spain is surprisingly fervent about their chocolate and we took a risk on our sugar blood levels by making it a point to try out hot melted chocolate at every noticeable cafe.mauri (barcelona) under sharon's recommendation. this was by far the poshest cafe but defintely well-known. we were at mauri's on a monday evening and had to wait for a table. this place is well visited by locals and tourist alike. the hot xocoalate was undiscerningly good. try this: for a lap of luxury.
bar saint joseph's at mercat de la boqueria.this, my dear reader occupies a special place in my heart. despite the dinghy setting in a markeplace, yang and i got to see the proprietor conjure up hot xocoa on the spot, instead of just dispensing it from a machine. pair it with a churro and just watch your endorphins scutter around your blood circulation.
the proprietor and his missus were awfully friendly, doing their best to accomodate our lack of spanish.. posing for a picture for yang and making our rrip to mercat boquerie ever more special.
in fact, we loved bar saint joseph's so much, we made a second trip the next morning. too bad the churros were out so i had a lucious fresh loaf from a bakery nearby and whilst yang crossiant-ed with her xocoa. the fresh loaf was simply amazing- i felt like oliver twist with his first meal in days..breaking open a crusty loaf, only to discover a pillowy soft texture within. i am not exaggerating! this is perhaps the best loaf of bread i have ever encountered.. and now, i am rather upset i have no idea what kind of bread it is.. can somebody solve the mystery?
we had our FIRST cuppa hot xocoa at maestro churros (madrid) so this pretty much set the standards..nothing much to yell about but this might not be a bad thing. to me, hot xocoa tastes pretty darn good just about everywhere so its more about the experience
-think bar saint joseph's-
try this: if you stay near anton martin station
we visited valor chocolaterie (at madrid's puerta de sol) after lunch.. thereby proving that you don't need an occasion or specific time to have hot xocoa.. pretty good if not a tad too sweet.try this: with a rosquilla (spanish donut)
on my last day in madrid, i had pretty much nothing to do, having covered more or less the tourity spots, thus i decided to hunt down san gines choclateria.. not much of a hunt since it was at puerta de sol but it was tucked into a small corner, thus making it easy to miss- even with the neon lights.
what more can i say? quaint, old-fashioned, hassle free.. this could have become a favourite haunt if i were to imagine myself a local madridian.rightttt, that's a lot of hot chocolate.. i known. but after this trip, i will never be able to look at a cuppa hot chocolate the same way again.
if hot xocoa is not your thing (are you serious????), there are many chocolate boutiques found around both cities too.. posh, fun or just plain frivolous.. spain's got them all.one of the many chocolate boutiques that we came across was xocoa and we also visited cocoa sampaka.
a museum for chocolate? kinda just says it all don't you think?
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