the real deal
I drank hot chocolate today for $6….yes, that’s right, you heard me $6. Actually, it was $6.56 with the tax and then I gave the guy a dollar tip. I know, crazy right? And some of you have heard me whine about money. After Pilates class today I decided to treat myself to a hot chocolate from none other than Hot Chocolate in Bucktown, which is a stone’s throw away from the Pilates studio.
I have to say it was some of the best damn hot chocolate I have ever tasted. It’s the real stuff. There’s several different kinds you can order. I chose their most popular, mostly milk chocolate, with some dark chocolate and a hint of caramel.
It was dreamy, it was creamy. It swirled in my head and got to the very core of my endorphins and made them sing throughout my body. And it was topped off with a homemade marshmallow. It reminded me of the hot chocolate you get in Paris….real, drinking chocolate…not for the faint of heart…a sweet-tooth lovers dream come true.
So I didn’t mind paying the $7.56. It was well worth-it. And I know I’m not going to indulge it that everyday. I’ve gotten plenty of $3.50 coffee drinks that totally suck (sorry, but most have been from Starbucks…..I had hopes for the sugar-free mocha, but no dice!)
Hot Chocolate is located at 1747 N. Damen in Chicago.
Go there for breakfast. Go there for lunch. Go there for dinner. Go there and drink hot chocolate.
Plus, the warm donuts are amazing.
Cawfee Tawk
There’s lots to talk about in the world of coffee.
Coffee for me is not an addiction, but more of a ritual. I do not drink my coffee black. I like the cream/sugar part of coffee. Call me a wuss. I love mornings (even though my bio-rhythms scream “late-night”), I love breakfast, I love the smell of coffee, I love going to coffee with a friend, I love when Collene says “a coffee”. I can skip a day. I tend to drink it more frequently in the winter. I like a warm drink when it’s cold. I really have never dug drinking tea.
At the current moment my favorite coffee drink is a medium Americano with a shot of sugar-free vanilla or hazelnut…roomy so I can put in milk or cream. Sometime they don’t leave room, and I wonder, do the barristas see me pouring out that ounce of coffee in the garbage can? I usually sneak and do it, but I always feel guilty….someone’s gotta empty that garbage. But roomy is subjective. Beans and Bagels has a sign that says “please don’t dump coffee, ask for room” and I do abide by their sign.
Here’s my history with coffee….
I didn’t take a sip of coffee till I was about 25. Neither my brother, sister or I drank coffee growing up even though my Dad urged us. I’m not sure why. He’d say, “a good cup of coffee will wake you up!” I just never like the taste back then. Then around my mid-twenties, all the girls in my office (it was actually an all-girl office!) would walk down the street to Starbucks on Division/Dearborn and get coffee. I would get a hot chocolate. My childhood friend’s aunt owned a coffee shop on Delaware St. She (the aunt) actually designed the Starbucks logo, but then bought out of their company and opened her own joint. That’s where I tried my first coffee drink, and iced vanilla latte. That eased my way into coffee.
I’m trying so hard to BAN starbucks brand coffee from my life. They raised their prices last summer and I have never like the taste of their coffee. It’s just that it’s everywhere, it’s hard to escape. I have always been a fan of independant coffee houses. There used to be a bunch in Chicago when I moved here in ‘92.
Remember Urbis Orbis in Wicker Park? Third Coast in the Gold Coast (I think that might still be there….great curried chix salad) and there was a place called the Blue Vervain that was open for about a year or two in the early 1990s and was on Southport and School streets area. That’s where I played my first gig in Chicago and hung out with weird hippy bearded dudes in their 40s (god was I lost).
Some of my current coffeeshop faves are Metropolis in Edgewater, Cafe deLuca in Bucktown and Beans and Bagels (both locations). METROPOLIS beans are my favorite by far!
What’s your favorite coffee drink?
What’s the most outrageous drink or longest-named drink you’ve heard someone order at Starbucks? i.e. Venti non-fat triple shot mocha valencia with a steamed soy topper .
What coffeehouse or coffeeshop do you remember fondly in Chicago that is now long-gone?
Discuss amongst yawselves.
heard in the teacher’s lounge today
While copying a time-off request form in the teacher’s lounge, I overheard a bass teacher on the phone say “well you know those cows produce 4 cartons of milk a day”
I’ve got two words.
Ok, maybe four words.
Tater
tots
for
breakfast.
The work cafeteria just gets better all the time.
What’s in a name?
I noticed this morning, when I was buying my delicious, stick-to-your-ribs .70 oatmeal, that one of the cashiers in the cafeteria is named Verdi Threats.
Verdi Threats.
Do you think she’s part of some tough opera street gang?
