City Bakery Hot Chocolate Festival Round-Up

Last February we tried six out of the nineteen City Bakery Hot Chocolate Festival options. This February I didn't show quite as much dedication.



I only went to City Bakery this year for the Darkest Dark and the Cinnamon. I was a little disappointed by both. The Darkest Dark was actually too dark for me, which maybe I should have seen coming. It was better once I added in a marshmallow to sweeten it up a little.

The Cinnamon was good but didn't taste very strongly of cinnamon. I'd take the Chocolate Bar's spiced hot chocolate over this one, judging purely on cinnamon quality.



BOTTOM LINE: City Bakery's everyday, year-round hot chocolate is one of the best in the United States. Maybe you don't need to add cinnamon and make it darker and whatever. Maybe you don't need to improve on perfection.

City Bakery Cookies Redux

Leila does not like City Bakery cookies.  I have gone on record as loving their melted chocolate cookie.  But I finally got around to reviewing their regular chocolate chip cookies:

They are good.  The problem is that they are crispy.  I think gooey is the more preferred option.  Especially because if your cookie is crispy that definitely means there is not enough chocolate in them.  There was not enough chocolate in these.  But there was still more chocolate in them then average, and that chocolate was really great.  So I actually think these are decent chocolate chip cookies for a chocolate lover, though maybe they are not the best cookies for a cookie lover.

I also received some of the vegan chocolate chip cookies:

The real problem here was that there was less chocolate.  I don't know why that happened.  I'd've done the opposite, since probably the cookie part is harder to make.  But maybe they had problems getting it to stick together with lots of chocolate and no egg.  In any case, these were actually not bad, but definitely not as good as the non-vegan version.

Bottom Line: Good cookies for a chocolate lover, but room for improvement in that there should still be more chocolate.

Hot Chocolate Month at City Bakery Recap

So it's no secret that Leila and I (David) love City Bakery hot chocolate. It's no secret that we were excited by their Hot Chocolate Month. So it should not surprise you that we made multiple visits over the course of February. Here are some things that happened:

February 14: I was stuck at work all day. On Valentine's Day. The worst! Fortunately, I have the best friends. Danielle happened to be in the Union Square area and heard of my plight, and she made a special delivery of the special Love Potion hot chocolate.  It's City Bakery's regular hot chocolate with a layer of fudge on top. No joke. I think this is the only hot chocolate I've ever had that's better than the regular City Bakery hot chocolate.

February 21: Darkest Dark Chocolate Hot Chocolate. Obviously I was going to go for this. I snuck out of work and delivered some to a couple of my co-workers.

It was excellent. I mean, by hot chocolate standards. But somehow it was unsatisfying as compared with their regular hot chocolate. Certainly it was less sweet, but that is not a negative in my mind. The problem was it just didn't taste as rich. I also purchased the Melted Chocolate Cookie. Now that DT Works is gone, I'd say it competes with Levain for the chocolatiest (and therefore best) cookie in the city. A true work of art.

February 28: Two of my colleagues and I made a field trip for the Festival Finale. What that means, apparently, is that they have a different flavor from the festival every hour. The flavor offered when we arrived was some fruity, terrible-sounding concoction.

So instead ducked in the Chocolate Room room and picked out some other assorted chocolate goods. I got some chocolate-covered nibs by Nunu. I told myself that I could taste the confectioner's glaze on them. Could I? Who knows. They were delicious, though, if you can tell from the empty container.

I also got some non-chocolate-covered nibs from Askinosie, and those were truly excellent. I have the Planete Chocolat beans, Theo nibs, and Askinosie nibs on my desk. While the beans go fastest, that's due to my preference for the whole bean, including husk. In terms of pure taste, Askinosie wins hands down, though it should be noted that there is a distinct coffee-like taste to them.

Finally, I got a 66% Fruition-brand bar. I had heard tons of good things about Fruition, but I was honestly disappointed. It was not rich enough for me, too fruity, and vaguely unsatisfying. (I still finished it that day.)

