We just completed our 18th dinner (with a unique menu each month) and the time has come to pass the reigns to my assistant (if only for the next thirty days). Autumn, decade-long vegetarian and life-long foodie, has been encouraging me to consider an Indian-themed dinner for some time now. Well... quickly stated, while I love Indian cuisine, I haven't the slightest clue on how to begin making it, let alone adding chocolate to it! But thankfully this is where she fits in. Having had her India food many times in the past, I feel quite comfortable switching roles this time around. You heard it here first, kids... young grasshopper has become the master. Well, at least for the moment.
And sometimes you gotta go all the way, no? Well check it... an Eclipse first... four delicious chocolate-stuffed platings designed by our very own assistant chocolatier, Autumn Teemsma. Don't forget to place your reservations early... she's got a lotta friends:)
Exclusively for Saturday, April 17th with seatings at 4, 6, and 8pm, join us for three courses of chocolate-infused Indian Fare for only $25 per person. You heard me right! Take a look:
Creamy Crab-filled Samosas with Mango Chutney (optional appetizer)
Ginger Carrot Soup with White Chocolate Creme Fraiche and Indian Flat Bread
Choice of Either Entree or Both:
Spiced Creamy Spinach Curry with Pan Fried Cheese Curds
or
Tomato, Potato, & Zucchini Curry with Toasted Cashew
Each served with Cocoa Nib and Pumpking Seed Basmati Rice
Sweet India Pudding with Cocoa, Roasted Hazelnut, and Vanilla Bean Gelato
To make a reservation, call the cafe at 619.578.2984. Until then, as always, drool over what you served last time:
Starter: Mussels with Smoked Bacon, Roasted Garlic, and Stout.
First Course: Roasted Leek and Potato Soup with Pale Ale, Cocoa-glazed Bacon, and Creme Fraiche.
Entree: Beef and Lamb Shepard's Pie with Potato-Parsnip Crust, Cocoa Brown Sugar Gravy, and White Chocolate Soda Bread.
Dessert: Chocolate-Stout Torte with Ginger and Vanilla Bean Cream.
How might one find chocolate in Mexico City? One might bring a guidebook. One might remember to print out the New York Times' 2010 version of its "36 Hours in Mexico City" article instead of the 2007 version. There's nothing wrong with the earlier article, but the current one mentions a shop called Princesse Cacao in the Condessa neighborhood.
Even without a guidebook or an up-to-date 36-hour schedule, one finds a few blogs about Mexican food written by expats living in Mexico City (The Mija Chronicles, Good Food in Mexico City), one meets some cousins one hardly knew one had (who take one to the National Palace where one can admire Diego Rivera's incredible layered thinking about the complexity of history layered in paint upon the walls), and one takes the sage advice of the tour guide employed by the same cousins to jump out of a van with the entire family in the middle of downtown so that one can sample crisp and sweet and toothsome churros accompanied by a whole set of chocolate drinks at El Moro. Another day, one accompanies the bride and her parents (who are Pittsburghers and who have taken very good care of one while one has lived in that city) to Frida Kahlo's house in Coyoacán where one celebrates another wonderful mind. One's family is very fond of tour guides but one eventually takes one's leave of these guys in San Angel, and even if one doesn't have enough guidance to know that one might find Diego Rivera's studio in that neighborhood if one looks hard enough, one still finds some pretty decent tacos down by the bus station before one stumbles miraculously upon a lady in white carrying a basket of her own handmade chocolates. She too tells one that the essential ingredient comes from Soconusco but give no more details. One samples the stuff and then buys a small package for fifteen pesos, though one doesn't have a chance to eat the chocolate before the wedding (where one is served dinner at 11pm and then panes dulces and chilaquiles and frijoles and cerveza for breakfast at 5:30), so one leaves the chocolates for the lady who cleans one's fancy hotel room. Before one leaves Mexico, one walks through Chapultepec park, stopping at the archaeology museum and the modern art museum before finally arriving in the Condessa neighborhood, which is very Parisian in its effortless quaintness. And even if one doesn't know to visit Princesse Cacao, one does stop at a bar that one's cousin points out was mentioned in the latest New York Times travel communique. It is at precisely this bar that one asks for a restaurant recommendation to which a lovely young man responds by walking one a few blocks to Cafe La Gloria. Having discovered that although one loves one's immediate family dearly but doesn't particularly care to eat with them in restaurants in foreign countries, one calls in the various cousins and asks the waitress if one may sit and wait, which she encourages one to do at a very large bistro table where one sits for half an hour reading poetry disturbed by nothing except a glass of wine while one awaits the trip's harmonic conclusion.
- Mix Lolly Shapes
cum Marie Biscuit Mould (L size)OUT OF STOCK
- OUT OF STOCK
Married Well 
