Chocolate!

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Back from Chicago. While I was there, dayo took me to a place that sells hot chocolate.

Now, this was not any ordinary place selling hot chocolate, mind you. Many places sell hot chocolate–Starbuck’s, grocery stores, even Amazon.com. But this place offered hot chocolate that was different. Better. Beyond the ordinary. I knew something as up when I saw the sign outside the door. It proclaimed, in neon green dry erase marker on shiny blackness, “Our chocolate kicks more ass than Chuck Norris.”

The place was Coco Rouge.

More Steve Jobs than Steve Jobs, more ass-kicking than Chuck Norris

At some time in the past, the place now called Coco Rouge was an alleyway. The sort of alleyway a careless traveller might get rolled in. The building was tall and very narrow, lit by crystal chandeliers and red neon, very BladeRunner-esque. One wall was rough stone, the others polished concrete like the floor. The decor might be described as Late Twentieth Century Pretentious meets Postmodern Gone Mad…very minimalist, very chic, very Apple. Down, even, to the black mock turtlenecks worn by the vaguely pretty, vaguely multicultural but in a non-threatening sorta way staff who took my order, and rung it up on an enormous antique mechanical cash register polished ’til it gleamed like a Terminator exoskeleton.

This was a hot chocolate place from an alternate future, a place like what Starbuck’s might have been in a version of reality where Apple, not Microsoft, ruled the earth.

I chose the house special. Select dark chocolates, it said, bitter and only slightly sweet, blended together to perfection.

Now, from that description, and the reference to Chuck Norris outside, I expected a well and good ass-kicking. You know, the chocolate equivalent of being hit over the head with blunt object and dragged off into some dark corner somewhere. I expected to wake up in an alleyway with a concussion and my wallet missing. That seemed reasonable, I thought, from dark chocolate, bitter and only slightly sweet, delivered in an insulated glass mug that looked solid enough to hit someone.

What I got was something else entirely.

The first sip didn’t blast me with Chocolate! Chocolate! Chocolate! and also, Chocolate! The first taste was surprisingly subtle, complicated, with several distinct chocolate notes and none of the cloying sweetness and slightly burnt flavor you get from cheap hot chocolate powder. It was, in other words, very good hot chocolate.

Another sip. Definitely dark chocolate, heavy and brooding, with an understated hint of mayhem. This hot chocolate did not hit me over the head and rifle through my pockets; it seduced me, charmed me, lured me out into the alley on my own. Less work, you see, if you don’t have to drag your victim.

By the time I was nearly finished, I realized that I had been sacked by chocolate, so deftly and so subtly I didn’t even see it coming. No, this was not the chocolate equivalent of blunt-force trauma; this chocolate was more like the experience you get when you meet an exotic stranger in a bar, share a deep and intoxicating kiss, and before you know it you’re waking up in an alley with your pants down around your ankles and your wallet nowhere to be found. No concussion–that’s much to declassé–but you still have no idea how you got there, or how you’re going to explain it to your partner back home.

All in all, a mighty fine hot chocolate.

44 thoughts on “Chocolate!”

  1. Mmmm chocolate. Do you think the house blend was better than the gianduja? (The one I had that I spilled in my pocketses?)

    This post makes me want Chocolate. And Sex. And you! Miss you already!!

    Reply ↓

  2. Mmmm chocolate. Do you think the house blend was better than the gianduja? (The one I had that I spilled in my pocketses?)

    This post makes me want Chocolate. And Sex. And you! Miss you already!!

    Reply ↓


  5. I’m not big into chocolate, or sweets in general, but every once in awhile I can appreciate why others are so appreciative. If I ever go to Chicago, I’ll definitely be looking this place up. If the chocolate is half as good as the prose describing it, it’ll be worth it.

    Reply ↓


  6. I’m not big into chocolate, or sweets in general, but every once in awhile I can appreciate why others are so appreciative. If I ever go to Chicago, I’ll definitely be looking this place up. If the chocolate is half as good as the prose describing it, it’ll be worth it.

    Reply ↓

  13. Hey… I’ve had this too! 🙂

    Mmmmmm… chocolate.

    While I’m here, next time, have take you to Bon Bon (on Clark). The chocolate there is also very choice and heavenly.

    Reply ↓

  15. YOU’VE NEVER BEEN TO BON BON?

    *GASP* *swoon*

    introduced me. We shall have to rectify the situation tout de suite! This weekend’s difficult, can do next weekend. 🙂

    Reply ↓

  26. Will definitly have to check that out next time I am in Chicago. Fell behind the curve with the neavous cacao afficions advocating quality chocolate, but places like this and the experiences they provide for people to enjoy is a trend I would like to see in other cities.

    Reply ↓

  27. Will definitly have to check that out next time I am in Chicago. Fell behind the curve with the neavous cacao afficions advocating quality chocolate, but places like this and the experiences they provide for people to enjoy is a trend I would like to see in other cities.

    Reply ↓

  28. Wow. And you clearly owe me big time for introducing to this place. 🙂

    I’m meeting someone there a week from Friday, but after the flavor memories this brings back I’m not sure I can wait that long…

    Reply ↓

  29. Wow. And you clearly owe me big time for introducing to this place. 🙂

    I’m meeting someone there a week from Friday, but after the flavor memories this brings back I’m not sure I can wait that long…

    Reply ↓

  30. we’re lucky enough to have a Belgian bakery here in our little corner of Colorado (who knew?!) that has chocolate that is every bit as divine as you describe this.

    However, I have never been poetic enough to describe it thus. Bravo!

    Reply ↓

  31. we’re lucky enough to have a Belgian bakery here in our little corner of Colorado (who knew?!) that has chocolate that is every bit as divine as you describe this.

    However, I have never been poetic enough to describe it thus. Bravo!

    Reply ↓

  38. Wow, lovely description. Enough to make me wish I actually gave a crap about chocolate. Alas, no. Now if it were mulled cider, I’d need a clean pair of undies. But the dscription was lovely and did take me away briefly to a place of flavor and texture.

    Reply ↓

  39. Wow, lovely description. Enough to make me wish I actually gave a crap about chocolate. Alas, no. Now if it were mulled cider, I’d need a clean pair of undies. But the dscription was lovely and did take me away briefly to a place of flavor and texture.

    Reply ↓

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