, known for the Millionaire's Bacon and other sweet decadent creations).  They opened a second location in Berkeley in 2020, have even expanded to offer retail items like flavored mochi waffle mixes (ube, chocolate, matcha), and large format take home milk tea sets.

"U :Dessert Story is the next level of Asian desserts--influenced by Korean, Japanese, and Thai passion. Our desserts are homemade in our kitchen with love using the highest quality ingredients."

But U: Dessert Story is all about desserts, with Asian flair.  The menu is full of cakes - but no ho-hum cakes here.  Instead, you'll find several flavors of the every trendy 18 layer crepe cakes, Japanese style cheesecakes (lychee, or honey yuzu), and also trendy basque cheesecake (but of course, it is infused with uji matcha).  Even the chocolate cake is fascinating (chocolate truffle cake with chocolate mascarpone), the molten lava cake is filled with matcha lava, and the banofee pie has ojicha cream and almonds to jazz up the classic recipe.  Not in the mood for cake?  No problem.  How about a flavored Croffle (yes, a croissant waffle), such as salted egg yolk with thai tea ice cream?  Or perhaps a mochi waffle is more your style?  That would be ube flavored, and topped with boba, Oreo, gold flakes, berries, and more, with ube sauce to drizzle over it all.  Of course there is honey brick toast, again with elements like salted egg yolk custard sauce or mango sticky rice inspired, and a slew of different bingsu.

If you actually do want some savory items to go with your sweets, they have a few of those too: think Korean cheese corn dogs, Japanese takoyaki, Thai spicy ramyeon, and more.  And you better believe there are no fewer than 8 matcha drinks, milk teas, cheese tea, classic tea, coffee drinks, smoothies and more to wash it all down.

Yup, I've been paying attention to this place, but as its located in another part of the city, I just never made it there.  But one day, someone brought in a cake to the office, and had leftover.  I went running.

Matcha Crepe Cake.
$115 full size or $15/slice.

"18 Crepe layers (9 inches) of Organic Matcha from Japanese Uji Farm Cream & Crepe which comes with Homemade Organic Matcha Sauce and Homemade Red Bean Paste."

U:Dessert Story makes crepe cakes in 3 flavors: Thai tea, young coconut pandan, or matcha, the later of which is what our hosts selected (I certainly would have picked coconut pandan ...).

This was obviously a beautiful whole cake, but by the time I got to it, only this wedge was left.  I'll let you use your imagination of how nicely it looked before the others hacked at it.

This was a decent crepe cake.  The crepes were appropriately thin, fresh, not dried out.  The matcha flavor in the cream was legit, it was clear they use high quality matcha, and plenty of it.  Definitely a cake for matcha lovers, and if you don't want to taste in your face matcha, this isn't for you.

So, good crepes, quality matcha.  But I still found it only "decent", not great, because for me the ratio of crepes to cream was off.  Too much cream, which you'll very rarely hear me say.  I add whipped cream to everything, and I'm all about creme, but here, it really overwhelmed the delicate crepes a bit too much for me, not allowing me to really taste and enjoy their texture and flavor.

Thus, decent crepe cake.  I'd still try the pandan coconut, but, put this a level or two behind somewhere like Lady M.  ***.

Homemade Matcha Sauce and Red Bean Paste.
$3 each (included with whole cake).

U: Dessert Story makes their own sauces that go along with the different desserts, including matcha and red bean as we had included with the matcha crepe cake, but also coconut, banana, and Thai tea.

I failed to get a good photo of these sauces, but the red bean paste was remarkably ... red.  Far more red than any other red bean I've seen.  The paste was good though, some chunks of bean, sweetened.  Just, a slightly too red for my brain red.  I like sweetened red bean in general, but didn't find it to be a very good match with the macha.  I'm not sure why they serve it with this in particular.  ***.

The matcha sauce added tons more matcha flavor to an already deeply matcha item.  Drizzle as much or as little as you want on top.  It really didn't need it, given how strongly matcha flavored the cake was, and how moist the cake was, but, I'm never going to turn down a sauce.  ***.