A nice weather kind of Saturday meant a stop at the street cafe, Cafe 44. What drew me to the restaurant was that it had a sign in the window that said "Support Local Businesses", and I'm a sucker for the SME businessperson, being one myself.
So, sitting al-fresco, because social distancing during these times is very important, where there is very little close contact with other cafe patrons. I wasn't very hungry, but I love anything that has a chocolate flavour, so an Eisschokolade, or literally translated Ice Chocolate, it was.
Something you have to remember is that Eis (pronounced "ice") in German means ice cream, and not just ice (as in ice-cold or ice cubes). So my order was actually chocolate ice cream. And here, it comes served with whipped cream and a biscuit. Sounds good, doesn't it?
My first impression was that it was very simply presented. A glass much like the ones I have at home, filled to the brim with chocolate ice cream and topped with whipped cream slathered with thick chocolate sauce. And in the middle of all that whipped cream, a little cone-shaped biscuit. It came with both a straw and a long dessert spoon.
What was interesting was that the straw was laid across the dessert and half-covered by the whipped cream. I conclude that it was laid before the cream and chocolate sauce were sprayed on. The way the chocolate sauce was very artistically decorating the straw was a giveaway as to the sequence of the presentation. Pretty elementary, my dear Watson.
But I digress.
My first spoonful. I love the anticipation of that first spoonful, that first bite, that first mouthful. I love how a taste can completely blow me away, or totally let me down. Whichever it goes, everything rests on that first moment when you and your food make contact. It's exactly like that moment when you wake up on your first night on vacation, and your eyes open and your mind has that pleasant surprise of knowing, fully, that you are on your holiday.
This first moment between me and my ice chocolate today was me on vacation, but instead of waking up to a view of sandy white beaches through my open sliding doors, and the warm breeze blowing into my room in a 5-star beach resort, I woke up to the feeling that the warm wind wasn't blowing. Still a 5-star beach resort, but maybe not so great a beach and not so good weather. In other words, my chocolate ice-cream was good but not the best I've had.
The chocolate ice cream was fantastic, really. Nice and refreshing, full of that chocolatey taste. The chocolate sauce, too, was rich and generously slathered. So what wasn't perfect? My guess is the whipped cream. I'd make a guess that it came out of a can, and wasn't custom-made. Yes, a person can really tell. And while it didn't kill the dessert, it didn't exactly crown it either.
I also personally prefer a wafer to a biscuit. Somehow, I just feel a wafer matches whipped cream better. On this note, however, I do understand that every business aims to stand out and be different from the other, so I really get it that Cafe 44 doesn't use wafers. So, this little detail isn't so significant in the larger scheme of things.
Having said all these, this chocolate ice cream was good. Priced at €4,20, it was worth the price, which I love. Yes, I've said it before in my previous blogs that I love businesses that don't hold back on portions just to make a bigger profit and for this portion, I was happy to pass over my Euros.
And happy to consider returning for more.
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