Desserts in DC – Cheescake Factory and Kramer’s books and afterwords café

We are both big dessert fans and we made it a point to check out the recommended places for dessert in DC. And so we found ourselves at the Cheesecake Factory at Friendship Heights (a suburb outside the main City centre) on a weekday evening among a lively and hungry crowd.

We had stopped by the Cheesecake Factory for a “small” pre-dinner snack, solely to check out the cheesecakes. Imagine our pleasant surprise when we found that Cheesecake Factory also has a full menu and that they were in the midst of their “Happy Hour” when they offer tasting portions of their bar snacks. And so, we decided to order one slice of cheesecake and one portion of bar snacks to try.

Deciding on the bar snacks (chicken pot stickers) was easy enough. But when it came to picking the cheesecake, we were truly spoilt for choice. This was due to the sheer variety of cheesecake that was available. Two whole pages of the menu were devoted just to the selection of cheesecakes available.

(See pages of menu showing the cheesecakes available)


It was only after much deliberation that we settled on the chocolate raspberry truffle cheesecake. It was described in the following terms: “chocolate cake, raspberry swirl cheesecake, chocolate marnier and chocolate ganache”.

The chicken pot stickers came first and we were surprised to find that they were actually the dumplings that we find back home (or guo tie / gyoza as we commonly refer to them). They were pretty good and reminded us of the food back home so they were even better on that count.

Then came the star – the cheesecake! It came with a HUGE dollop of whipped cream that I swore instantly not to touch but that resolution failed almost immediately when I discovered (courtesy of W) that the whipped cream went really really well with the bitter-sweetness of the cheesecake (due to the extremely high chocolate content). The cheesecake was quite frankly one of the best that I have had not least because the high chocolate content suited the chocoholic side of me perfectly.

The cheesecake was dense and yet crumbly enough that when you dig into it with a fork, delectable bits of the cheesecake will come apart. The sweetness of the raspberry swirled within the cheesecake contrasted nicely with the bitterness of the chocolate. The crust was good too, fragrant and buttery and it tasted like it was made of digestive biscuits mixed generously with butter.

In keeping with American food portions, the slice of cheesecake that we had was fairly large and we failed to finish it, despite it being as good as it was. But we agreed that it was certainly a worthy visit and it was a great way to spend a rainy evening in DC.

The next day, we headed to Kramer’s Books and Afterwords Café at Dupont Circle in search of more desserts. R, an old friend who lived in DC for a number of years had suggested that we check this place out for its “really good desserts”. Our hotel had also recommended the same and so we decided to head there from Georgetown.

We didn’t have the exact address for Kramer’s but after some asking around, we were pointed in the right direction and we found it without too much trouble. The café was located behind the bookstore, which we understood to be one of the better known independent book-sellers in DC. This was certainly not your typical Borders or Barnes and Noble.

We headed to the café which was at the rear end of the bookstore and quickly found seats since it was still early. The vibe of the café was a relaxed one and we could understand why it’s particularly popular with the college and young working adults crowd.

One of the first signs that Kramer’s didn’t take itself too seriously was when we saw that one of the signature cocktails Kramer’s offered was the “Billary” – As you can’t have one without the other.”

Jon, our server recommended the berry pie with vanilla bean ice-cream (as we didn’t feel like any more chocolate after the fix we got at Cheesecake Factory the day before). The pie came quickly and it was served piping hot which was great with the ice-cold vanilla bean ice-cream (according to one of our friends who is a pastry chef, if you can see tiny black specks in your vanilla ice-cream, they have used genuine vanilla beans in making the ice-cream. We are glad to say that the vanilla bean ice-cream served at Kramer’ was full of tiny black specks of vanilla beans).

What made out short sojourn to Kramer’s even more interesting was when we started talking to Jon (our server) and found out that he is also friends with R (the friend who directed us to Kramer’s in the first place). It’s amazing how small and inter-connected our world truly is.

Truth be told though that as much as we enjoyed Kramer’s, it was not as good as the Cheesecake Factory (in our opinion). If you have been to both or either, share with us your views as well?

- M