Champ's

Champ's is a vegan diner and bakery in Williamsburg (that has recently opened a smaller counter in Greenpoint).  They serve healthy vegan options like these chocolate chip pancakes:

Honestly, they were some of the best vegan pancakes I'd ever had.  Vegan pancakes are often dry, but these weren't -- perhaps the chocolate chips helped?  I mean, chocolate chips usually help.

Even the chocolate milkshake was good, even if one would not mistake it for the real thing:

Chocolatiest was the cheesecake brownie.  I usually oppose vegan cheesecake.  I usually oppose combining chocolate and cheesecake.  But apparently if you combine chocolate AND cheesecake AND vegan, you get something great!

Bottom Line: A rare example of a place with great food AND great dessert.  Anything at Champ's would make a nice meal even if you're not vegan, but it is truly special if you are.

Cafe Grumpy

David and I both read a lot of articles about chocolate in NYC. In many of these articles, authors list their "top tens" of things. (By the way, we are not above this practice, which is why we just posted our Best Chocolate of 2012 list.) One time I read an article about the "top ten" hot chocolates in NYC, and Cafe Grumpy made the list.

Obviously, this meant I had to check it out. And here is my review: it was okay.

Cafe Grumpy's hot chocolate is hot. It is chocolate. It is creamy. It looks pretty. It is enjoyable on a cold day. It is not one of the "top ten" best hot chocolates in the city.

That's okay. We can't all be Fresco.

The weird thing is, even though I have established how I feel about Cafe Grumpy's hot chocolate (answer: fine), I keep going back there, just because I know it is on somebody else's "top ten list." I keep waiting to have that "top ten" experience, even though clearly my tastes differ from those of that author.

BOTTOM LINE: Journalism is a powerful force. And this hot chocolate is: fine.

Brooklyn Label

Brooklyn Label's hot chocolate isn't the densest or chocolatiest in town, but it holds a special place in my heart. Whenever I am in Greenpoint, I want to go to Brooklyn Label for a hot chocolate, and this holds doubly true on rainy, contemplative days like this one.

As you can see, their menu includes four types of hot chocolate. I approve of this because any place that bothers to distinguish among hot chocolates is a place that takes its hot chocolates appropriately seriously.

I always have trouble deciding which one to get. I like marshmallows. I like whipped cream. I like orange zest. But I like cinnamon most of all, so that's the one I always choose. Someday I would like to know what the Brooklyn Cocoa tastes like. But I am too much a creature of habit.

Brooklyn Label makes their hot chocolates in an espresso machine, using real cocoa. It's spicy, it's frothy, it's hot, it's comforting, it's chocolate. On a rainy day, what more do you need?

BOTTOM LINE: Subtle flavors, excellent texture. Good for the casual hot chocolate fan.