Physical Graffitea Chocolate Tea and Chocolate Chai

So we've talked about chocolate tea before.  I've liked it in the past, including at Physical Graffitea, which is a truly lovely establishment on St. Marks.

That said, I do recommend the Florentine tea over the Chocolate or Chocolate Chai.  Neither of the latter two were sufficiently chocolatey -- which surprised me, given how good the Florentine was (and that was chocolate-hazelnut!).  Honestly, with or without sugar, it was hard to detect much chocolate flavor at all.

Bottom Line: A really great tea shop, but if you want a chocolatey tea, stick with the Florentine.

Mast Brothers bar with nibs

Here is a beautiful photo of one of NYC's most well respected chocolate bars.

The quality of the photo roughly matches my indifference towards the bar.  We've talked about Mast before.  There's nothing wrong with the quality, but they go for a fruity profile that I'm just not that into.  The nibs definitely help, though, and this is my favorite Mast bar.

Bottom Line: If you like nibs and fruity bars, and want to support the local bean-to-bar scene, go for it. But you can definitely do more chocolatey for cheaper. 

Wink Cocoa Dough Frozen Dessert and So Delicious Chocolate Greek Yogurt

Ok, guys.  This is a PSA.  "Cocoa-Dough" sounds like the most delicious thing in the world, but apparently it tastes like NYC roadside slush.

The yogurt, like most of the So(y) Delicious products, was palatable.

But really, it's stuff like this Wink junk that gives vegans a bad name.

Bottom Line: Be careful out there.

Amedei launch event

As you may recall, we've been fans of the Italian chocolatier Amedei for a while now, which is why we were so excited to be invited to the opening party for their first U.S. store, right here in New York City!

When we arrived, we were handed shot glasses of hot chocolate, which was excellent. Then we were introduced to Cecilia Tessieri, Amedei's founder and the only female maître chocolatier in the world, who was in town from Tuscany for the store's opening. In fact, it was her first time in New York City, but she politely turned down our offers of a tour.

Starting in 1990, Cecilia spent seven years traveling the world to find the finest cacao beans harvested at plantations held to stringent ethical and humanitarian standards. We had a great conversation while we were there about how important it is to support chocolatiers who make a point to steer clear of slave labor and are willing to pay a premium to do so.

To this day, Cecilia maintains complete supervision over the production process from bean to bar. She showed us around the room and told us about the various chocolates they had out for tasting. From our earlier post on Amedei, you know that they do single-origin bars very well, and those were prominently displayed. Here are some of the other goodies we tasted:





Incidentally, "nut brown" is milk chocolate, "Toscano black" is the dark chocolate, and "9" is a dark chocolate blend of nine plantations, and probably our favorite of the four.



Another of our favorite items was this Nutella-like spread, using hazelnut butter instead of actual dairy.  It was even richer than Nutella, if you can imagine.  Very highly recommended.



This was a fondue pot with melted chocolate, and you could dip vegetables into it, you know, for vitamins and health and stuff. This is a carrot bathed in chocolate, which is how all carrots should be.



There were delightful truffles with white, "black," and "nut brown" coatings. The store is open now, and it sells these truffles and bars and the single-origin napolitains, as well as chocolate spreads and hot chocolate mix.

BOTTOM LINE: Go to the Amedei Store. Welcome them to the neighborhood. Eat some chocolate. That's what we did!

The Chocolate Show! an Off-Broadway musical

Chocolate, as we know, is really important. So it makes sense-- it's almost necessary-- that somebody has now created an off-Broadway musical about this wonder food, entitled (appropriately) The Chocolate Show!.

The premise of The Chocolate Show! is that the Chocolate Lovers Association of the World (CLAW) needs to select its newest Queen of the Cocoa Bean, as its previous Queen (played by actress and comedienne Emily McNamara) is being forced into retirement.



The next Queen/King of the Cocoa Bean will be an audience member, and volunteers get to compete for that honor by going up on stage for various feats of "talent," "intelligence," and "style." (If you go to the play, you will understand why these words are in quotation marks.)

PRO TIP: if you compete in one of these challenges, you will get a chocolate prize. Even if you lose. And you probably will lose, since, at least in the performance I saw, the winners of each contest were the adorable child competitors. Which makes sense, since they would be the most upset if they lost. Anyway, all I'm saying is that it doesn't matter if you win or lose, all that matters is that you throw your hat into the ring, that's how you get the chocolate prizes, so for God's sake raise your hand.

Incidentally, the prizes for each competition round are from Knipschildt, City Bakery, and 2Beans, which means we have tasted every chocolate prize at this musical. Also, every audience member gets a square of 2Beans chocolate just for walking in the door. And you will need it, because it's damn hard to watch an hour and a half of people singing and dancing about chocolate without needing to eat some yourself.

