Organic Avenue Raw Vegan Chocolate Mousse

Okay, so you expect vegan chocolate mousse to be bad, but then you're like, "Hey, if people expect it to be bad, it won't sell, so if this is selling, it must be good, right?"

Wrong.  It's awful.  And it's made with avocado.  Just no.

Bottom Line: Go to Organic Avenue, but stick to the non-store brand items.

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.

More Peacefoods

I went to dinner with some family friends.  We brought Peacefoods desserts for dessert:

I've already discussed how much I love Peacefoods brownies.  We also brought some chocolate cake and a chocolate mousse pie -- all vegan.  All were good, but the brownie was still the standout.  The mousse cake wasn't as chocolatey as it looks -- it seems to be made with avocado and dates.  

Bottom Line: Generally recommended for vegans, and the brownies are excellent for anyone.

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!

This thing from Good Health Cafe

I ordered from Good Health Cafe on Seamless.  I ordered a vegan "chocolate mousse cake."  I got this:

Embarassingly, it was actually pretty delicious.  But it was definitely not mousse cake.

Bottom Line: It loses one or two points for the inaccurate name and sloppy presentation, but at the end of the day it is surprisingly passable.

Padre Figlio's Chocolate Mousse Cake

I am switching jobs, and as my farewell lunch, my office kindly took me to one of my favorite Italian restaurants in the city, Padre Figlio.  You may notice that this post is fairly similar to the one Leila just posted, except with 100% fewer "Woooo!"s.  Spoilers.

Padre Figlio has an amazing Prix-Fixe lunch deal, so we all indulged.  The entrees were excellent all around, and then we had our choice of desserts.  They have excellent cheesecake, but I opted for the chocolate mousse cake (of course):

It was good.  It had chocolate, mousse, and cake, roughly in that order.  Good order.  The chocolate shavings were really excellent.  And it hit the spot.  But it didn't blow me away.  There are better mousses and mousse cakes.  That said, it was a nice way to wrap up a great meal.

Bottom Line: Go to Padre Figlio for the food and stay for the dessert.  Do not go just for the dessert.

Scratchbread Buttercream Chocolate Brownie

First of all, Scratchbread is great.  It's basically a window in Bed-Stuy through which you can order all sorts of delicious bread-based goods.  Apparently they have an excellent chocolate pizza of some sort, but it was sold out when I went.  So I got the brownie... or so I thought:

They handed me something that looked vaguely like this but told me I had to wait for it to warm up to room temperature.  It was a struggle, but I did manage to wait.  And what I discovered was fascinating.  It wasn't really a brownie at all, but two thin brownies sandwiching chocolate mousse (or maybe chocolate buttercream that tasted just like mousse). Oh, and all that is dusted in cocoa powder!

Now this sounds like some sort of disgusting KFC Double Down-style gut disaster, but it's surprisingly not.  I'm not saying it's light and fluffy, but it is actually manageable.  And exceptionally delicious.  Plus, it's a great way to east mousse, or something indistinguishable therefrom, with your hands, while covering your hands in cocoa powder instead of mousse.  A great brownie in its own right, but with an added bonus.

Bottom Line:  If you are a mousse lover, this is the only brownie you'll ever want.

Maison Kayser

Stop two on Angel and my chocolate quest was Maison Kayser -- the first NYC outpost of a major Paris chain.  We should have just come here -- it was great.  Unfortunately, I was pretty full from the previous mediocre experience, so I probably didn't get a full appreciation of all that Maison Kayser had to offer.  But it should be noted that not only do they have a great selection of chocolatey and other baked wares, but they also have an appealing regular food menu.

We ordered a chocolate mousse, a chocolate madeleine, and a cake with a very complicated name that shed little light as to what it was like.

This cake had a name.

That cake was a highlight.  For some reason we assumed it would come out hot, but it was cold.  No matter.  Very chocolatey, very delicious.

Next up was the mousse.  I liked it, but Angel liked it more, noting the high quality and feeling it compared well to other mousses in the city.  I think the chocolatey thingies on top had more appeal to her.  To me they just sort of interfered with the texture and didn't add much chocolate flavor.

I feel like that paragraph came out a bit too negative on my part.  The mousse was very good.  Really.

Finally, we had a chocolate madeleine.  But we did not get a picture of it, because Angel's camera died.  I should probably point out that I might not be qualified to review this madeleine, as I'm not sure I've ever had a madeleine before.  In any case, I immediately declared that it was not chocolatey enough.  "What are you talking about??" demanded Angel. "This is almost like a brownie!!"  "But then," I responded, "why did we not just get a brownie?"  So there you have it: very chocolatey for a madeleine, but maybe you should just get a brownie.

Bottom Line: I can see why this is a successful chain in Paris.  It is a successful chain in Paris, because it is really good at various different things.