Chocolate Tour

Today a few girl friends and I braved the sun and heat to go on a chocolate tour.  We had a great time, got in some sun, laughs and sights. Ugh....sort of the last thing you want to do when it is 95 degrees outside is walk 3 miles stopping at 9 different places to taste chocolate item after chocolate item.  After about the 4th place and eating full menu items (not sample sizes) we all started to get the chocolate sweats.   But it was so much fun and we were able to take some stuff home to share with our families.  We started our adventure at about 10 am at Chelsea Market. An interesting fact about Chelsea Market was that it was the birth place of the Oreo cookie and it's also has the largest bakery in the country and they tape Food Network shows there too.

Our tour guide in the green shirt was really informative giving us lots of info about buildings and the city and a group of about 20-25 people.

 Our first stop was at Lilac Chocolates where we sampled two different chocolates.  A super rich dark chocolate and their famous butter crunch chocolate (amazing!..off to a great start...just what I was craving; a little piece of chocolate!)

After Lilac was a stop across the street at Chocolate Bar.  We sampled two more chocolates...a dark sea salt chocolate and a coffee chocolate. (Yum!  Chocolate tastes so different with a little extra salt sprinkled on it! Moving on to the next place.)

Next on our stop was the Original Magnolia Bakery on the corner of Bleeker and 11th Avenue.  Here we got to sample a full size chocolate cupcake with decadent chocolate frosting.  Wow - Did I really just devour that?  I don't remember a thing the tour guide just said.... I just wanted that cupcake. ...yum.  Yikes...maybe I shouldn't have eaten the entire thing.  How many more places do we have to go to? Gulp. (My weakness are cupcakes...it's your own little personal cake that you don't have to share with anyone!)

Jen, Kelly, Heather and I in front of Magnolia Bakery.

After Magnolia Bakery we went to Milk and Cookies.  It was such a cute little shop on a nice quiet street.  Here they handed out giant dark chocolate cookies with milk chocolate chocolate chips.  (Usually it's the other way around.)  Ok, super glad I could take one bit and stuff the rest of the cookie in a wax paper sleeve to take home. Phew.  Saved by the wax sleeve.  Not sure I would have been able to eat the entire cookie without feeling sick. 

Milk and Cookies Store Front.

 Right around the corner from Milk and Cookies is the narrowest single family home in Manhattan. It was built right where an alley way used to be and measures a whopping 9.5 feet wide.  You can see just how wide it is by comparing it to the car parked out front.

Narrowest house in the city.

 A block away is the famous building from the sitcom Friends.  Scott and I had dinner in the Little Owl back in the winter which is on the ground level of the building.

The Friends Building.

 Next stop was at Bisoiciao.  They have delicious macarons...not to be confused with macaroons.  They had a cakey texture and were sort of like an upscale oreo cookie.  The flavor combinations at this place were pretty cool too.  They had matcha tea, lavender honey, pistachio, gianduja, sour cherry and espresso among lots of other flavors.  (I really wanted to take some macarons home but they would have melted within about 2 minutes.  I would have loved to save mine for later as I was super full and already feeling 5 lbs heavier.  Ugh....just exactly how many places are we going to?!  It was good but I was on chocolate overload at this point and dreading the 3 more places we still had to go too.)

Lots of pretty macarons to choose from.

Our 6th stop was at Bruno Bakery.  They were on Throwdown with Bobby Flay and Bruno's beat him with their cannoli. Which we got to sample our very own.  It was super rich, decadent and had a little zing from their lemon zest.  (Oh my God....just how much more chocolate do I have to eat.  I don't want to waste it...so I just better eat it!)

Bruno Bakery in the East Village.

Our second to last stop was at Xocolatti...the owner a young man from India had really interesting chocolate.  The owner is also the only chocolate-er in the U.S. named one of the top 10 chocolate-ers in the world.  His shop has also won numerous architecture awards for their creative use of space.  Their chocolate boxes line the walls floor to ceiling of their 250 square foot shop.  The natives of India use lots of fruit in their desserts and chocolate.  We sampled two chocolates...one of which was a white chocolate with mango and spicy paprika.  It was super delicious, light and spicy.  (Phew.  Only one more to go...you can do this.  Must do hot yoga sometime this weekend!!) I didn't think I would like it but I purchased a small piece to take home and share.  It was so different from any other chocolate I've tried.  Katie loved it!!!

From Xocolatti.

Kelly, Jen and Heather in Xocolatti.

Okay, we have finally reached our last destination....the 8th stop on our list; Vosges.  This place was like an upscale beauty bar and they were very strict about taking pictures inside.  You had to actually be in the picture to take a picture.  You couldn't take pictures of any of their products....they have had other retailers try to steal their packaging ideas.  Here we sampled two more chocolates one of which had bacon in it.  I couldn't really taste the bacon though.

As you can see I didn't follow their picture rule.  This is what I took home to Scott.  A dark chocolate bar with hickory smoked uncured bacon and alderwood smoked salt.  

A final picture of the girls and I at Vosges.

Okay I'm swearing off sugar starting now....must do hot yoga sometime this weekend, drink a gallon of water a day and go on a juice detox.  Oh and a shower ASAP is a must!  I really felt like I was 5 lbs heavier after this tour.  Thank goodness we had to walk in the heat!!  

Eating my way through NYC!!

I had so much fun ladies!!!