Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Modern Dwellers Chocolate Lounge

When I die, if I am very good indeed, there will be places available to me that are very much like Modern Dwellers Chocolate Lounge.
I was first introduced to this place through my boss, who is a very kind lady, and who brought all of us in my office a cup of their drinking chocolate - spicy style! This is a warm concoction of chocolate, not quite a liquid, but not a solid, more like a fifth (no, that's plasma) ok, a sixth state of matter. You could pour it into your mouth, but only if you were quite patient. We ate it with spoons. The flavor is very like dark chocolate, more bitter than sweet, and extremely good. If you get it spicy (I forget if they call it Aztec or Mayan or something along those lines - anyway, if you say spicy, they know what you mean), it comes with some chili zing to it. If you don't like spicy hot stuff, you can always get it sweet.
After my first taste, I kept trying to get there myself, but the place has limited hours - they aren't open Sundays and don't stay open too late evenings - and I could just not get there when they were open. Finally I got myself and Mr EA in while they were open. We got one cup of each of their drinking chocolates. After a bit of sampling, Mr EA decided he wasn't a fan of the spicy, so he finished our cup of sweet, while I had another go at the spicy! It was so good we didn't talk the whole time we were consuming. It is one of those gustatory experiences that rewards attention - flavors keep developing in your mouth. You get varying layers of sweet and bitter, and the chili heat gently builds in your mouth the whole time. There aren't words to describe it fully.
In addition to the wonderfulness of their drinking chocolate, they also, as you might expect, carry commercially made premium chocolates as well as truffles of their own make. I was too sated to try them on this trip, but will definitely be back for further experiments! Also, they were playing some Twin Peaks-y music ( very like Audrey Horn's Theme), which was fun. In addition to all the chocolate, there is also local art and some fun jewelry and that sort of thing for sale as well. If you are all in range of this place, go! You won't be sorry.

1 comment:

Nicole Pearce said...

Wow! It is not until I read posts like this that I realize that Anchorage in worlds away from Fairbanks. The last time I saw a chocolate lounge was in Chicago four years ago. Alaska seems to be catching up with the times! Sometimes I wish we had just a little more civilization, but sometimes it is nice not to have it as well.