Okay, over to Leila for her Hot Chocolate Month report:

February 1: I was so excited for Hot Chocolate Month that I went to City Bakery on the very first day. I didn't actually want lemon-flavored hot chocolate. I just wanted to commune with City Bakery employees about how exciting it was that February had finally arrived. I tried a sample of the lemon hot chocolate, and it was surprisingly good, considering that you wouldn't expect lemon and chocolate to be complementary flavors.

February 6: Ginger hot chocolate! This was awesome. As you know, I like chocolate with a little bit of a kick, and this was just the right amount of spice.

February 13: I got confused and thought there would be cinnamon hot chocolate on the 13th. I'd been mistaken; it was actually "Happy Hot Chocolate" day. I usually avoid City Bakery when their hot chocolate flavors have names that I do understand (like "Happy" or "Moulin Rouge"), because I don't want to encounter a nasty surprise.

Indeed, that was what happened on the 13th, as Happy Hot Chocolate turned out to mean a hot vanilla-infused milk chocolate. You know I'm not a milk chocolate girl. But I had come all the way to Union Square already, so I couldn't leave empty-handed. So I got a normal hot chocolate. That may not have been necessary, Leila.

February 22: Black rum and cinnamon hot chocolate. This was really good! It didn't taste like rum. It just tasted interesting. And the chocolate still took center stage, which I always appreciate.

BOTTOM LINE: Over the course of February 2013, we hit six out of the nineteen available City Bakery Hot Chocolate Month flavors. Sometimes, we even impress ourselves.

Happy Hot Chocolate Month!

Guys, guys: IT IS FEBRUARY!

Maybe you are not excited about this fact. Maybe you think that means it's cold, and Christmas is so long over, and summer is so far away, and the only things to look forward to are President's Day Weekend and knocking back a bottle of gin on Valentine's Day.

If that is what you think, then you obviously don't know the most important thing about February: IT IS THE ANNUAL HOT CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL AT CITY BAKERY!

You know how we feel about the normal hot chocolate at City Bakery. You know it's included in our Best of the Best list (located on the right-hand collumn of this blog, always!). You know we listed it in our Best Chocolate of 2012 round-up.

What you may not know is that every day for the month of February, City Bakery offers a different flavor of hot chocolate in addition to their normal, plain, amazing one.

Here's this year's line-up:

Don't be surprised if we report back as the month goes on and we try different flavors. Personally I am most excited for ginger and darkest dark. What about you?

BOTTOM LINE; If you think February is a drag, go to City Bakery, and think again.

City Bakery Hot Chocolate

There are many hot chocolates in NYC, and now around the world, that I can say I really love.  But beyond them all, I love the hot chocolate at City Bakery.

Also available with a giant marshmallow

It's hard to be objective.  I've been having this ever since I was a kid.  It was the first super-thick, super-chocolatey hot chocolate I ever had.  Since then, I've had the offerings of DT Works, Grom, and others in NYC, and of Angelina and others in Europe.  I have not been disappointed by any of those places, but whenever I come back to City Bakery, even though it may be slightly sweeter than some others, it feels perfect -- just like home.

Bottom Line: Objectively, it holds up to any hot chocolate in the world.  Subjectively, this is the New York native's holy grail.

(Pro Tip: During the winter, City Bakery hot chocolate is also sold at Birdbath Bakeries all around the city.)

City Bakery cookies

I like City Bakery a lot. I LOVE their hot chocolate. David does, too. There will be more posts about this. We are City Bakery fans.

Which is why I hate to say this-- but I must. I don't like City Bakery cookies. They are so crispy. A million times more so than Jacques Torres cookies, even. City Bakery cookies get stuck in my teeth. They have a gritty, granular texture.

I know this is to some people's liking, because City Bakery is awesome, and they wouldn't make their cookies this way if people did not like them. But I can't get behind them. I was at a holiday party with a free platter of these cookies, so I ate three of them. But I felt disappointed by every one.

BOTTOM LINE: For crispy cookie-lovers only.