Dessert to share -- or not

ISN’T it strange that here, in this town obsessed with fitness, desserts keep getting bigger?

Look at the dense, three-inch-square slice of chocolate cake they serve at Nick & Stef’s Steakhouse downtown. “A large dessert,” sous chef Brian Kiepler says, “makes people happy.”

Or the banana beignet at Morton’s. You’d have to skip dinner to consume the whole goblet of fried bananas topped with ice cream and caramel sauce.

And then there’s the one widely considered the ultimate: Sonora Cafe’s Southwest sundae, a 24-inch behemoth of ice cream, caramelized bananas, hot fudge, caramel-like cajeta and chopped toffee. The big secret here: it costs just $7.

In fact, most of these big desserts are relatively low-priced, considering that one is enough to feed the entire table. That cake is $6. The beignets, $8.

Many chefs say they go big on dessert for exactly that reason: The entire table ends up eating just one. “If you share, you don’t have to make a commitment to an enormous sweet thing,” says Natasha MacAller, executive pastry chef at Union in Santa Monica. “You can just nibble.”

Pam Morton of Morton’s says, “People like to take bites of each other’s desserts. It’s festive. Very few people eat a whole dessert on their own.”

Ahem. We doubt that we’re the only ones who innocently ordered one of these things -- none of the menus say what you’re getting into -- and ended up eating every last bite, all by ourselves.

At least Whist in Santa Monica gives fair warning. Pastry chef Shelly Register has an entire menu of enormous desserts, under the heading, “Desserts for the Table.”

No excuses there.

-- Jessica Strand

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Designer water for discriminating palates

There’s sparkling, there’s flat, and now we’re hearing a lot about something in between, a lightly carbonated water named Badoit. While it’s more carbonated cousins can make their way right into your nasal passages, this French brand just gently tickles your tongue.

It’s hard to come by, but it has found its way onto a number of tables around town. At Bastide in West Hollywood, restaurant manager Donato Poto describes it as “the opposite of Perrier.”

“It goes beautifully with food,” he says. “It’s low in sodium, so it doesn’t alter the taste of anything.”

Badoit has also been spotted at the Little Door, Cafe Midi, Melisse, Figaro Brasserie -- and on the shelves at Surfas in Culver City for $2.70 for a half-liter, and $3.85 for a liter.

-- Jessica Strand

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Small bites

After only six months, chef/owner Josiah Citrin has closed his casual French bistro in Valencia. Though Cafe Melisse had gotten good reviews, it wasn’t generating the business Citrin had hoped for.

“Saturday and Sunday were busy,” says Citrin, “but the rest of the week there was nothing. It couldn’t keep losing money.”

As for Executive Chef Mario Perez, he’s gone on to Zax in Brentwood.