Currant Events: And Now For Some Breaking Mousse

Ever have that dream where you’re flying down a giant slide, except it turns out to be a Pop Tart? Well that’s what I wish would happen with Modo’s white chocolate mousse (RMB 58). If I were Lilliputian, I’d start at the top of that thin, curvaceous cookie, push off and pick up some speed until I plowed straight into the blackcurrant sorbet. Eating my way out of the tart, silky little scoop would be no problem.

The challenge would be how to get to the downy cream of the white chocolate mousse below. My strategy would be to jump up and down on the cookie until it broke into little triangular rafts, then dunk my face straight into the rivers of mousse that are sure to come up in between. Oh, sweet sweet satisfaction. I’m not usually a fan of white chocolate, but the texture they achieve in this dessert convinces me that the pale cousin of chocolate does in fact deserve to exist.

Next I might grab some tiny friends and migrate over to a neighboring plate of dessert: the goat cheese panna cotta with poached pears and basil foam (RMB 58). This dessert will ask us to behave ourselves a little more. Perhaps we’ll gather round the dome of gelatinous cream and scoop with cupped hands instead of planting our faces directly in.

We could finish with the profiteroles (RMB 58). The caramelized peanuts allude to a neighborhood carnival, so we might as well treat the cream puffs as edible bouncy houses filled with ice cream. Which really begs the question: Why hasn’t someone done this already?

Modo. Sun-Thu noon-10pm, Fri-Sat noon-10.30pm. 3/F, Sanlitun Village South, 19 Sanlitun Lu, Chaoyang District (6415 7207) 朝阳区三里屯路19号三里屯Village南区3层

By subway: 800m west of Tuanjiehu station (Line 10)

Click here to see the September issue of the Beijinger in full.

Photo: Judy Zhou