By Greg
Getting a reservation at Madre on a weekend always seemed like a reach. For years, if I happened to walk by on a Saturday, it was a surefire sight to see their windows flung open and bursting with rowdy, sartorially inclined clientele. I shifted my tactics and decided to visit on a Wednesday, where I was joined by my friend Cara and my husband, Doug. The meal was moan-worthy from start to finish, but I’m here to regale you with a tale of the dinner’s final act. When it came time for dessert, I zeroed in on the banana soufflé, and the hound in me activated. I had clocked one sailing out of the kitchen earlier in the evening, and the 20-minute bake time seemed worth the wait.
Amid our dinner conversation, a new server appeared and plunked the dessert on the table. It was big, puffy, and commanded our gaze. The server began speaking in a barely detectable mumble. Was this a blessing? A curse? We leaned in, trying to understand what she was saying to no avail. Then, with the blink-and-you-miss-it swiftness of a street magician, she aggressively penetrated the soufflé. A metal instrument (perhaps a spoon, or was it a machete?) had ripped a hole in the dessert’s top layer. Next, a waterfall of hot, white liquid cascaded down from a tiny creamer she held above the table. More soft muttering. Play the CCTV footage of us frozen by the molten mess splashing everywhere and nodding like we understood what she was telling us. The white lava folded the crust open and turned the dessert’s status from a shower to a grower. The sauce expanded the egg layer, making it rise like Play-Doh being pushed through a mold. When the flow stopped, the pour site was a yonic void overflowing with milky glaze.
A scoop of ice cream then fell from the sky and into the crevice. It hit the soufflé with a wet glurp and slid down in slow motion until it disappeared into the freshly formed chamber of secrets. The big finish. I’m afraid an anal bead analogy is too risqué, but honey it looked like what it looked like!
Our server looked straight into our eyes for an uncomfortable beat and then stomped away. After receiving two money shots, the soufflé sat on the table, absolutely ravaged. Doug politely averted his eyes from the creamy crater as his mouth drew into a tight line. Cara, her mouth hung open in shock, stared at the tiny cast iron pot and then at me. We were too stunned to speak. What the hell just happened? After a few moments, Cara broke the silence with a cackle, “Did we just get…dessert-dommed?” Naming the act helped us shake the slightly strange feeling of witnessing a soufflé get freshly fucked. We plunged our spoons into the ooey-gooey.
The soufflé ecstasy: a dizzying swirl of flavor and texture, a cloud of eggy banana surging with horchata creme anglaise, and, of course, the sweet churn of the melting ice cream. It had finally become clear what may be drawing those large weekend crowds. It's only a matter of time before their BDSM (Banana Dom Soufflé Maneuver) is popularized.
Name drops: Madre
An ooey-gooey thank you to this week’s illustration Chuchu Wang1. See more of her work here.
Chuchu Wang is an award-winning illustrator who is initially from China and is now a New York-based freelance illustrator. She has been selected as an Asia Pacific Young Leader. She got one Illustration MFA degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology. She came to the United States seven years ago and received a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her background includes a degree in Architectural Art and Design from Luxun Academy of Fine Arts.