Maison Passarelle’s Mythological Cloud, The Coconut Chiboust
Unlock your bougie potential with a close college confidant; eat the coconut chiboust at Maison Passarelle.
If there’s a slim chance that anything would call for looking fancy, my home-girl and I will shimmy to the function with our faux furs, lips stretched out, aggrandizing the word “darling.” In Maison Passarelle’s warmly lit dining room, my faux-bougie friend decked in a poofy princess polka dot dress paired with mid length opera gloves met up with me for ladies’ night. She sings, “giiiirl” as she wraps her satin covered fingers around her mocktail.
We met 11 falls ago and cascaded into each other’s children of immigrant stories. I swam servings of soft n’ fleshy grouper to her plate as we talked about our dreams of making it because had no choice. The toils of expectation, grit and disappointment fluttered between our cheeks as we discussed the media industry when we had late teen idealism. We were frustrated and fancy. The server floated a coconut chiboust before us as Maison Passarelle’s lights dimmed. An oblate spheroid sat before me. I lifted a portion of the chiboust to my mouth. Immediately like a prayer warrior, with my head bowed and my hand reaching out to touch my home-girl’s shoulder: “Please, try this.” Her fork reached over as I clutched the invisible pearls against my clavicle.
“What?!”
“Exactly.”
When I cut through the dessert once more, I am convinced that we should be more astonished by gravity. How could something that feels so weightless hold such a firm stance on the plate? The coconut chiboust tastes like the agony of knowing what it means to be strong in convictions while presenting yourself as soft, sweet and decadent in order to not be seen as a threat. It felt like sinking into a toasty coconut marshmallow accompanied by brief hits of lime and herbaceous lemongrass. The dessert was soothing and aspirational. Two frustratingly fancy friends pined over the media industry, found hope in an unassuming dessert cosplaying as a mystical orb.
We stared at it in awe as the darkness of corporate exhaustion temporarily floated away from our mouths.