The audience participation scenes are alternated with scenes that humorously relay the history of chocolate, and musical numbers that celebrate familiar chocolate-eating experiences. Some of these musical numbers include "The New Wine," which is about the artisanal tasting craze surrounding chocolate (which I know I am guilty of with this blog), and "The Secret Life of Cupcakes," which about the challenging process of selecting a cupcake at a bakery.



My favorite out of all these numbers, hands down, was "Hot Chocolate," which is a vibrant ode to my favorite beverage, hot chocolate (of course). My feelings for hot chocolate are so deep and so strong, and this song perfectly encapsulates that. It also makes me wonder that in a world of love songs, nobody before has ever managed to capture the love a human being feels for hot chocolate. You can listen to a clip here.

The plot is thin, and there's little in the way of character development or narrative tension. But it is a fun show with great energy, and it goes by quickly, peppered with small bits of humor and wisdom, such as the Queen of the Cocoa Bean's comment, "As far as I'm concerned, if it's chocolate, it's a meal" (so true), and CLAW's motto: "Everyone deserves chocolate." It would be an excellent show to take older children to (not least because they might get to win a crown), and it's fun for adults, too. I just wouldn't suggest taking anyone who doesn't like chocolate. They wouldn't understand.

The Chocolate Show! is open now and runs for the next two months at the 47th Street Theater.

BOTTOM LINE: Everyone deserves chocolate!

P.S. Photo credits in this post go to the show itself--you can view more stills from the musical on their website.

some thoughts on chocolate calzones/pizzas/panini

There's a new artisanal pizza place in Clinton Hill called Emily. Let me be clear: Brooklyn has more artisanal pizza places already than any one city could ever need. But let me also be clear: artisanal pizza is not about "need." So I went.

Obviously Emily's greatest draw was its s'mores calzone. But I have to admit to being disappointed.



The chocolate was melty, and the marshmallow was melty, and the dough was fluffy, and all that was good-- but those three components didn't really work together right. There were a lot of bites that were just dough, which is wasteful. Also a fair few bites that were just dough and marshmallow, or just dough and chocolate. But too little of this calzone included both chocolate and marshmallow, and it was in those brief tastes that I had the full s'mores experience.

For a better delivery of chocolate pizza from an artisanal Brooklyn pizzeria, I recommend Forcella's nutella pizza. I was already obsessed with Forcella for savory reasons-- their montanara pizza is literally paradigm-shifting-- and when I tried their nutella pizza, I was even more on-board with this place. This is an excellent chocolate-to-dough ratio.



The one that I most seek out, though, is Bocca Lupo's nutella and banana panino. It's just perfect. I would eat any of these Italian desserts again, but Bocca Lupo's is the one that I would journey farthest for.



BOTTOM LINE: Have you noticed that these restaurants call these "calzones," "stuffed pizzas," and "panini," but they are all basically the same dessert? Discuss.

Valentine's Day is nigh!

Some folks hate Valentine's Day. They think it's a holiday invented by the greeting card industry to make single people feel bad about themselves. I respect this viewpoint. But I don't agree. As far as I'm concerned, Valentine's Day is a holiday invented by the chocolate industry to give all people, whether single or coupled, an excuse to eat more chocolate. And what could be bad about that?

Here are a few special Valentine's Day chocolate-eating opportunities:

Winter Warmers, in Park Slope, is doing a $24 per person s'mores tasting menu, complete with a personal hibachi for roasting your own marshmallows. More details on their facebook.

The Chocolate Room is doing a $10 per person, two-course Valentine's Day tasting menu. Details here. This is a good choice if you're into Riesling as well as chocolate.

City Bakery will be offering their traditional Love Potion hot chocolate, which is available once each year, on Valentine's Day. Last year David finally tried it. Spoiler alert: it's basically City Bakery's normal amazing hot chocolate, PLUS a layer of fudge on top. WINNING. Incidentally, if you can't make it to City Bakery on Valentine's Day, don't forget that all of February is their Hot Chocolate Festival, a.k.a. our favorite month of the year.

Similarly, February is Pancake Month at Clinton Street Baking Company. Not every day's pancakes involve chocolate, but their Valentine's Day special obviously does: chocolate chunks, fresh raspberries, and raspberry-caramel sauce.

Also, just in time for Valentine's Day, both Amedei and Laudree Soho are now open, so if you want to buy yourself or your loved one some brand-new-to-NYC chocolate products, those are your best bets.

If you don't want to eat chocolate for Valentine's Day, but you just want to think about eating chocolate, then you can go to The Chocolate Show!, a musical about, well, chocolate, running from now until early April. No show on Valentine's Day itself, but tickets are still available for February 15 (or, as we like to call it, the Boxing Day of Valentine's Day).

Finally: a fantastic round-up of Valentine's Day chocolate gift boxes, thanks to NYMag: http://nymag.com/guides/valentines/2014/best-chocolate-boxes/.

Did we miss any important Valentine's Day chocolates? Tell us in the comments, or tweet at us @NYCChocolate.

BOTTOM LINE: We don't really need an excuse to eat chocolate. But we'll take it.