After Foodhoe chided me for having too much fast food in My Top Ten Guilty (Food) Pleasures, it occured that I didn't even consider desserts, presumably because dessert is inherently a guilty pleasure. This, in turn, got me thinking about my favorite desserts in the City and, poof, another top ten list appeared.

1) I have no idea who Mme. Angèle is but dang, her gâteau Basque at Fringle is awesome and elegantly presented.

2) Another Fringale favorite is the hazelnut and roasted almond mousse cake. I usually alternate between it and the gâteau Basque when dining at Fringale.

3) One of the few concessions I make to healthy eating is that I don't order crème brûlée at every meal. There was a period in the 90s when I came close but I stopped. On the rare occasions that I permit myself the luxury, my favorite is the crème brûlée at, guess where, Fringale. Sorry if you're already tired of me pimping Fringale's desserts but, IMO, they make the best in the City. However, unlike the first two entries which are unique to Fringale, there are other worthy crème brûlée contenders, namely Ruth's Chris and Alioto's. Other than basic cooking competence, there are two keys to making great crème brûlée. First, keep it simple. Do not deviate from the classic recipe by using ingredients such as fruit, lavender, chocolate or coffee. Get no more exotic than adding vanilla bean. Second, use a proper ramekin, the shallower and wider, the better. Shallow, wide ramekins provide sufficient surface area to a) provide the proper ratio of crispy caramel to custard and b) allow the heat from the torch to warm the custard, avoiding the unpleasant contrast of cold custard and warm caramel.

4) Moving a couple of doors to the south, my next favorite is the vacherin at COCO500. A former COCO500 employee once compared their vacherin to the palace at Versailles — the best of different items (meringue, creme anglaise, chocolate sauce, coffee gelato, almonds, in the case of the vacherin) combined into an exquisite whole. Though I'm sure that many will consider this to be gastronomical heresy, I prefer to 86 the meringue when I order the vacheron — something about the meringue's texture gives me the fingernails across chalkboard sensation when it eat it or even cut it.

5) Now, moving a few doors to the north, the cupcakes from the Citizen Cake kiosk at Orson are spectacular. I'd eat them more often if they were a bit larger and/or a bit less expensive. As it is, good as they are, the value isn't quite there for me to make it a regular habit. The observant among you will have noticed that my first five entries are all from the same block, i.e., Fourth Street between Brannan Street and Bryant Street. This block certainly packs maximum dessert density!

6) MoMo's fresh berries with whipped cream cup is a bright spot at a place that is generally a culinary disaster. From my MoMo Mia! blog entry: My dessert, the fresh berries with whipped cream ($8.00), was another redeeming quality. Big, firm, sweet, fresh berries topped with a generous dollop of whipped cream. Wonderful. I suspect that they added a bit of simple syrup to amp up the sweetness as there was some liquid left at the bottom of my cup. I drank it down to add the perfect exclamation point to the dessert.

7) Just up the street from MoMo's, the butter pecan bread pudding with warm banana bourbon sauce at Paragon is in-freakin'-credible.

8) The best apple crisp I've ever eaten, hands down, was what my mother made when I was growing up. Unfortunately, mom's been gone for years. On the bright side, I recently discovered that one of my cousins has mom's recipe and executes it as well as my mother did. For those of you not in my family, I suggest trying the apple crisp at The Bell Tower. With an apple crisp, vanilla ice cream is a must. Eat bite should contain a bit of baked good and some ice cream. BTW, The Bell also offers excellent flourless chocolate cake and crème brûlée, now that the lavender has been eliminated from the latter.

9) It sounds odd but the chocolate hazelnut dessert pizza at Gialina is yummy, especially for you Nutella fans. Word of warning: if you're not careful while you eat it, you can end up with a chocolate mess all over yourself and your clothes!

10) (tie) My final entry is a tie between the flan at El Salvadoreño and the peach cobbler (with ice cream, of course) at Sonny's in Lake Worth, FL. What's that you say? Lake Worth is, like, 2500 miles away from San Francisco? Yes, I know. This is a protest entry. The state of flan pretty much sucks in the City. The custard is never dense enough nor the sauce rich enough. Seriously, San Francisco restaurants, are you going to let yourself be outdone by a hole-in-the-wall in Chainland??? While the City's flan is weak, its peach cobbler is almost non-existent. How can any self-respecting BBQ or soul food joint not offer peach cobbler? Are you listening, Hard Knox??? Johnson's BBQ??? (As a complete aside, if you like 'que and you haven't tried Johnson's, you should. Best 'que I've had in the City, massive portions (Mackie and I could have split one meal and been sated) and the hot sauce is actually hot. Lack of dessert is a major disappointment, however, as is no brewed iced tea, another thing that every self-respecting BBQ joint should offer.)

Let me also acknowledge a couple of Hall of Fame desserts from the Hyde Street Bistro. Back when Fabrice Marcon ran the place, the fondant au chocolat and café liégeois were absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately, the place just hasn't been the same since Fabrice left and café liégeois is no longer on the menu. The fondant au chocolat remains but I won't vouch for its quality.

What are your favorite desserts in San Francisco? Do you agree with Michael Bauer that desserts are the weak link in Bay Area dining? Let us know in the comment section.