When I mentioned the prospect of paying a visit to a café in the Old Town dedicated almost entirely to chocolate, needless to say, it did not take much persuasion for the girls to join me for a drink and a bite at the simply but accurately entitled Choco Café a day or two later.
First impressions on our initial Saturday morning were very positive, based on their cosy, relaxed interior and tempting range of cakes and other chocolate-based goodies all out on display.
Choco Café's speciality is its long list of hot spooning chocolate varieties, which come served with everything from ginger to sea salt to rum or fresh fruits.
On this occasion, I went for a cup of hot chocolate and chilli (59 CZK), while Prague Ginge and Girl in Czechland just went for a plain each (55 CZK).
Oh.... My.... God...
With 100 decadent, delicious grams of thick spooning chocolate in every cup, these little devils seriously packed a punch, and, only a few spoonfuls in, all of us were on a serious sugar rush. On reflection, just one of these between the three of us would have been more than enough - they really were that intense. None of us were actually able to get through more than half before initial head-rush turned to headache/cocoa-induced nausea, leaving us all with lasting sugar hangovers for the rest of the afternoon. In short, highly recommended, but don't say you haven’t been warned!
And if we hadn't packed in enough empty calories already with the hot chocolates, we also ordered a chocolate croissant and chocolate-chip muffin to share between us as well (as I recall about 30-40 CZK each).
Rather than the traditional pain au chocolat we'd been expecting, the plain croissant came served with a little jug of hot spooning chocolate - as if we needed more of the stuff! It was nice enough, but not a patch on the truly god-sent croissants served at long-standing favourite Bakeshop Praha.
The muffin was also pretty standard really, though I noticed at the counter that they also served little pre-packaged bags of the same chocolate chips as mixed in here.
By the end of our two-hour visit here, we'd all well and truly sugar-crashed and burned, but consensus was still that it had all definitely been worth it, and we'd be heading back again once we'd collectively recovered from round one...
In the event, my next visit was with Mr. K one day on his latest Prague sojourn. Mr. K actually claims not to particularly like chocolate, but judging by the amount of times I've woken up to find my stock of Ritter Sport (not to mention the best part of my good wine) nocturnally consumed on his part, I know this statement to be not entirely true...
We noticed on this occasion that most of the tables were reserved though the place was still more or less empty, and soon found out why when a pre-booked tour group turned up en masse to populate them. I'm not sure how regular an occurrence this is, but might be worth ringing ahead to reserve a spot, particularly at the weekends.
It was getting on for lunchtime and Mr. K was in a savory mood, so went for one of their range of bruschettas, with the prosciutto variety at 89 CZK.
This was a seriously sizeable portion, coming served with copious amount of ham, rocket, olives and sundried tomato - definitely good value and quality for the price. Mr. K declared himself more than happy with his choice at any rate.
He accompanied it with an espresso, while I (not feeling overly hungry on this occasion) just went for a freshly blended banana milkshake - pretty nice, but I prefer my milkshakes a little more milky and creamy than this primarily fruit-based version.
On our third and final visit, Mr. K and I stopped by again for afternoon coffee - or "afternoon chocolate," I should say.
This time round we shared a mug of their drinking chocolate at 65 CZK.
This came really nicely presented, and, for my taste, went down much more easily with the thick spooning chocolate at the bottom diluted this time by the layers of milk and milk foam. Sharing it with Mr. K also at least helped dissipate the previous sugar high/hangover somewhat as well.
Mr. K also spotted the tiramisu out on display and felt compelled to give it a try.
For my taste, this was a little too creamy, but Mr. K had no such qualms and quickly polished off the lot, his conscience enviably clear afterwards, commenting only that he found it very self-indulgent and rich. Damn him and his unfairly high metabolic rate...
In short, Choco Café is certainly not a place for the health-conscious or calorie-counters, and - falling into the latter two categories myself - for me can but remain a very special treat. However, for all you Czech-based chocoholics out there, Choco Café is definitely one of the more deliciously decadent places in Prague to over-indulge!
Liliová 4
Prague 1
Phone: (+420) 222 222 519
Mňam,mám chuť na čokoládu
ReplyDeleteYum-yum, now I want something chocolate
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