Sweet tooth

2309 Kietzke Lane, 829-8669

They say you can’t go home. With Anibel’s Dessert House around, I’m not sure I want to. My home doesn’t have racks of desserts, soup and sandwich choices, not to mention leather couches and cable TV. Basically, Anibel’s is your house, if it was awesome.

Anibel’s occupies a large space in Franktown Corners shopping center, with rich purple walls and stained concrete floors that give it a homey, comfortable feel. The restaurant has two sections. One houses what I first thought was a bar but is actually an ice cream counter with high tables, and the other has several tables and a small lounge area with couches and a TV. At the rear of the restaurant is an ordering counter where the desserts are stored. Anibel’s has treats such as large cookies, bearclaws—that looked filled with chocolate!—cupcakes, carrot cake, German chocolate cake, fancy brownies and the big mother of them all, cheesecake. This is just what was on display, but also available for order are bundt cakes, coffee cakes and a variety of specialty cakes. Trust me, somebody is getting me my next birthday cake from Anibel’s.

But before I could get to the good stuff, my friend Brooke and I decided to pretend we were grownups and actually have some lunch first. As it turns out, the good stuff is more than just dessert. I went with the bordertown wrap ($5.95). One of the owners was working behind the counter and suggested I try some chipotle sauce on my wrap. It was a great suggestion and something that should permanently make its way on to this wrap. The sauce added a nice kick to the tomato basil tortilla filled with diced garden burger, hummus, Swiss cheese, roasted red bell peppers and romaine lettuce. Everything in this wrap tasted incredibly fresh, and the roasted red peppers added a lot of flavor.

Brooke had the hot pastrami ($6.95), which came with a large serving of thinly sliced pastrami on a light rye with Swiss cheese and deli mustard. I prefer my mustard a little spicier, but this sandwich was pretty darned good. We had the choice of adding a drink and a bag of chips for a $1.55 more, but we knew we were here for dessert so didn’t bother to waste room on chips.

Anibel’s doesn’t have slices of cheesecake, but medallion cheesecakes, which are advertised as “individual,” but are easily large enough for two. They have a chalkboard listing the regulars and the seasonal cheesecakes, all of which sounded amazing. This was a hard decision, with choices like white chocolate raspberry, mocha hazelnut, lemon biscotti and many more.

I went with the turtle cheesecake, which I picked out of the display just because it looked good, topped with caramel, mini chocolate chips, diced pecans and a chocolate crust. The cheesecake was moist and incredibly rich. Brooke chose off the seasonal board and went with pumpkin, which had swirls of pumpkin throughout the middle, topped with traditional pumpkin pie spices like nutmeg and ginger. They were both so fantastic, we honestly considered going back for the key lime, until we stood up and realized we could barely walk. I might have originally just come in for the dessert, but I was pleasantly surprised by the sandwiches and atmosphere. Anibel’s serves breakfast as well, and since I’m not one to shy away from eating cookies in the morning, I’m going to have to come back.