Maison Kayser Chocolate Tart and Chocolate Mousse

Angel and I reviewed Maison Kayser when it opened in NYC, and we loved it.  We went back to the original, though there are now three other locations, and we still love it.

Angel still loved the mousse.  She still loved it more than I did, but I liked it a bit more the second time around.  I think I let her deal with most of those brownie bit things on top this time.  

The tart, though, was steller.  Perhaps a bit too much crust -- as is often the case with mini-tarts -- but that is easily ignored.  It's an intensely chocolatey experience.

Bottom Line: This place is really great, and everyone should go there.  Period.

La Maison du Chocolat's Chocolate Mousse and Bonbons

La Maison du Chocolat makes chocolate mousse:

Now, as we know, La Maison du Chocolat does everything well.  This is an exception only in that it is good even for La Maison du Chocolat.  Definitely one of the top-5 chocolate mousses in NYC.  Woo.

So, while there, Angel and I got into an argument.  I insisted that the best bon bon there was the Caracas -- Venezuelan origin.  Angel insisted it was Akasambo -- Ghana origin.  We had both tried both, and both liked both -- these are two of the best bon bons in NYC -- but we were both EXTREMELY insistent.  So we did a blind taste test.

I predicted the result perfectly: we each preferred the other's pick.

Importantly, her taste set had Caracas first and mine had Akasambo first.  Now this actually gave me a thought.  I think, in chocolate taste tests, the first items tasted have an unfair advantage.  Because when you first taste a piece of chocolate, you're like, "CHOCOLATE!!!"  But then when you second taste a piece of chocolate and have to compare them, maybe you are like, "How can anything compare to that?"  And then you eat it and you are like, "Oh wait, that is good.  Hmmm...."  But then you remember "CHOCOLATE!!!" and then pick that because your second reaction was not as excited.

Bottom Line: Chocolate NYC: we have some theories.  Usually they are better thought out than this.  But great mousse!

Royce' Pure Chocolate: Venezuela Bitter & Ghana Sweet Box

Royce' is a Japanese chocolatier, whose name is explicable only by way of its country of origin.  They make a lot of different things.  They are famous for something called "Nama," which seem a lot like pavés.  After studiously exploring their West Village pop-up, I purchased a box of "pure chocolate," since they did not have any of their chocolate Nama.  

The box  had my two favorite origins -- Venezuela and Ghana.  The percentages were 68% and 60%.  I later realized something bizarre: they had milk powder and flavorings!  Why bother making such a high percentage only to add a tiny bit of milk and mess up the tempering process?  Why bother to make a single-origin chocolate only to add flavorings?

I must admit, there is an answer: because these were totally delicious.  Now, there were two problems: (1) The Ghana and Venezuela origins tasted the same, due to the flavorings, with the only noteworthy difference being the sweetness. (2) As a result, they soooorta make you feel a little gross when you eat too many.  But those problems are not really that bad.  You are eating delicious chocolate.  Somehow the tempering managed to last even with the milk powder.  Stop complaining.

Bottom Line: Maybe not as high quality as they look, but still delicious.

Milk Bar Mea Culpa

I had previously stated that Milk Bar was not good at chocolate.  It seems that in my absence they have been righting some wrongs.

First of all, this:

It's a "5-Borough Cookie" or something like that.  The first ingredient?  Cocoa powder.  It's even chametz-free, for all those of you observing passover (Sephards-only!  It has a little cornstarch.  Also I guess this advice is coming a little bit late.  Next year?)

It's also extremely delicious.

Next up, the chocolate malt cake truffles are back, and delicious as ever:

Also, they had a "chocolate swirl," which seemed like it was just a chocolate croissant shaped like a cinnamon roll, but I didn't try it, so I can't tell you for sure.

Finally, I got some of the birthday cake truffles, which are one of my favorite non-chocolate desserts in NYC, and I made an amazing discovery.  The third ingredient is white chocolate!  This explains why I love them, and why Leila does not.

Bottom Line: Milk bar is known for a somewhat rotating menu, so let's wait to see whether this effort is sustained, but this is a promising development!

Grom

After an evening of dancing to satanic ska on a boat, sometimes you just need to cool down with a nice cone of chocolate gelato.

Until my recent discovery of Fresco, Grom was easily my favorite gelato shop in the city, and it still might be, if only for the extradark chocolate sorbet.  Grom is a chain that comes from Italy, but my friends who spent time in Italy before Grom came to NYC reported living off the stuff there.  And for good reason.  While even the chocolate sorbet is not vegan (they started adding a small amount of egg for unclear reasons -- I couldn't tell the difference after the change), the taste is just unbeatable.

I often say that the point of dessert is to take the taste of chocolate and put it into different textures.  No one in the city understands this better than Grom.  This sorbet really does taste like a dark chocolate bar (~70-80% -- not too sweet) in ice cream form.  And just to remind you of it, they throw in dark chocolate chips.  Really superb.

Grom also has a dark chocolate gelato (Venezuelan origin as opposed to the extradark's Colombian origin).  It's good enough to be one of the best in the city, but I never wind up getting it, because the extradark is there.

The other notable item at Grom is the hot chocolate.  It is thick.  Unbelievably thick.  Basically melted chocolate -- the same Venezuelan chocolate as in the gelato.  Some of the best hot chocolate in the city, in my opinion.  But better yet is throwing a scoop of the extradark chocolate sorbet in the hot chocolate.  It's an amazing dessert for any weather situation.

Despite all this, though, my standard order is still usually just the extradark chocolate sorbet, straight up.

Bottom Line: The best taste in the world (a dark chocolate bar) in one of the best textures in the world (ice cream).  Unbeatable.

Momofuku Milk Bar

The first time I walked into Milk Bar, I asked if they had anything that was chocolate.  They said no.  I walked out, and I didn't return for about two years.

The thing, though, is that it is on my block.  I mean, literally.  So when it's 11pm, and most places are closed, it gets pretty tempting, even if they are insultingly light on chocolate.

So they do a lot of things at Milk Bar, many of them well and many of them not-so-well.  I generally find their soft serves to be too salty.  Their cereal milk is perfectly good, but I have it in my cereal every day, so I do not usually feel the need to purchase it.

Now there is one thing they do very well, which they are famous for -- cake truffles.  Basically, bite-sized, round pieces of cake, easy to eat with your hands.  Smart.  They used to have a chocolate malt flavor that was great.  I am generally embarrassed to admit to eating non-chocolate desserts, but I will sheepishly endorse their birthday cake truffles as being off the proverbial hook.

In my most recent trip, in addition to the birthday cake truffles, I purchased some chocolate chip truffles.  Now, objectively, they were good.  But they were nonetheless disappointing.  I am a huge opponent of the fruit+chocolate combination, and I was shocked that it came into play here -- they put orange juice in this!  And you can really taste it!

Fortunately, I was prepared for disappointment, as one look at these puppies told me they wouldn't be chocolatey enough, regardless of other flavor situations.  Accordingly, I purchased a chocolate croissant.

Yes, it sort of looks like a quiche or at least something savory.  But it was actually quite good.  It had nice texture, and it was more chocolatey than most.  That said, as is usually the case, it could still have done with more chocolate.

Bottom Line: While Milk Bar has much merit, it is not a place for chocolate purists.