Get Your Veggie Intake With These Decadent Desserts Around DC

Mita

Raspao With Parsnip

Chill out with this elevated take on raspao, an icy, fruity Latin American street snack. A hillock of shaved ice made from melon juices is zigzagged with charred-parsnip caramel and fragrant with fresh dill and basil.

Oyster Oyster

Koginut-Squash Mochi

Plump, melt-in-your-mouth squash dumplings boast an earthy sweetness and are complemented with rich chestnut mousse, candied buckwheat for crunch, and maple-sweetened tea.

Ellē

Avocado Semifreddo

A slab of cool, creamy avocado-and-matcha semifreddo is decorated with orange segments, toasted pistachios, and a touch of indulgence: crème anglaise.

The Duck & the Peach

Sweet-Potato Toffee Cake

Pastry chef Rochelle Cooper’s tender cake arrives drenched with sarsaparilla toffee sauce, speckled with candied pecans, and topped with sweet-potato-and-goat-milk sherbet.

Moon Rabbit

Mushroom Chocolate Mousse

Dark-chocolate mousse conceals a mix of dehydrated and pulverized mushrooms, including shiitakes, maitakes, and porcinis. Not enough mushroom for you? The plate also features chanterelle ice cream and wild-mushroom streusel.

Purple Patch

Ube Halo Halo

Consider halo halo the supercharged sundae of the Philippines. Layers of smooth ube (purple potato) ice cream and shaved ice are interspersed with mix-ins such as red mung beans, jackfruit, toasted coconut, and leche flan, a Filipino crème caramel.

This article appears in the March 2025 issue of Washingtonian.

Nevin Martell

Parenting writer

Nevin Martell is a parenting, food, and travel writer whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Saveur, Men’s Journal, Fortune, Travel + Leisure, Runner’s World, and many other publications. He is author of eight books, including It’s So Good: 100 Real Food Recipes for Kids, Red Truck Bakery Cookbook: Gold-Standard Recipes from America’s Favorite Rural Bakery, and the small-press smash Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip. When he isn’t working, he loves spending time with his wife and their six-year-old son, who already runs faster than he does.