For the November edition of Where to Eat — our monthly column dedicated to hot restaurant picks around Dallas — the theme is light, snacky, and sweet. These aren't recommendations for sit-down meals. You'll be getting your share of that at the end of the month (and here's just the list for that).
Instead, these are places to go for fun, occasionally whimsical desserts.
Here are 5 restaurants with fun new desserts to try:
Avalanche Dessert Lounge
Newly-opened long-awaited mom-and-pop shop at 3530 W. University Dr. in McKinney is into "extreme" desserts. We're talking funnel cakes loaded with toppings, like strawberry short cake funnel cake. Over-the-top milkshakes stacked with cakes and sweets — rather awkward sitting atop a milkshake, but it's a thing. And "ice cream buns" — ice cream sandwiches made on doughnuts. Last but not least, tableside s'mores: a lazy susan-style bowl with built-in nooks for marshmallows, chocolate chips both white and dark, Hershey's chocolate and Kit Kat bars, graham crackers, and in the center, a burner where you toast your marshmallows yourself.
Churroholic
Churroholic is the dessert concept that's part of Hiccups, an Asian-fusion restaurant that offers a variety of specialty drinks and boba. The two concepts live in the same space, side by side. Hiccups has real food, if you care to indulge, while Churroholic has a variety of imaginative churro-based desserts, including churro sundaes, just as it sounds, with churros topped with ice cream, syrup, whipped cream, and a cherry; and ice cream sandwiches, with ice cream in between two flattened churros. If you're more simple in your tastes, you can get ice cream solo, or an order of churros. A location opened in Frisco in the spring, and a second will open in Richardson in December.
Fiiz Drinks
Beverages are the main thing at this Frisco shop, with specialty drinks made with soda that flavored with purees and syrups, with cool names like the Chandler Bing with Mountain Dew, coconut, strawberry and pineapple. They also do smoothies, slushies, Italian sodas, flavored waters, and hot drinks. But it doesn't stop at drinks: There are cookies, macarons, "Cool Beads" ice cream dots, popcorn, and even chips and salsa. Theoretically, you get chips ad salsa for your "entree" and finish with dessert. Fiiz hails from Utah and has 26 locations in Utah, Arizona, and Nevada.
Nobu Uptown
This is, in fact, a serious sit-down restaurant and one of Dallas' best sushi destinations. Surprisingly for a sushi restaurant, they do some desserts with the same kind of attention they give to sushi. One is called the Dessert Bento Box, which is a stretch since you expect a box, and there is no box. Nobu, don't call it a bento box if there is no box. But it does combine more than one item on one plate: Valrhona dark chocolate fondant — basically, a molten lava cake with a Nobu-stamped cap — plus fruit and Imperial matcha gelato.
Tocotoco Tea
Plano tea house has teas of all kinds — boba, milk tea, iced tea, and fruit tea. But there are also unique desserts. They do two kinds of waffles: pandan, made from a batter with coconut milk and exotic pandan flavoring, crispy on the outside, soft and chewy inside; and Hong Kong-style waffles, puffy, bubbly, and eggy. One dessert features a Hong Kong waffle curled into a cone and filled with boba ice cream — as in, ice cream topped with boba pearls. Tocotoco also has a major scene going on, with live music that draws a crowd.
