It’s a small cafe, quaint, very unassuming from the front door, soft in colour – like chocolate, with an awfully welcoming atmosphere. It’s the best chocolate shop in all of Prague and I don’t even think they sell chocolates. Their specialty? Hot chocolate drinks.
Like a coffee shop offering different flavours and varieties of coffees, so Choco Café is offering up almost 70 different chocolate drinks. Some of them are spiked with alcohol like my favourite whisky spiced hot chocolate but then, I don’t really know if it’s a favourite because I haven’t tried the Cherry Rum or the Forest Fruits + Eggnog hot chocolates yet.
Looking over the chocolate list, I just can’t decide. Should I have one of the drinks from the Michel Cluizel list of chocolates or the Valrhona selection. Each one is described like a wine explaining the body, the floral or fruity notes and characteristics such as low acidity or bitterness. Some have nuances of red fruit and others honey. Where does one start? Where do you start on a wine list if you know nothing about wine? Daunting?? I’ve never been daunted by chocolate before – excited yes, but never daunted.
On my first visit I had the Choco Cocoa Special, a concoction of chocolate, milk, milk foam and whisky cream. It comes in three distinct layers that you can see through the glass mug. This beauty is a drink for all of your senses; eyes, nose, mouth and ears.
Dip your spoon into it and immediately feel the resistance of the bottom layer against the spoon, this is a thick blob of black gold. The top layer is a frothy, whipped cream dusted with hazelnuts, the perfect sweet nutty flavour to boost the nuance of this nutty biscuit whisky flavoured drink. Once in your mouth it luxuriates across your palate coating your tongue with hugs and blasting the roof of your mouth with a hefty coating of chocolate that you can’t quite get a handle on; is it medium chocolate or dark? It keeps me guessing. In either case, it’s a serious low level of sweetness, just enough to tame the tannic bitterness of true dark chocolate and no more. The price for sipping on warm bliss is 95, Czech Koruna, or $4.90 CDN and yes, you can hear the angels singing with every sip.
The next time I went into Choco Café, I was with my personal walking encyclopedia. Michelle, a woman with the knowledge of a complete set of Prague’s history encyclopedia’s but better, Michelle includes the behind the scenes anecdotal comments and juicy gossip that only someone with here ear to the ground would know. Her challenge for the day was to weave some culinary topics into her 8-hour walking tour of Prague’s history and architecture. When she found out we had a mutual love for chocolate, we went to Choco Café.
Once again it’s hard to decide. I ordered the Tanzanie 75% Africa from the Cacao Barry (original chocolate) collection. It was described as, “very fruity, extraordinary flavour, extremely rich and wildly earthy”. It was 89, Czech Koruna that translates into $4.60 CDN. We got our chocolate to go. The waitress handed us small paper cups that were half full of chocolate. It was so thick, the little plastic stir stick was taking its time to reach the side of the cup; lazily slicing like it didn’t have a care in the world. I tried to stir the thick liquid – I think it would be easier to stir tar.
I held it in my hand like a sacred artifact and like a sacred artifact I had no idea what to do with it. Michelle was well on her way out the door when I called for her to wait. I wanted to drink this not snort it. She gave me a little spoon, but I didn’t see how that would be delightful or even respectful enough for this drink, but I had another idea in mind. Not sure why it was so amusing when I asked for some warm milk to be added, but they obliged. I walked away stirring and sipping. Even though it wasn’t as serious a drink as they like in Prague, it was loving my psyche all the same.
Choco Café also serves traditional Czech Hořice. These are rolled wafers, stuffed with whipped cream and dipped in shot-glasses filled with thick hot chocolate. The wafers took me back to communion in the Catholic Church. They had the same texture and flavour, but no church wafer was ever stuffed with the seductive textures of whipped cream or dipped in thick sultry chocolate. Hořice are however, heavenly and divine. Wonder what I’ll have tomorrow?