Dessert of the Year
Prestigious Partners
The proof is in Mhel’s purin, a Japanese rendition of crème caramel made velvety sweet with Ontario-sourced cream and maple syrup.
Dessert was something of an afterthought at Mhel, a restaurant inspired by the anchovy. In Japanese izakayas and Korean bars – the pub-style formats that inspired owners Seung-min Yi and Young Hoon Ji – most meals end with fruit or tea, if anything at all. But to satisfy customer expectations, a sweet closer became a necessity. And in Mhel’s case, necessity became the mother of the best dessert of the year: purin.
Purin means “pudding” in Japanese, though it more closely resembles crème caramel or flan. As Ji tells me, “The texture and the level of sweetness we are going for are like the caramel purins found in coffee shops and yoshoku (Western-style) restaurants in Japan.”
Except it’s made in Ontario. Instead of milk, 45% cream sourced from Sheldon Creek Dairy’s purebred Holsteins gives the egg and sugar custard its silky-smooth texture. Tapped from organic trees in Northumberland County, Tamarack Farms’ award-winning maple syrup sweetens the caramel sauce Ji and Yi pour over the custard.
The custard wiggles in its shallow, porcelain Japanese mamezara dish as I nudge it with my spoon, offering a gratifying show of resistance. The spoonful melts in my mouth, its sweetness offset only by the fine-tuned bitter of the caramel. A hint of Japanese seaweed salt twinkles on the tongue, drawing out one last savoury note with a delightful lick.
Prestigious Partners
