Lenny The Moose

Most recently my mom and I and my youngest kids drove up to Maine to visit friends and eat lobster- not that you care. . . Because we not only ate chocolate, but also paid tribute to it. Meet Lenny the Chocolate Moose:

The 1700 lb milk chocolate statue was made in 1997, can't believe he's lasted so long. Later they added the dark chocolate bears. The pond is white chocolate with food coloring added.

I went a little crazy and bought two much smaller chocolate 'mouse' and a couple of boxes of mixed chocolates. It was fun and delicious.

The milk chocolate mouse I broke up for all the kids to share. [Mine and my friend's] And the dark chocolate look-a-like was saved for grown-ups and red wine. yum. Smoother than I expected. So that was a good find. They also had ice cream, other candies and souvenirs.

Keeping to just a little nibble a day is going to be hard.

Karma is Chocolate

Continuing on with our anniversary story, this one has a moral to it. When it's your anniversary, boast. It really pays off. We stayed at the Ritz Carlton for the night and I noted on the breakfast order form that we were celebrating our 27th anniv. [the little door hanger you can leave outside your door and breakfast magically appears the next day, love it] It has a comment section for a reason, I figured.

Low and behold, not only did our yummy and too big breakfast arrive, but so did this luscious yummy chocolate dessert pictured above. Now, wasn't mommy right all those years to serve chocolate cake for breakfast?? I've been vindicated. This also proves that Chocolate is always the perfect gift. :)

Now that wasn't the only advantage to speaking up. . . We celebrated our anniversary at the Old Hickory Steakhouse, which is divine in itself. And they certainly knew what we were celebrating. But I did flirtatiously complain that for my birthday I couldn't EAT chocolate, because the only chocolate thing on their menu that day had, *gasp*, hazelnut in it. And I wouldn't eat in on principle. The waitstaff told me not to worry- they would find something. And they did. Not on the menu. . . Chocolate, dark, mousse, ganache, layers. . . Too bad I didn't take a photo.

So again, the moral of the story; be friendly, but speak up and chocolate will find you.

More with bacon

For part of our anniversary celebration we had a wonderful lunch at Rosa Mexicano. For dessert, I couldn't resist trying the chocolate ice cream with 'candied bacon.' It was a limited edition flavor as part of their ice cream festival:

Helado de Chocolate Negra Modelo/ Chocolate Negra Modelo ice cream with salted cajeta and candied bacon.

The ice cream was delicious and had just enough bite. The bacon lent a nice salt to the flavor. It definitely works with chocolate. The only thing I didn't like was the frozen bacon pieces were chewy and limp rather than crisp as when it's in a bar of chocolate. That was a real downer, so I doubt I'd order it again. But it was a nice try.

For my main dish, I also had chocolate:

Mole Xico/ Beef [photo at left]

Two soft corn tortillas [I requested Flour] filled with shredded chipotle beef. Topped with veracruz mole made with raisins, plantains, hazelnuts, pine nuts and ancho and pasilla chiles. Garnished with crema and queso fresco.

Mole is a chocolate sauce, but you wouldn't know it. It was very heavenly. I could eat it every day and never tire of it. It was smooth and rich. I don't normally ingest hazelnut, especially with chocolate, but it worked in this dish; probably because of all the other goodies. This was an excellent mole!

We ALSO ate at La Sandia earlier the same week and I ordered:

CHICKEN MOLE POBLANO pan roasted chicken breast / mole poblano / mexican rice / refried black beans / fried plantains / sesame seeds

It was to die for as well. The best mole I've ever had.

We ordered the sopapillas for dessert, but they were small and crispy. I like mine soft and only lightly golden on the outside. a disappointment- luckily I was pretty stuffed from dinner anyway. [the gauc was the best ever, oops, that's not chocolate, sorry!]

The margaritas at both places were very delicious- with lots of choices, but since they are not about chocolate, I won't mention them here.

Bon appétit! or maybe I should say,

¡buen provecho