Hot chocolate roundup

File under: drink, chocolate, Wellington

Last month, I didn't quite get a chance to sample all the purveyors of hot chocolate that you kindly suggested, but I did get enough to put my arteries in harm's way. Scopa's gusto cioccolata was better than I remembered, though the layer of thick cream on top tended towards overkill. Schoc's chilli version is as good as ever, but the lavender-enhanced one was only just on the right side of sickly, and the novelty of stirring the lump of ganache into the frothed milk yourself and sucking the result through the metal straw/spoon wears off after a while. Likewise, Butlers may be tipping into the realm of self-parody by chucking bits of broken biscuits into their otherwise fairly standard concoctions.

Cubita, Herd St Brasserie, St Johns, Lido and even Floriditas (despite the excellent dipping chocolate they serve with their churros) stuck with the standard Kiwi/American milky hot cocoa with marshmallows. Crepes a Go-Go provide something in between, and while they claim "the best hot chocolate in town", that's a fairly common claim these days, and once you've had a properly gooey hot chocolate without milk, it's hard to go back. The chocolate shot I had at Kaffee Eis would probably have to be my favourite of the month, which is not surprising given that as a chain, they're pretty much just Mojo with ice cream.

This month, after all that sweet and fattening indulgence, it's time to try a drink that's not as sweet and much better for me.