My quest for the most amazing hot chocolate during CityFood Magazine's Hot Chocolate festival continues. It seems that the combination of chocolate, salt and caramel is on everybody's mind at the moment, and the two cafes I visited this week both had very different takes on that flavour profile.
First up is Mink, a lovely lovely chocolate and coffee store on West Cordova. My favourite of their many hand-crafted chocolate bars has always been "Mermaid's Choice" - chocolate with rosemary-infused caramel and fleur de sel. When I heard that they were doing a "Mermaid's Choice" hot chocolate - well, hot diggity.
Here it is:
Mink's Mermaid's Choice Hot Chocolate.
This was served without whip or garnish of any kind. It was VERY salty. And rich. I ordered it with dark chocolate, and found the salt was almost overpowering. It was also difficult to taste the caramel, or the rosemary. Still, I'm not going to complain too, too much about something being too salty - as I've grown older my love of sweet has diminished and been replaced with a wicked craving for all things salty. Still, it took me ages to finish an entire cup given how rich and salty it actually was.
Next up, a few days later, was Bella Gelateria, also on West Cordova. I was *really* excited to try their Macadamia Nut hot chocolate, with Erin Ireland's To Die For Banana Bread - which I've blogged about here before - her bread also features chocolate and macadamia nuts so this sounded like an amazing combo! Sadly, proprietor James (who was dashing off to Italy that morning for the Gelato World Cup) informed me that they were sold out of the macadamia, and suggested I try their salted caramel instead, which is made with their house-made dulce de leche.
Bella Gelateria's Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate with Erin Ireland's To Die For Banana Bread.
This seemed to have just the right balance between the salt and the sweet, and the Michel Cluizel hot chocolate was rich but not too rich - just right for drinking. I enjoyed it very much, but *really* want to try that Macadamia Nut hot chocolate one day soon...