If you impatiently skipped the intro and happened to have read the ratings, you might perhaps be wondering if there was some mistake with the stars awarded to each item this week – absolutely not!

Lemon/lime based desserts can be the perfect chilled, light dessert that’ll help with this scorching heat. It was an exciting round to start off with since there was no specific item in mind, but only the open-mindedness to try out anything that would fall into the fairly broad category of “lemon/lime based desserts.”

Coming back to why you would find no pick this week, we must tell you that each meringue and tart were undisputedly fabulous in their own right, and it would be grossly unfair to pick one over the other. While nothing could have matched up to the combination of whipped cream and tart at the Cup Café, The English Cake Company’s extremely soft and light tart was a favourite to dig into. Mitsi’s meringue pie was simply out of this world, while (the over-priced) meringue pie at The Gallery Café was sinfully indulgent. If you had patiently read upto this point and are now moving on to read the ratings, you would know why we didn’t pick one of the four to recommend to you. Better yet, if you try all four for yourselves you would better understand our delightful dilemma!

Lemon Meringue Pie - Mitsi’s Coffee Shop (34A, Bagatalle Road, Colombo 03)

Price - Rs.400
Value for money - high
Taste - *****
Variety - Mitsi’s also does a lemon drizzle cake, which is new on the dessert menu.
Overall - Perfect meringue peaks, and an amazingly sweet but tart filling with a firm, sweet biscuit base. A jaunt to Mitsi’s never fails and this shall remain one of our firm favourites.

Frozen Lime Tart - Cup Café (6, C.W.W. Kannangara Mawatha, Colombo 07)

Price - Rs.250
Value for money - high
Taste - *****
Variety - None
Overall - Tangy, cold, limey goodness melting on your tongue, accompanied by a semisweet base and dollop of whipped cream on the side. The dessert is served with a sprinkling of icing sugar, and it has consistently been delicious and a staunch favourite at this coffee shop.

Lemon Meringue Pie - The Gallery Café (No.2, Alfred House Road, Colombo 03)

Price - Rs.695+ service charge and taxes
Value for money - average
Taste - *****
Overall - Crunchy meringue peaks won over our hearts immediately, proceeding to sink our teeth into the fluffy foam-like meringue and finally into the soft, tangy lemon custard filling. An absolute delight.

Lemon and Lime Tart - The Cakery and Panino (2, Suleiman Terrace, off Jawatte Road, Colombo 05)  

Price - Rs.260
Value for money - high
Taste - *****
Variety - Other lemon-based desserts include the lemon and blueberry loaf and the lemon drizzle cake.
Overall - Soft filling on top of a semisweet pastry base, we can easily agree that this is lovely, light dessert to complete your meal here.

By Sarah Kellapatha & Nivedha Jeyaseelan