I have a rule when I travel: if the dessert menu mentions something I've never heard of, I order it. Doesn't matter how full I am. Doesn't matter if I've already eaten three bowls of noodles and a skewer of something unidentified in a night market somewhere. There is always a second stomach, and it is exclusively for dessert. So when MSN published its list of the seven best desserts its writers have eaten at restaurants this year, I read it the way other people read flight deals.

What I like about a list like this is that it's not a ranking of famous pastry temples or $38 tasting-menu closers. MSN calls them seven standout sweets that stole the show, and that's the only metric that matters to me. It's the stuff that actually stopped people mid-bite, the desserts that made a reviewer put the fork down and say wait. I've had technically perfect desserts I forgot by the next morning, and I've had a slice of pie at a gas station-adjacent diner in rural Tennessee that I still think about with real emotion.

I can't tell you exactly what's on the list, and I'm not going to pretend I can. Seven desserts picked by a team of writers could go anywhere, and I'd rather you click through and meet them yourself than have me guess at the lineup. What I will say is that dessert is where kitchens seem to feel free to play, at least in my experience, because the stakes are lower and the payoff is joy, and joy is hard to fake.

That playfulness buys a lot, too. A great dessert can reorganize your memory of an entire meal. I've had mediocre dinners rescued by a final course so good I left forgiving everything before it, which I realize is a dangerous thing to admit but it's true and I suspect you know exactly what I mean.

My one standing tip if you're chasing desserts like this: ask your server what the kitchen is proud of, not what's popular. The proud dish and the popular dish overlap maybe half the time, and the proud dish is where the weird stuff lives. That's where you find the off-menu thing the pastry chef developed on a slow Tuesday and quietly became obsessive about.

MSN's full list is worth a click if you're planning any restaurant reservations between now and the holidays, which is prime dessert season if you think about it. Pumpkin things are coming. Warm things are coming. The entire fourth quarter of eating is basically a dessert ramp.

I've already decided I'm tracking down whichever of the seven is closest to my next trip route. If it involves a detour, fine. I once drove 90 minutes out of the way for a slice of coconut cake I'd read one sentence about, and I'd do it again. Where's the best dessert you've eaten this year, and would you detour for it? I'm taking notes.