Hot Chocolate

Chocolate and desserts in New Orleans!

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:04:16 -0500

While down in New Orleans, we visited a couple of chocolate places and a nice dessert place:

Blue Frog Chocolates: Nice, homey chocolate shop with very friendly folks. They have a wide variety of chocolate products, some made in-house, others are major brands of chocolate bars, etc. This is the place if you want to get cure chocolate frogs or other animal shapes.
Prince Michael Chocolate: A cool, small chocolate store where they serve organic chocolates -- truffles and hot chocolates. They have some great truffle flavors and the truffles are mostly made from 70-90% cacao with non-dairy milk. Taste great! They also have a wonderful spicy drinking chocolate.
Sucre: This is a dessert place. Very nicely decorated with some nice gelatos/ice creams and desserts.
Cafe du Monde: Of course, go have beignets at Cafe du Monde!

Chocolate Decadence: At the Ritz-Carlton in DC

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:46:55 -0500

So I finally went to the Chocolate Decadence at the Ritz-Carlton in DC (near Foggy Bottom), This time it was a $25 per head event where you can choose any 5 of the ~20 chocolate offerings they had. Only five seemed kind of limiting at first but we barely managed to finish 5 items (and we went for the 6pm seating that basically served as dinner for us). The desserts were arranged on a small bar/buffet with the pastry chef, Jerome Girardot, standing behind and answering questions and explaining the offerings. Some of my favorite ones were the ones with more interesting ingredients like the dessert with carrot puree and ganache, and the chocolate and lavender pastry. The yuzu "ice cream cone" was also pretty good.

Best Hot Chocolates in DC

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:30:02 -0500

So, the Washingtonian has an article on its web site about the best hot chocolates in DC: http://www.washingtonian.com/blogarticles/restaurants/bestbites/6320.html. It mentions a bunch of places that are worth going to just to try the hot chocolate. I've had the hot chocolate at a couple of the places and they were pretty good. Enumerating the best places to try hot chocolate invariably means that you leave out some that, by all accounts, should be in there: ACKC being one of them but *shrug*

[rant mode]
The problem with most places serving hot chocolate is that they seem to feel that the more cream you put in the better the hot chocolate (i.e. the richer the better) even if that means that the actual taste of the chocolate comes out a poor second. (In some cases, that is certainly meant to be the case -- most mexican and spiced hot chocolates tend not to allow the cocoa taste to shine but then they make up for it through a medley of tastes that complement the cocoa). The other big problem with most restaurant/cafe hot chocolates is the milky concoction that has barely noticeable traces of chocolate in it but is sweet enough to give you a sugar high.

Anyway, enough with the complaining, go try some of the places mentioned in the article.

Gotta love those research results: Chocolate, sex and meat

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:00:24 -0500

So, there's a book out which suggests that the best way to boost your brain power is to:

Have lotsa chocolate
Lotsa sex
Lotsa cold cuts for breakfast

Wonder if the researchers were all guys?

Here's a link to one of umpteen articles about this: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23425278-details/Why+chocolate,+sex+and+cold+cuts+can+boost+your+brain/article.do

Chocolate and Child Slavery

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 12:12:18 -0500

I'm a proponent of Fair Trade chocolate products and try to buy them over non-Fair Trade ones. I also keep a lookout for news on Fair Trade issues and forced labor involved in chocolate production. However, most of the time, there's nothing new -- just people rehashing the same old items and so it tends to drop off my radar.

But since I haven't posted anything on Fair Trade in a long while, here's a random sampling of Fair Trade news bites:

and some interesting links:

See previous Fair Trade posts and also see my now abandoned attempt to keep track of fair trade cocoa products.

Bellagio: Mmm...cakey!

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:20:49 -0500

So, I picked up a tin of Bellagio sipping chocolate the other day from Wegman's. I didn't have much hope in it being good -- just wanted to try something different. However, upon opening it up today and indulging myself in a mug of hot chocolate, I was pleasantly surprised.

First, the mix itself is a nice dark chocolatey brown. Secondly, it had an aroma that reminded me of a fresh baked chocolate cake and finally, the the nutritional info said that it was low in fats and high in fiber. Now, while the first two items definitely affect my senses, the third one goes straight for my left brain what with the low fat telling me that there's no sneaky mixing in of milkfats and the high fiber implying a cocoa powder that hasn't had itself processed to perdition and back.

I didn't go with the recipe on the tin -- which instructed you to use 2 rounded tablespoons with 1/3rd cup of whole milk. I used about 2.5 heaping tablespoons with a cup of milk and it turned out rather well. There was a distinct cocoa taste with the flavor shading towards a hot chocolate rather than a hot cocoa, and while it was sweet, it wasn't cloyingly so. In keeping with the "sipping chocolate" aspect of its name, it had a smooth taste to it rather than the textured flavor you get from the hot cocoas. All in all, I enjoyed my cuppa Bellagio.

While Bellagio won't replace my Dagoba hot cocoa as my favorite everyday drink, it does make for a tasty (and healthy) cup of hot chocolate. And somedya I may even try it out as a sipping chocolate according the to recipe on the tin.

Choc-o-lait: it really is hot-chocolate on-a-stick

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 13:04:11 -0500

So, the trip to Amsterdam was interesting and fun, and especially so from a hot chocolate perspective. The bad news was that almost everywhere we went, "hot chocolate" turned out to be Chocomel. This is a chocolate-flavored milk sold mainly in th Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. However, it is much better than the chocolate milk you get in the US. It tastes pretty decent when you think of it as chocolate milk. However, when you ask for Hot Chocolate and you get Chocomel, it's somewhat of a disappointment. :-) However, we did manage to stop by this Tea and Coffee store on Herengracht where I asked for hot chocolate and they said it was chocomel, but offered us hot-chocolate-on-a-stick (which they sell but not as a prepared drink). So I bought some hot milk and used the Cho-o-lait in it to produce some tasty hot chocolate. Believe me, after all the Chocomels I had been drinking, this was manna from heaven!

