Last week, after the disappointing Upstairs on the Square hot chocolate, I tried a regular old Starbucks hot chocolate on Wednesday afternoon, near my office. I'm sorry to say, it was the best yet: This hot chocolate was rich and chocolatey with a decadent mouthfeel. I had it in my awesome contigo mug, so it was easy to shake it up periodically (which I do out of habit), so I don't know how much, if any, precipitate there was, but overall, this was a very solid hot chocolate. B+
I also had high hopes for Espresso Royale, whose coffee and sandwiches I know and like, and because it's a cool cafe, I thought for sure the hot chocolate would be tasty! So
veek and I went there Friday afternoon, but it was a bad sign when she took a sip of hers first and said, "Well, that's disappointing." So I tried mine, and ... it was, indeed, disappointing. It would have been much better to call it a moderately steamed milk with a hint of chocolate. In fact, if it had been called that, I might even have enjoyed it! As it was billed as hot chocolate, though, it was pretty lackluster. It was milky, thin and barely chocolatey at all. C- 