Many Hot Chocolate offerings are available at Bubby’s Kitchen in Cook Street Village. The basic is made with melted Belgian chocolate. The Chocolate Chai, spicy tea steeping in rich hot chocolate. Naked Cocoa with no sugar and Spicy Cocoa, a bit sweet with a nice hit of chili. (The pumpkin pie was also divine.)
Chocolate Chai on the left and Spicy Cocoa on the right.
This cool and foggy morning would be the perfect time for this delicious beverage. My third hot chocolate offering is my long-time favourite: Peppermint Hot Chocolate from Bean Around the World on lower Fisgard Street. Made with Silk Road Westcoast Peppermint tea instead of syrup, the flavour is bright with a good balance of chocolate and mint; not too intense, comforting and creamy.
Very artful beverages: two large Peppermint Hot Chocolates and a regular Mocha (another fine chocolaty treat!).
My second seasonal hot chocolate was enjoyed at one of our usual breakfast (lunch, dinner, dessert) haunts, Clay Pigeon. I plan to drop a hint that they should invent an amazing boozy hot chocolate for their winter menu. Will keep you posted.
Sweet and creamy.
My favourite chocolate delivery method has always been in hot, milky, rich, drinking form. Through this autumn and winter, we will be sampling as many different purveyors of this heavenly liquid, locally and where we travel, and reporting our findings.
Our first offering: Caffé Fantastico Tré at The Parkside on Humboldt Street in Victoria.
Yummy cookies and GJ’s Americano accompany my hot chocolate: not too sweet, subtle and creamy.
Lovely autumn evening for a walk a few nights ago. Sauntered around the harbour and through the garden at The Empress Hotel before treating ourselves to dessert at Clay Pigeon. Such fun!
Chocolate Spoon Bread; yummy.
I had The Fresa, prosecco and berry compote and GJ had a glass of just prosecco. Clay Pigeon has it on tap!
Walking around the downtown on a lovely spring day completing errands. Hey! Let’s stop for coffee! So we went to the new location of Macchiato Caffe and Paninoteca at The Juliet on the corner of Johnson and Blanshard streets. GJ’s americano was very good and I tried their Callebaut Spiced Chocolate Chai which was amazing! It looks like they have nice sandwiches and treats too.
This part of town is becoming a bit of a food hub with this new place, Pig, Shine Cafe, Habit, Jackalope, Zambris and a block further Clay Pigeon, devour, Delicato’s, Special Teas and a large array of Vietamese, Thai and Indian places to name a few. Macchiato’s other location is on the corner of Broad and Broughton.
Yum! My Callebaut Spiced Chocolate Chai was a rich yet mild hot chocolate with spiced chai and a sprinkle of cinnamon.
The baking of cake has always been a challenge for me. Pie, no problem; cookies, awesome! Almost every year in the yule-tide season I make fruit cake, my Grandmother’s recipe, but with all organic fruit which has soaked in rum for months ahead. It always turns out perfect and delicious, but at a cost. This year I dropped a glass canister which I had just filled with organic flour on the floor, smash! Last year, the basket on the front of my bicycle fell off as I was hauling the bike up the stairs to our building: bottle of rum, smash! And so it goes. However, I endure. Last weekend was our dear friend Connor’s birthday. I know he loves carrot cake and I have always wanted to make one. So I turned to the Rebar Cookbook, published by a local Victoria restaurant, as I knew their cake was very good. I couldn’t be more pleased with the result! It was beautiful and delicious!
Found this blog while looking for links to the cookbook: http://rebar.cookthebook.ca/
The cookbook is available at the restaurant and it’s sister bakeries Cascadia downtown and Pure Vanilla in Oak Bay, at local Victoria book shops and at Amazon.
Rich moist carrot cake with white chocolate cream cheese icing, YUM!
I love coffee art, that extra bit of care and pride taken to present someone with something beautiful as well as delicious. A few days ago this was my Peppermint Hot Chocolate from Bean Around the World in Chinatown:
Yum! I love the two levels of decoration.
Our final day (too quick!) was all about food and art (mostly food!). We usually have breakfast at Central Bistro on our last day in Vancouver as it’s very good and very close to the hotel. Delicious! We had noticed a new shop on Denman while we were coming and going on the bus, so we walked a couple blocks to check it out: Ayoub’s Dried Fruit and Nuts. This is a gorgeous store run by a lovely woman. We picked up a few snacks for the ferry ride home and some Turkish delight for the cat sitter. After checking out from the hotel we headed up Robson Street, popping into a few shops. We encountered a very sweet blogger named Mel who snapped photos of me and GJ for her blog Culture Serf. We had a delightful chat about our favourite shopping places. Check out her blog; it’s really fun! Then met our friend Sandra for lunch at Nuba on Cambie at Hastings. We shared a snack plate and GJ was able to have Turkish coffee, which he loves. Next stop, a couple hours at The Vancouver Art Gallery, which is always wonderful. That left just enough time at the end of the day for a snack at Mink before skytrain/bus/ferry/bus to home and our little cat!
Our favourite new West End shop: Ayoub’s.
Amazing hot chocolate and snacks at Mink. And they have fondue!
Another gorgeous sky as we leave Vancouver.
Made a special dinner for Valentine’s Day, for which we felt teased along the journey to obtain the ingredients. Strawberries and a lovely bunch of daffodils at Niagara Market; a lovely bottle of Chilean Chardonnay. So I went with the old standard, chocolate-covered strawberries, along with yummy lemon squares from Cascadia Bakery, preceded by pasta tossed in a parsley and olive pesto with asiago cheese. A delicious meal and a lovely Valentine’s Day. Next year, I will try to be more organized and attempt the lovely cookies another blogger shared; I would be thrilled if they turned out half as beautiful as hers!
http://jenmaaninamman.com/2012/02/14/no-fail-sugar-cookies-just-in-time-for-valentines-day/
Yum!
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