Manhattan Restaurant Review

On my recent trip to the States, I spent the last 2 (too short) days in the Big Apple; where I had the chance to experience some city life – -shopped at my fav Micheals and Old Navy and forever 21 (hey, they dont have in HK><), reunited with some dear friends, took a first hit on a smoke (cig, not pot…), getting drunk and puking in a karoake bar (I hope my parents dont read this and if you do, just ignore it, I will never let myself be a smoker/alcoholic, okay?)… tasted some Michelin 3* goodness (while semi-hungover, but good nonetheless)…visited the Museum of Sex…and had too much chocolate.

 Skipping through the “bad girl” part as that’s mostly all a blurr, and kind of embarassing seeing that it was in fact my low tolerance that bought me to such a state (everyone had more than me and were fine, I guess that’s what my lack of city life did to me) ; I mostly want to talk about the eating experience.

 Let’s start with the last item on the list – Too much chocolate. How is that possible, you may ask? After all, this blog’s tagline is “Where chocolate eating and intellectual thinking is not mutually exclusive” – a line that I now think is quite silly – I realised that I am in fact not a huge fan of chocolate. *Boing*. Maybe I should consider changing the name of this blog.

Case in point – we visited Max Brenner, the Chocolatier for a place to chat during teatime. I ordered a chocopop hot chocolate drink; the bf ordered a white chocolate milkshake, and i agreed to split an egg roll with a friend.

What came to our table was chocolate overload! My coffee cup sized hot chocolate was half filled with solid milk chocolate balls and half filled with a rich and creamy hot chocolate base (which, at 4.99 seems quite a bargain considering their Ready-to-eat chocolate retails for like 10+). The egg rolls, came with a liquid chocolate / caramel dip. Not knowing, I dipped the roll into the chocolate and proceeded to take a bite. Chocolate exploded in my face and dripped all over the table, almost ruining my new F21 shirt. Not only was this egg roll dipped in chocolate, it was also almost completely infused with molten chocolate inside the roll, giving the consumer a truly messy, chocolately experience.

What’s more, my bf actually have to leave the restaurant before his drink was served, which left me with another chocolate milkshake to finish. This was served in an adorable Alice mug

But the adorability only lasts so long. By this time I’d already consumed half a mug of solid chocolate, had chocolate explode in my face… my stomach was already telling me, no more chocolate! but my brain was telling me; at 8 dollars a mug…i should at least drink some of it. So relectantly i brought my lips to the metallic straw and into my mouth flowed a sweet, not too thick, white chocolate goodness. I was surprised that the balance of ice and chocolate was so perfect, normally chocolate slushy drinks would be too sweet (Esp white chocolate) or too icey… I would actually have enjoyed this drink had my stomach not been tug-o-warring with my brain and trying to expel any hint of cacao I put into it.  

Anyhow, that was my experience at Max Brenner. The episode at Jean Georges earlier in the day also involved a little bit of chocolate – so after our wonderful 2 course meal @29 dollars, we opted for the desert menu @ an additional US$8, where you had a choice between “Spice” “Citrus” “Chocolate” “Rhubarb”. I chose a “Spice”, and my bf chose….”Chocolate”! Who says girls are the only chocolate lovers. Anyhow, of course we had a bit of each other’s deserts, and that’s how I came to having tooooo much chocolate in a day.