Not-so-sweet Vietnamese treats at Berlu Bakery

• This past weekend, I pre-ordered a box of the "one of everything" — including the photogenic pandan honeycomb cake, berry-lychee tart, clove canelé and six others.

🧇 The bite: By far the most fun to eat was the mochi pandan waffle — a flavor known for being mildly nutty, like hazelnut, with earthy vanilla notes, too.

• The delightful peach roll-up cake had a delicate, moist sponge and coconut pastry cream, while the clove canelé — a riff on the classic French custard pastry — is a mung bean, cassava cake with a crunchy, sugary crust.
• A standout was the pineapple cardamom cake, a chewy, rice flour base with a tart, caramelized pineapple atop.

⭐️ The bottom line: What Nguyen and team excel at is the art of play — using traditional Vietnamese flavors in out-of-the-box molds.

• That's what makes the weekly specials so sweet, too. Not only are they finite (here today, gone tomorrow), but they're a fun way to taste the seasons through the lens of one of the city's most exciting chefs.