This, sadly, was not representative of our experience

Some notes on food

Went to a place called The Chocolate Room on 5th Ave in Brooklyn on Friday. Maybe my expectations were too high (when you've just polished off a diner grilled cheese and fries and someone suggests a walk concluding in chocolate fondue for dessert the reaction tends to be something along the lines of FUCK YEAH) but it was pretty meh. The whole setup was very nice and as a place to sit and consume things it was great, assuming you ignore the part where they put 6 of us at a table clearly made for 4. And it certainly could've been worse--I've had chocolate fondue before that was just sickening, over-sweet and dense as fuck. But it still wasn't too impressive. It wasn't too rich but it was heavy, and not really all that flavorful, so it ended up striking me as heavy for the sake of being heavy. It would be a plus that it was neither too sweet nor too bitter if it was much of anything at all. Not bad by any means, but not necessarily worth seeking out. Everything was made by them for them, and one of my companions did have a very good tart (and another had a brownie sundae that looked great), but the homemade chocolates we got to go impressed Miss Clap but again, meh-ified me. (Although I did not taste the caramel-and-sea-salt one, which sounded great.)

Then again, I guess my taste in chocolate runs in the Hostess Cupcake direction, i.e. decidedly downmarket and nothing too high-percentage. I would feel self-conscious about that were it not for dips like this one, who ends up sounding like a french Dr. Nick. I appreciate that she's not making the "milk chocolate=bad" argument, and I of course am with her in the alleviating guilt thing, but when you start arguing that said guilt then actually causes a physical reaction that makes you enjoy the thing less, I start backing away slowly. When I've had good chocolate I think it's been less due to the quality of the chocolate itself and more to the fillings or add-ins, although of course a good base is nice. Still, I've had lots of expensive-ass chocolate that didn't rise to the level of a Crunch bar.

Speaking of candy, I was getting sleepy at the Electric Six show on Saturday, so Janine gave me some caffienated candy. But this was not those mints you may have heard of: they were coffee or hazelnut flavored. Having associated the smell of hazelnut with cloudy Mr. Coffee pots for as long as I can remember, I chose the coffee option. Man, was it bad. I am told it tasted like bad truckstop coffee, which would make sense as she bought it at a truckstop, but having only had a really bad truckstop doughnut, I couldn't say for sure. Still, I ended up gargling with beer to try and chase the taste away. Janine likes 'em though.
posted by Mike B. at 6:07 PM 0 comments