XOX Truffles: Yum

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 15:12:10 -0500

So, while in San Francisco recently, I stopped by XOX Truffles on Columbus near Washington Sq. It was decidedly a good experience. I'm not a big truffle fan, but the truffles there were fantastic. As we were there, we started up a conversation with Chef Gorce who was hand-making new batches of truffles. All the while we were talking, we got treated to samples of all the truffles he was making. So, what with the great truffles, the friendly owner and folks behind the counter, and some good hot chocolate, it was a memorable experience. Definitely worth visiting when in San Francisco -- amble on over to North Beach, grab some truffles, a cup of hot chocolate and enjoy it in Washington Square a couple of blocks away.

Starbucks and chocolate

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 08:49:30 -0500

So, it seems that Starbucks will be going into partnership with Hershey's to bring more chocolate-based items to their stores. One of the first products emerging form the partnership will be a hot chocolate drink. Considering my reaction to Starbuck's first attempt at a chocolate drink, I'm not too sanguine about the prospect of getting something that will qualify for being a good chocolate drink.
However, even putting the quality of the purported drink aside, I'm not quite sure whether to be happy or sad about the popularization of chocolate these days. Considering the fact that cacao grows in a limited set of environmental conditions, and that the hardiest varieties of cacao tend to be the ones with lesser flavors, it's looking like we are in for a glut of mediocre cocoa beans because those are the ones who can withstand the demand.
Also, the bigger question about what such increased demand would do to the several poor and/or war-torn regions where most of the cacao is grown, remains. I wish I had enough confidence in the human race to say that increased demand for cocoa will cause less dissension and encourage peace so that everyone in the cocoa-growing regions will prosper. However, it seems more likely that increased demand will cause more repression and feed war more than any of the poor farmers growing the cacoa (like it supposedly did in the Ivory Coast).

Hot Chocolate on a stick

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 08:00:22 -0500

Well, maybe not on a stick but certainly in a stick. Apparently, Aimia, which produces some mainstream hot chocolate brands (Galaxy and Maltesers, neither of which I've ever tasted) is coming out with the equivalent of tea bags for hot chocolate, except that the bags are shaped like a stick. Well, anything that helps spread the hot chocolate mantra can't be bad, can it? Now, if only Dagoba or Green & Black's would come out with hot chocolate on-the-go products!

Why we love our mainstream chocolate makers

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 12:57:48 -0500

Cadbury's let salmonella get into bars -- gotta love 'em.

NYC Chocolate mini trip

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 13:10:41 -0500

So, I made a weekend trip to NYC to visit Bobby and Catherine. While there, we went to a couple of chocolate places (we used a NYC chocolate map downloaded offf the net -- Chocolate Guide Manhattan but there are others like Chocolate Obsessions map).

We went to Vosges first, which is by far my favorite chocolate bar store. They were out of the new bacon chocolate bar, which I had wanted to taste and so I was a bit disappointed. However, the store had just started doing floats! So, we tasted the 2 float combinations they recommended -- root beer with wattleseed custard ice cream and ginger ale with pandan dark chocolate. While both were great-tasting, the root beer with wattleseed won hands down for me -- it was a wonderful (but subtle) twist on the standard root beer float. We also sampled a few of the truffles at the store, and while I'm not a truffle person (too sweet), they were good, even the olive oil truffle which used "white chocolate" (an oxymoron if I've heard one and a concept that personally offends me).

After Vosges, we went to the upper east side to La Maison du Chocolat, where we decided to sit in the cafe and chill. We ordered a couple of hot chocolates, some macarons and relaxed. The place was deserted (on a Saturday afternoon) which seemed a bit weird to us, especially considering the current chocolate craze. However, busy or not, the hot chocolates were good -- rich, creamy and about what you expect from a european hot chocolate.

However, after the crazy goodness of the float, some trufffles and the hot chocolate, we were kinda full and decided to adjorn the chocolate tour for the nonce and continue onto other pleasures. I figure we are going to continue the tour next visit.

What's in a name?

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 13:49:22 -0500

A lot: FDA wants to change the definition of chocolate

Kakawa: Differently Good

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 22:58:34 -0500

So, Rekha brought me some Kakawa chocolate mixes from her trip to Santa Fe. Kakawa has some wonderful mixes. Especially interesting are the mesoamerican ones. Be aware that they aren't going to taste like your standard concept of hot cocoas/chocolates. However, I would definitely recommend buying some and checking them out for yourself. Kakawa mixes come in little balls that have to be grated when making the drinks. The process takes longer than standard mixes but is fun and certainly adds to the mytique :-)

Vosges Chocolate Bars: Finally one I don't like

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 10:48:45 -0500

I was beginning to feel like there wasn't going to be a Vosges chocolate bar I didn't like. But in my latest batch of purchases, I got the Creole Exotic Candy Bar. It consists of espresso, cocoa nibs, "New Orleans style chicory" and Sao Thome bittersweet chocolate. I'm all for chicory in my coffee (on those occasions that I do drink coffee) and I love bittersweet chocolate. So that leaves the first 2 ingredients -- the espresso and the cocoa nibs -- as the culprits. I'm still not sure why I don't like the bar but it does partially have to do with the cocoa nibs. Somehow the nibs ruin the texture of the bar for me and that pushes the taste (in which the espresso and chicory and bittersweet chocolate combo doesn't exactly thrill me) into the "don't buy" category for me.