Valentines Day transforms February into the season of love. For those of us without any immediate hope of more personal sensual pleasures, it is also the season of chocolate. There are few better ways to drown one’s lovelorn sorrows and indulge in the pleasure of chocolate that to take the Atlanta Trolley Tour’s Chocolate Tour.
I had the pleasure of riding along on the first of these excursions. The tour is an approximately four hour trip around the city with stops at two restaurants, a dessert café, and a chocolatier. In between stops the tour guide offers commentary on the various neighborhoods you traverse, along with trivia regarding the history and production of chocolate.
The tour leaves at 11am every Saturday and Sunday morning in February from the Atlanta Tourist Bureau on Lucky Street, above Underground Atlanta. While it’s possible to purchase tickets on arrival, advance reservations are recommended. Tours may sell out, or be rescheduled if there are insufficient reservations. Our tour was, unfortunately, about twenty minutes late in leaving the station apparently due to the trolley driver having misplaced the keys to the trolley.
Our tour guide used the time lag to take us on an impromptu mini-tour of Underground Atlanta. Despite the unplanned nature of this side trip, he was quite well informed and I almost wished we had more time down there to hear his stories. The trolley arrived, however, and we headed back upstairs to depart.
The first stop on the tour was Nona Mia Café & Pizzeria in midtown, an Italian restaurant on Piedmont Road, near the intersection of 10th Street. We were greeted warmly and our chocolate experience started off with Chocolate Martinis, along with sweet bread sticks and warm chocolate ganache. The martinis, a simple mix of vodka shaken with chocolate syrup and served in a syrup garnished cocktail glass, were amazingly tasty. The breadsticks and ganache were decadently good.
Cocktails were followed by an appetizer of chocolate gelato on a garlic brioche, the plates garnished with fresh chocolate dipped strawberries. We were told this variation on an ice cream sandwich is a popular lunch treat for housewives in certain parts of Italy. The garlic and chocolate blended surprisingly well. I don’t care for cake mixed with ice cream so, after sampling a few bites, I ate the gelato and left the rest of the brioche. I was also realizing we were going to be quite full by the end of our trip.
Upon leaving Nona Mia, we rode over to Cacao Atlanta, just off of Highland Avenue on the edge of Inman Park. Cacao is one of a small handful of Chocolatiers in the United States. We learned that confectioners make candy from ready prepared chocolate, while chocolatiers actually roast the beans, grind them, and process the chocolate liquor into their own unique recipe of chocolate. The assistant manager and apprentice gave us a tour of their “laboratory” and explained the beans to candy process. We all left with sample bags of their product.
Cacao Atlanta chocolates sell for $85 a pound; a steep price, but an unquestionably unique product. The owner of Cacao personally travels to South America and buys beans from a particular plantation before processing them according to a recipe she has developed. I can say it is nothing like any chocolate available through the usual commercial outlets. For myself it was, like single malt scotch, a rarified expensive taste sensation that I simply don’t appreciate. All of my fellow guests seemed to agree that we probably didn’t understand it but, at that price, probably wouldn’t be going back to develop a taste for it. Having said that, it was certainly an interesting and educational part of the tour, and one that I appreciated having.
Next, we headed back through Downtown to the Castleberry Hill District on the west side to visit No Mas! Cantina. This Mexican restaurant, with an excellent reputation around town, is on Walker Street in the Castleberry Hill art gallery enclave. At No Mas! We were served an entrée of Chicken Mole on Spanish Rice. There were two types of mole, one with a strong peanut flavor, the other without. Mole is a Mexican word for “sauce” or “mixture.” There are many types of Mole but the dark red version usually served in the U.S. is Mole Poblano. It is composed of close to a dozen different spices and ingredients and each cook has their own recipe for concocting it, however, one essential ingredient is cocoa.
The mole at No Mas! was very good and the chicken, grilled on skewers was tender and juicy. The Spanish rice was not memorable, but an entirely adequate foundation for the rich sauce. This was followed by large cups of Chocolate Azteca, hot chocolate made with dark chocolate, cinnamon, and chili de arbol. Once again, we were offered a new dimension on an old favorite. This spicy chocolate is actually much closer than the usual western hot chocolate to the frothy drink for which cocoa beans were originally harvested by South American natives for thousands of years before Spanish explorers brought it back to Europe. The hot chocolate was pleasant with the chili de arbol leaving a distinct tingle on the back of the tongue. I found the serving to be a bit generous and grew tired of the spicy after-taste before I finished it. The chocolate was served with a house-made chocolate truffle.
Our last stop of the day was back in Midtown at Chocolate Pink Café. Located on Juniper Street, Executive Pastry Chef Christian Balbierer, creates exquisite desserts, cup cakes, and chocolate candies. We were given the choice of a dessert, two cupcakes, or two chocolates. I chose the Petunia Mouse Cake, an elegant and thoroughly delicious construction of brown sugar caramelized bananas, chocolate buttermilk cake, Nutella ganache, and hazelnut mouse, with a joconde boarder. I was told by my fellow guests that the cupcakes were equally good. The desserts at Chocolate Pink are as artfully presented as any in the city and the taste more than lives up to their first impression.
Everyone on the tour took their desserts in boxes to go. Other than a few people who nibbled on cupcakes on the return trip downtown, we were all too full to want them right away. Tickets on the Chocolate Tour are $80 per person. While this is not an affordable splurge, I think it was thoroughly satisfying. Both the number of stops made and the amount of food served left most of us feeling well satisfied, but not overwhelmed. As far as entertainment value, it would be very easy to spend far more than $80 at many of Atlanta’s finer restaurants without having near as much fun or learning anything at all. If the Chocolate Tour fits your budget, I think you will find it a satisfactory return on your investment, and a fun way to spend Saturday morning.
Note: I regret that this week the Atlanta Trolley Tour Company will announce that they are no longer in business. They are yet another casualty of the slow economy and a credit crunch that has made it impossible for small businesses to get short term financing.
A Sophisticate's Diary 