The Arlington Club is the newest restaurant from chef Laurent Tourondel, well known from all the BLT restaurants. This restaurant, located on the Upper East Side, was his way of “reinventing the steakhouse.” I personally love steakhouses because they always have a terrific dessert menu! So when looking for a place to go for dessert, I looked no further than The Arlington Club. Right away the warm sticky date pudding and peanut butter chocolate bar caught my attention. However, I was still torn because there was a banana cream pie and a chocolate layer cake on the menu that I was admiring at the table next to me. Our waitress assured me that the pudding and bar were two very good choices, so I stuck to my plan. The warm sticky date pudding comes in a little pot with parchment paper covering the top. As I peeled the paper away, revealing the date pudding, I saw the kumquat toffee topping. The pudding was hot hot hot, quickly warming up my entire body with every bite. It was chewy and soft while being extremely sticky and moist…. in other words, completely addicting. The toffee on top added a fabulous crunch. On the side was a scoop of spicy ginger ice cream. The ginger flavor was a bit overwhelming for me against the sweet pudding, I would preferred vanilla bean.
The peanut butter chocolate bar was long and lean like a candy bar. It was covered in popcorn pieces and drizzled with chocolate sauce. This bar was so smooth you barely had to chew. It was like taking a spoonful of creamy peanut butter out of a jar and eating it. There was a chocolate ganache layer on top of the creamy peanut butter bottom which drizzled down the sides of the whole bar. Served on the side was a small scoop of milk-popcorn ice cream which had a really unique flavor and tied in the popcorn topping on the bar. Even though this bar was rich from the PB and chocolate, it was so light and creamy that you could easily eat the whole thing!
The Arlington Club has a dark and intimate atmosphere and serves excellent food, drinks, and dessert! I highly recommend this restaurant if you are out in NYC!