review: chocolate lounge @ mariposa

also several weeks ago, i had enough time (!!!) to go with carrie to the chocolate lounge at mariposa. on thursdays at 7pm, a mini-enterprise takes over the space at mariposa and it becomes a short ode to chocolate. because who wouldn't be excited by a chocolate lounge? yeah, that's what i'm talking about.

the chocolate lounge is fun, but is a little limited. there are some different types of hot chocolate, then a series of desserts and chocolate flights. the desserts are pretty standard: a chocolate cake, chocolate ice cream, etc. i had the milk cake with chocolate sauce; the edges were really quite delectable, with the sugar-crunchy crust, but the cake was a bit dry for the amount of chocolate sauce (which was perfectly fine) that was poured on top of it. i may have also been expecting something different despite the accurate description by our waitress, since long ago at lmf, luis used to make a tres leches cake that was essentially a vanilla cake soaked with a mixture of milk, condensed milk, and evaporated milk. god that was good.

the most interesting thing about the chocolate lounge is the flights of chocolate. unfortunately, i didn't have one. chocolate flights are a curious thing, because you have to really be a chocolate buff to pay $8 for a flight of chocolate. chocolate is so compact that the american value of getting as much bang for your buck doesn't apply correctly here; yet it governed my choice to not get a flight, anyway. there's the fear that you don't know where the chocolate is coming from; the fear that you don't know if your palate is sensitive enough to taste the difference between various chocolates, etc.

sidebar:
that said, flights of chocolate are not absent from my life. i got a free ticket a few weeks back to a chocolate tasting of richart chocolate (located in copley) by the lab for chocolate science and mit-france. i went with celina, and of course, like in all lectures, i fell asleep for most of the lecture. but i had a nice nap, and i pretty much knew all of the information in the lecture anyway. the best part of the whole thing was the smell of a room full of chocolate. if you haven't yet experienced this, you should. because it's amazing. the chocolate tasting was quite fun as well - if you haven't had a good milk chocolate (the "upscale" symphony bar is not an example of a good milk chocolate) the richart one is pretty darn good.

back to the chocolate lounge. i would say that in general, it's a fun thing to do, but still kind of expensive. in an area full of students, i think that a menu of little $4-5 treats is the best way to go, with coffee and tea in addition to the chocolate (this may actuall exist already, but i don't remember).