It’s dry in the dessert

Carrot cake, cheesecake, crème brulee. Put them together and what do you get? The newest dessert trifecta from Chef Adam Navidi at the Californian restaurant in the Huntington Beach Hyatt Regency Resort and Spa.

As if that weren’t decadent enough, the chef takes the taste of this three-layer dessert one step further — he’s adding wine. On Sept. 28, The Californian will host a Caymus Wine Dinner, featuring a five-course meal made from several of his tweaked traditional meals.

“Here, we like to take a California classic and say, ‘What can we do with it?’ ” Navidi said.

One taste bud tweak is offered during dessert, with the Caymus wine Conundrum. Not traditionally served with dessert, this complex wine, infusing 11 different wine grapes, had a last-minute move on the menu.

“The Conundrum was to be our first course wine until I tasted it,” Navidi wrote in a brochure for the event. “Its acidity, common to a good Sauvignon Blanc with a slight sweetness resembling a Riesling; the subtle honeysuckle tones had to be paired with a cheese — or several of them for that matter.”

The ginger and cardamom flavors of Conundrum inspired Navidi to create candied carrot strips as garnish for the cheesecake-carrot cake dessert.

Navidi is known for his work in cheese. Considered an expert on the subject, Navidi enjoys bringing different cheese styles to any dish he can, although he said it is difficult to find all that he needs from just one source. No single store in California really has a comprehensive selection of cheeses, Navidi said.

Another aspect of Navidi’s delectable experimentation lies in a playful twist of words on “Popcorn Shrimp.” The shrimp are anything but small and are covered in popcorn and butter.

While it’s only an appetizer, even this dish has a wine specifically paired to complement its taste and to be complemented by it.

The Mer Soleil Chardonnay brings out the buttery flavors in both wine and the shrimp, but try the same wine with the next shrimp on the menu and you get a completely different flavor.

“There’s not a definitive way of saying ‘this goes with this,’ ” Navidi said.

After hors d’oeuvres, feast on crispy duck “confit” over hot German potato salad.

“The duck was cured for 24 hours, then roasted in its own fats and oils for another 10 hours,” Navidi said. “We then crisp the skin and hand-dried it,” making the meat super moist, nearly falling off the bone.

The duck is paired with a red wine — quite unusual for a dish like this, Navidi said. However, looking to explore the variations different flavors have on the palate, Navidi found that mixing up wine pairings with certain foods allowed for a re-creation of old styles, this being an underlying goal in choosing all his menu items.

Seats are $105 a person, but the entire staff said it’s a price they would easily pay, considering what you get. Seats are still available, but very limited.